Ex-Brean Murray COO Herman tapped as ETF manager's new chief executive. ETF-portfolio manager XTF has named Mel Herman, formerly COO of Brean Murray Carret, as its CEO. He replaces Michael Woods, who left the company late last month.

"Mel is absolutely the right person to lead our company forward," says XTF's chairman and founder Sander Gerber. "He has a demonstrated ability to work closely with clients, investors and third parties, manage strategic initiatives and grow businesses."

Herman oversaw the administrative, sales and operational functions of New York-based Brean Murray Carret's broker-dealer and asset-management divisions. Before that he was a managing director of Oppenheimer & Co.

With an M

At XFT Herman will concentrate on asset gathering, product development and putting together new partnerships with sub-advisors and distributors.

Gerber figures that the strength of XTF's investment committee and his own grasp of the firm's "investment process and thesis" will enable Herman to "integrate seamlessly" with his new leadership role.

Herman says that the investment-management industry has "grown in ways that we couldn't have foreseen just a few years ago, such as using ETFs exclusively to build fully-diversified risk based and target date portfolios, as well as using ETFs in retirement planning and institutional products. XTF has a tremendous opportunity to grow and lead the industry, and I'm thrilled to be an integral part of that."

Woods -- who had been a managing director at Legg Mason (via Citigroup's asset-management division, which Legg Mason acquired in 2005) -- lasted about a year at XTF before "moving on to do something different," as an XTF spokesman puts it. His picture and bio had been taken off XTF's website at least a week before the company announced Herman's appointment.

Manages about $275 million, mainly for individual investors. -FWR