The latest moves and appointments in wealth management in the UK, the rest of Europe, the Middle East and other select locations.

Artfinder
Online art marketplace Artfinder has appointed a digital entrepreneur, Joshna Rughani (pictured), as its new CEO. She is taking the helm from Michal Szczesny who left last year.

Glen Collins has been holding the slot as interim CEO.

Rughani, who has worked for Red Letter Days for a decade, guiding the retailer from being a catalogue business to primarily an online enterprise, became its first head of e-commerce. She has since worked as head of digital at VCCP Media, leading a team of 25 digital specialists across a range of disciplines, from SEO to paid social, before returning to an in-house role with Artfinder. Artfinder is a B Corp business focused on supporting independent artists.

In its statement about the appointment, Artfinder said it has seen 140 per cent sales growth since pre-pandemic 2019, buoyed by the shift from in-person to online auctions. The global online art market almost tripled in size to $13.5 billion in 2021, according to the Hiscox Online Art Trade Report. (That report also noted that 84 per cent of art industry players think the digital shift in the art market will become permanent, up from 51 per cent in 2020.)

Artfinder is a startup backed by the investors behind Spotify and Zoopla. Investors include Wellington Partners, Oxford Capital, Cambridge Angels, plus private investors in the UK, the US and Switzerland.

MainStreet Partners
MainStreet Partners, the London-based ESG advisory and portfolio analytics firm, this week hired Intelliflo's former head of global architecture Stuart Cullinan as chief technology officer.

He will lead the growth and technology strategy of ESGeverything, MainStreet Partners’ ESG platform, the firm said in a statement. The platform is an ESG audit tool providing investors with the means to assess portfolios of funds, ETFs, equities, corporate bonds, government bonds, and green and social bonds.

Prior to MainStreet Partners, Cullinan worked as the global head of architecture at Intelliflo (a subsidiary of Invesco), a wealth management platform in the UK, the firm continued.

His background is in software development, system design, and operations. He will lead the ongoing process of digitisation to meet the demands of MainStreet’s client base and stay ahead of market and regulatory developments. Cullinan's primary role will be to coordinate all the engineering and product development of the new MainStreet Partners’ platform: ESGeverything.com, the firm said.

Rothschild & Co
Rothschild & Co has appointed Richard Brass, formerly of Berenberg, to Rothschild & Co’s UK wealth management business as a managing director.  

Brass, who will lead a new client advisor team, is joined by former colleague Becky Orme as an assistant director, the firm said in a statement.

Prior to this, Brass was Berenberg’s UK head of wealth and asset management, having joined in 2011. He has over 25 years’ experience working in various roles with entrepreneurs, business owners, charities and foundations.  

Trained as a chartered accountant, he spent much of his career in corporate finance before moving into wealth management with Schroders Private Banking in 2008, the firm continued. He is also active in the impact investment sector and the founder of Impact Ventures UK, a co-founder of ReGenerate Trust, a member of the advisory board of Big Society Capital and the chair of the Arts and Culture Impact Fund, among other philanthropic directorships and board positions.

Orme began her career at Berenberg in 2010 in mid-office operations and client services. Since 2018, she has worked as an investment advisor to UHNW private clients based in the UK and the Channel Islands.

Rothschild & Co’s UK wealth management business has offices in London, Birmingham, Guernsey, Manchester and Leeds. Recent hires include Fernanda Neumann Rosset as head of client strategy, and a number of client advisors – Alison Probert in Leeds, Tim Eastwood in Birmingham, Holly Jennings, Donald Nartey and Joanna Livesey in London and Justine Walley and Nathan Long in Guernsey.

Union Bancaire Privée
Union Bancaire Privée announced this week that Christophe Gantenbein had joined the bank in January as global head of private markets institutional solutions.

Based in Zurich, he will be in charge of promoting UBP’s private markets offering to answer institutional clients’ needs including establishing new institutional strategic partnerships, the firm said in a statement. He will work with Brice Thionnet, UBP’s global head of private markets, and report directly to Nicolas Faller, co-CEO of asset management and head of institutional clients.

He is joining UBP after more than 12 years of service to Partners Group where he was a member of management in charge of client solutions for European institutional clients. Prior to joining Partners Group in 2010, he started his career in investment banking at Credit Suisse in 2005, the firm continued.