BNY Mellon Wealth Management hired a new director based in Menlo Park, Calif. to focus on developing the firm’s business in the area.
Dileep Surapaneni, who was previously a vice president and private client advisor at Bank of America’s U.S. Trust, joined BNY Mellon as a senior wealth director on Tuesday. He will report to Thomas Fickinger, the regional president of the bank’s wealth management unit, and is tasked with continuing to develop the firm’s presence in the area.
Northern California—especially the San Francisco and San Jose areas—is among the regions with the most opportunity for wealth managers to grow, Fickinger told WealthManagement.com. In terms of the growing number of ultra-high-net-worth individuals, the U.S. was home to three of the top 30 cities in the world, including San Jose, where the population grew by 14 percent, according to the 2018 Wealth-X World Wealth Report.
Fickinger said that unlike some other wealth management firms that lack an international presence, or where advisors in offices across the country or world compete for clients, BNY Mellon’s platform isn’t a roadblock for multijurisdictional clients. Among other things, he said that’s what attracted Surapaneni to the firm and played a part in his decision to join.
In Menlo Park, Surapaneni will concentrate on multijurisdiction individuals as well as founders and business transition strategies.
As an example, Fickinger said there are a growing number of clients in Silicon Valley who are from outside the U.S. but attended school in Northern California and or have started businesses there. Those clients have additional layers of complexity and Fickinger, who previously spent more than 30 years at Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch, said BNY Mellon’s global presences makes for a better client experience.
Fickinger said the firm’s market share of clients with at least $10 million of investable assets is small, about 1 percent. But that client segment is expected to double over the next 5 years, so for BNY Mellon to maintain its presence, it will need to find ways to service more clients, including hiring advisors like Surapaneni.
Earlier this summer, Catherine Keating, the CEO of Commonfund, an asset manager that oversees $25 billion for endowments, foundations and public pensions joined BNY Mellon to become CEO of its wealth management unit.
Keating previously spent nearly two decades at JPMorgan Chase & Co., where she served as head of investment management for the Americas and CEO of the U.S. Private Bank, among other positions.
BNY Mellon’s wealth business had $246 billion in assets as of March 31. The bank has $1.9 trillion in assets under management and $33.5 trillion in assets under custody.