The chief of an asset management business with nearly $3 trillion in AUM is preparing to pass the reins. A former PM will succeed the fund firm's former tech chief.

Bart Grenier Fidelity International Limited Global Head of Asset Management

Abby Johnson, chairman and CEO of Fidelity [profile], recently picked Bart Grenier as the next head of Fidelity's asset management organization, MFWire has learned. Grenier, age 60, currently serves as global head of asset management at Fidelity International Limited in London; he will succeed current Fidelity AM chief Steve Neff, age 67, who will retire at the end of Q1 2020. Grenier will report to Johnson.

Stephen C. Neff Fidelity Investments President of Asset Management

News of Neff's impending retirement and Grenier's appointment (also reported on by Reuters and the Wall Street Journal) comes less than a year after Neff took over Fidelity AM, succeeding Charlie Morrison. The news also comes about two years after Grenier rejoined the Fidelity family after leaving in 2005.

"Steve [Neff] will be remembered as a skilled steward for Fidelity's mutual fund shareholders and institutional clients, as well as an innovative leader of technology development," Johnson wrote in an internal Fidelity memo about Neff's retirement and Grenier's appointment. "But perhaps most lasting, he has been a compassionate advocate of diversity and inclusion, skills-based volunteering, and talent development. Steve leaves an enduring legacy of optimist and action in helping associates reach their true potential."

As for Grenier, Johnson lauds him as "the ideal candidate to succeed Steve."

"The breadth of [Grenier's] experience across investment strategies and asset classes, as well as his strategic insights and spirit of innovation, makes him well suited to lead asset management," Johnson wrote in the memo.

Grenier, an alumnus of RPI and of CalPoly-Pomona, joined Fidelity in 1991 and rose up through a variety roles, including portfolio management, and at different times he led Fidelity's asset allocation, equity trading, fixed income, income growth, high income, money market, strategic advisers, and value teams. In 2008, Grenier was one of 13 current and former Fidelity employees charged by the SEC in a case over accepting gifts; Grenier settled without admitting or denying the charges, which related to his time leading equity trading.

Grenier left Fidelity in 2005 and joined DB Advisors (a Deutsche AM arm) as managing director and chief investment officer. In 2011, Grenier took over BNY Mellon's Boston Company Asset Management as chairman and CEO. He returned to Fidelity as an SVP in 2017, and at the beginning of 2018 he took on his current role at Fidelity International (a separate company from Fidelity Investments in the U.S., though they have some common ownership).

Neff, an alumnus of Rutgers, started his career at IBM and then worked at Salomon Brothers before joining Fidelity in 1996. Over the past 23 years at the Boston Behemoth, he served in a variety of roles, including: chief information officer of Fidelity Investment Management Technology; enterprise chief technology officer; and head of technology and global services. He took over as president of the asset management division at the end of 2018. 

Edited by: Neil Anderson, Managing Editor


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