As the Oak Ridge Investments team is poised to become completely independent, their new distribution chief is building out his sales force with his first new hires.

Phil Callahan joined the $4.5-billion-AUM, Chicago-based institutional asset manager in June as executive vice president and head of distribution and marketing, reporting to Oak Ridge chairman Neil Cummins. He confirms that Malcolm Lunn joined the team this month as senior vice president and regional sales director in the Southwest, and that internal wholesalers Matt Creeden and Brent Troy joined up, too. And Callahan is still hiring.

The additions come as the Oak Ridge team is about to buy back the 49 percent of Oak Ridge stock that Pioneer Investments [profile] bought in 2005. The deal, unveiled in June 2014 and slated to close next month, will make Oak Ridge 100-percent employee-owned again. It will also bring two Oak Ridge-sub-advised mutual funds, the Pioneer Oak Ridge Small Growth Fund and the Pioneer Oak Ridge Large Cap Growth Fund, back into the family with Oak Ridge as the investment advisor.

"The firm hired me to build out distribution," Callahan tells MFWire. "We're looking to add a strategic key account person."

Callahan described the open position as a "strategic relationship manager" focused on the East Coast, working with key distribution partners like broker-dealer home offices, private banks, and retirement plan recordkeepers. And he's also looking for a regional sales director to cover the Southeast, working the B-D, RIA and DC I-O channels.

"We're now in business with all the major recordkeepers," Callahan says.

As for Lunn, he and Callahan previously worked together on DC I-O at Goldman Sachs. Lunn also worked at Merrill Lynch and UBS.

"He's just a really smart guy," Callahan says of Lunn. "He has an incredible work ethic ... and he's very creative."

In addition to the new hires, Callahan's team also includes Michael Nagy on institutional sales, Sean Wallace on marketing, and Dan Fellows and Mary McManus on external sales. Oak Ridge has about 40 people in total and works with almost $4.5 billion, about half in separately managed accounts and half in mutual funds. 

Stay ahead of the news ... Sign up for our email alerts now
CLICK HERE