MutualFundWire.com: Two Pimco Alumni Reunite at a Wall Street Startup

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Friday, September 11, 2020

Two Pimco Alumni Reunite at a Wall Street Startup

A Pimco veteran is rejoining a former colleague, this time at a Wall Street startup in the ETF space.

Paul Kim
Simplify Asset Management, Inc.
CEO, Co-Founder

On Wednesday, Paul Kim, CEO of Simplify Asset Management [profile], confirmed that Brian Kelleher is joining the New York City-based firm as chief revenue officer. Kelleher has been based in Newport Beach, California-based Pimco's New York City offices as senior vice president of ETF strategy.

A Pimco spokesperson did not immediately return a call for comment.

In his new role at Simplify, founded earlier this year, Kelleher will be responsible for handling distribution and marketing to Simplify clients, most of whom are advisors and institutional clients. This position was created exclusively for Kelleher, who will report directly to Kim.

"I am elated to join the team at Simplify," Kelleher states. "Paul [Kim] and I worked closely together at PIMCO to build a successful ETF platform and I'm excited for another chance to innovate with an incredibly talented team with world-class intellectual property."

He adds, "I have been fortunate to work with some of the ETF industry's most important asset managers, financial advisors, and investors for over a decade. Our initial strategies fill a gaping hole in many client portfolios in a straight-forward and efficient way."

"Simplify is uniquely positioned to provide financial professionals with vital tools to shepherd their clients' portfolios," Kelleher concludes.

Kim, for his part, praises Kelleher as "an experienced, whip-smart, client-centered professional, a great human being, and a close friend."

"Our ambitions are simple and big," Kim states. "We want to simplify the complex for advisors. We are going to start with the biggest pain point for advisors' portfolios today: the triple whammy of stretched risk asset valuations, record low yields, and unprecedented economic and geopolitical uncertainties."

"Longer term, we want to be the authority on options," he adds. "Basically we want to be the Pimco of options."

Prior to his work at Simplify and PIMCO, Kelleher served as senior vice president of institutional sales at ETF Securities for two years. Before that, he briefly worked at Franklin Templeton and spent more than a decade at Seligman. Kelleher is an alumnus of Georgetown University and the Wharton School of Business.

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