OppenheimerFunds is mulling over ways to build its international investments business. This week the MassMutual-owned fund unit tapped Gavin Dobson, a Scotsman, as a managing director of Global Equity Strategy to oversee the effort. Dobson reports to George Evans, OFI's director of International Equities.

Dobson will focus on business and product development and marketing of the OppenheimerFund's global and international equity capabilities, say company officials.

Dobson called OppenheimerFunds's business "a wonderful base from which to develop the business opportunities around the world."

Evans said that Dobson's "proven track record of managing and growing international investing franchises" will allow OppenheimerFunds to pursue "a much wider variety of clients inside and outside the US." He added that the firm has doubled its international business to $30 billion in assets over the past five years, primarily through sales to retail investors in the United States.

Dobson does bring an entrepreneurial outlook to the job having led other asset management firms, including a startup.

In 1980, Dobson helped establish and lead the Kemper-Murray Johnstone International asset management, a joint venture between Kemper (now part of Deutsche Asset Management) and Murray Johnstone. He later served as president of Murray Johnstone International after that venture was dissolved.

In 1992, he founded Blairlogie Capital Management, an international equity firm in Edinburgh, Scotland that served as the investment manager of several funds offered in the United States. Britannic Asset Management International acquired that firm in 2001 and retained Dobson as president until 2004. 

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