After more than nine years at the helm of Northern Trust Asset Management [profile], Steve Potter is rising again and passing the reins to a familiar face. And while Potter hailed from the institutional asset management business, his successor comes from the retail side.

Shundrawn Thomas Northern Trust Executive Vice President

On October 1, Shundrawn Thomas, who has served as head of Northern Trust AM's funds and managed accounts group for three years, will succeed Potter as president of the $1-trillion-AUM Northern Trust AM business, Northern Trust Corporation chairman and CEO Frederick Waddell confirms. Potter will become vice chairman of all of Northern Trust.

As for a successor to Thomas as head of the funds and managed accounts group, stay tuned, a Northern Trust spokesman tells Pensions & Investments.

Waddell praises Thomas' "experience in developing long-term strategies, creating differentiated products, and developing and retaining talented professionals." Waddell calls Northern Trust AM "one of the hallmarks of Northern Trust."

Thomas, an alumnus of both Florida A&M University and the University of Chicago, worked at Morgan Stanley and then Goldman Sachs before joining Northern Trust in 2004. He worked in alternative solutions, then led corporate strategy and Northern Trust's broker-dealer, before shifting to the asset management side in 2010 to lead the ETF group. He rose to executive vice president and head of the funds and managed accounts group in 2014.

Potter, an alumnus of both Duke University and Northwestern University, first joined Northern Trust in 1982 after business school. He took over Northern Trust AM (then called Northern Trust Global Investments) in 2008 after Waddell (then head of Northern Trust AM) rose to CEO of all of Northern Trust. Before that, Potter spent seven years as CEO of Northern Trust's businesses in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and prior to that he served as managing director of Northern Trust AM's institutional group.

Northern Trust Asset Management has about $1 trillion in AUM as of March 31. Its ETF business, FlexShares, has $13.4 billion in AUM. 

Edited by: Neil Anderson, Managing Editor


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