Phil Fragasso has joined Rydex Investments as executive vice president of marketing, confirmed Rydex officials.

Fragrasso, formerly a managing director of marketing for the Columbia Funds, left Columbia in April after the company was acquired by Bank of America.

Sheila Lamb takes up Fragrasso's former duties at Columbia Funds, said Charles Salmans, spokesman for Columbia. Lamb is now responsible for retail and institutional marketing at Columbia.

Over at Rydex, Fragrasso will report to Jane Mancini, executive vice president of marketing and sales.

For his part, Fragrasso is excited about working for a fund firm on the up and up.

"I've got the best job in the industry," said Fragrasso, reasoning that Rydex is probably the "best known company with $13 billion [in assets] in industry."

Fragrasso will help Rydex continue education outreach to advisors who already use their products, as well as target advisors who have not used the firm's product line in the past via the company's "conceptual sale" technique. The technique is a less transactional sales approach used by Rydex's "investment consultant" staff (wholesalers).

Consultants help assess advisor needs and teach advisors about leveraging, hedging and inverse funds.

"Rydex has a very unique story...[its] product line is quite different form other funds...[and] advisors don't always understand how our products work and how to use our products," he said.

Speaking about the mutual fund industry as a whole, Fragrasso said that marketing executives need to figure out how to deal with years of less-than-spectacular performance and a "sideways moving market."

"People need to be smarter…[and] we need to have smart products," said Fragrasso.

He takes over for John Mannix, who left Rydex a few months ago and relocated to Boston with his family. 

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