Below is a list of the key personnel moves in November. It is edited by Stephen Harris. Please contact Stephen Harris with any relevant details of appoin...

Below is a list of the key personnel moves in November. It is edited by Stephen Harris. Please contact Stephen Harris with any relevant details of appointments, promotions, restructuring and related news.

UK

David Middleton, commercial director at Coutts & Co, has left to join the asset manager Gartmore. Middleton was a senior member of the Coutts management team and sat on the executive committee of the private bank, where he worked directly with chief executive Gordon Pell. Middleton has been appointed head of retail commercial development at the UK asset manager. A spokeswoman for Coutts told Private Client Management that Middleton's position would not be replaced. His departure represents the second major heavyweight at the top of Britain's best-known private bank to leave within six months. Last May John Williamson, the then chief operating officer at Coutts, left to join EFG Private Bank.

SG Hambros has recruited Bev Smalley and Chris Perkins as senior private bankers to target clients in the north of England with more than £1m to invest. Smalley and Perkins worked for Merrill Lynch's private client group in Leeds until that office was shut down late last year.

The two-man team — working from home — will focus its efforts initially on Leeds, Manchester and Newcastle. The private bank has also hired Tony Due from Merrill Lynch to work with the firm's international team in London.

Schroders Private Bank has hired Stephen Rothwell from Merrill Lynch to spearhead its new intermediary sales push. The announcement came after the private bank said it was axing its director of marketing, Lloyds Reynods, and two of his support staff, along with Sally Sycamore, head of public relations.

US

Paul Higgins, head of Deutsche Bank Private Banking in the US, is retiring at the end of this year and will be replaced by Gloria Nelund, director of sales for the private bank. Nelund comes from Scudder Investments, which Deutsche bought earlier this year. Nelund will report directly to Pierre de Weck, global head of private wealth management for Deutsche, who is based in London.

Steve Schieffelin has been appointed the new manager of Bank Leumi's US domestic private banking and financial services unit. He joins from North Fork Bank in New York. Schieffelin will manage a team of private bankers in New York, Chicago, Florida and California for Leumi. He succeeds Meir Hasson, who was appointed the New York office manager of the parent company, Bank Leumi le-Israel. The bank has also hired Mary Chambers as insurance products manager and a vice president of Leumi Investment Services, its brokerage subsidiary. She joins from Merrill Lynch, where she was a financial planner serving high net-worth clients.

Asset Management Advisors, the family office offshoot of SunTrust which services families with more than $25m to invest, is opening a new office in Washington DC to provide a local base for clients. John Elmes and John Devine, both directors at Deutsche Bank, have been lured to the firm to head up the new office. AMA has also poached Lois Arreguin from Deutsche to be the Washington DC office manager. All three have impressive pedigrees in asset and tax planning for the ultra-rich. The firm's services include governance and tax planning.