New hires

Sentinel Financial Services Co. Inc. in Montpelier, Vt., has hired Jim Cronin as president. Sentinel Asset Management Inc.,…

Sentinel Financial Services Co. Inc. in Montpelier, Vt., has hired Jim Cronin as president. Sentinel Asset Management Inc., the company that manages Sentinel’s fund portfolios, also has added Joseph DeVera as vice president, director of investment strategy.
Mr. Cronin, 48, will direct and manage the company’s sales and distribution strategies. He joins Sentinel from MFS Investment Management Inc. in Boston where he was senior vice president.
Mr. DeVera, 34, will be responsible for communicating Sentinel’s investment philosophy, process and results to fund research teams, advisers and investment consultants. He also will be the liaison between the investment teams and Mr. Cronin’s sales and distribution teams.
For the past 12 years, Mr. DeVera has worked for Deutsche Asset Management Inc. in New York, serving as director and senior client portfolio manager since 2000. He was responsible for U.S. micro-, small- and mid-cap-growth equity strategies.

The Investment Company Institute, a Washington-based association of U.S. investment companies, has appointed James R. Hart as a political-affairs officer.
Mr. Hart, 54, will represent the ICI before federal government officials and manage its political program. He also will reinforce relationships with constituents on Capitol Hill, in the administration, at think tanks and at other trade associations.
Mr. Hart has more than 30 years’ experience on Capitol Hill, most recently as chief of staff for Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y.

SeaCap Investment Advisors, a fixed-income manager based in Seattle, has hired John M. Simms as a managing partner and co-chief investment officer.
Mr. Simms, 51, has more than 30 years’ experience as a fixed-income specialist and has held senior positions with Peninsula Investment Advisors Inc., First Interstate Bank and Alaska National Bank of the North.
Most recently, he was senior vice president and senior fixed-income portfolio manager with ICM Asset Management Inc. of Spokane, Wash.

State Street Global Advisors, the investment management arm of Boston-based State Street Corp., has appointed Scott B. Richards as senior high-yield portfolio manager in its global-fixed-income group.
He is responsible for overseeing the management of SSgA’s high-yield assets and advancing the firm’s global-active-credit capabilities. Mr. Richards also will work to broaden SSgA’s asset class coverage by building a leveraged-loan capability, developing new products and overseeing the investment of assets in this area, including collateral-loan obligations.
Mr. Richards, 47, has more than 26 years’ investment experience, including 20 years managing high-yield-bond portfolios. He previously was co-head of high yield at MFS Investment Management in Boston.

Lipper Inc., a New York-based subsidiary of Reuters Group PLC of London, has appointed Gabriel Burstein, 47, global head of asset management research.
He will lead collective investment research for Lipper and single-asset research for Reuters. Mr. Burstein, based in New York, also will be responsible for driving new initiatives in the areas of ratings and indexation.
Previously, he was global-macro-hedge-fund strategist and head of relative value at HSBC USA in New York. Mr. Burstein is the author of macro-hedge-fund-investment-strategy books in the United States and Japan.

Dow Jones Indexes, part of New York-based Dow Jones & Co. Inc., and Wilshire Associates Inc. of Santa Monica, Calif., have added Amy Schioldager, 44, to the Dow Jones Wilshire Indexes advisory board, bringing its membership to nine.
She is a managing director at Barclays Global Investors of San Francisco and heads its equity index portfolio management team. Ms. Schioldager will address issues related to measuring and monitoring the global-equity markets.
Based in San Francisco, she recently spearheaded Barclays’ foray into global-real-estate indexing.

Wilmington Trust Corp. in Delaware has added Charles L. Pinto as manager of the corporate-marketing department.
Mr. Pinto, 51, will oversee the company’s brand management, public relations, graphic design, market research, advertising, corporate sponsorships and event planning. He succeeds Rita Turner, executive vice president, who now will focus on leading the client services department.
Mr. Pinto recently was the Wilmington-based marketing manager for the Northeast division of Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America Corp.