Investment management company Franklin Templeton has named George Stephan as the global chief operating officer of Wealth Management Alternatives.
In this newly created role, Stephan will report to Franklin Templeton global distribution head and executive vice-president Adam Spector.
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Stephan’s responsibilities will include overseeing product innovation in alternative investments, enhancing investor services, and supporting business development, management and operations.
Spector said: “With more than 40 years of experience in alternatives and 382 alternative investment professionals around the world, we have been deliberate about building our capabilities in multiple ways – through acquisitions of specialists like Benefit Street Partners, Lexington and Clarion and by onboarding our offerings to key advisor platforms to make them more accessible to investors.
“The result is that Franklin Templeton is one of the few traditional asset managers to build a successful alternatives business spread across a broad range of strategies and geographies.”
Stephan previously worked at KKR as the head of strategy and business development for the global client solutions business.
Before this, he was the COO and head of investor relations for KKR’s Global Wealth Solutions business in the Americas.
Earlier, Stephan also had a nine-year stint at Morgan Stanley’s wealth management division.
Franklin Templeton’s specialist investment managers offer a range of alternative asset capabilities, such as private credit, real estate debt, real estate equity, secondary private equity, co-investments, hedged strategies, and pre-IPO growth equity investments through its various divisions.
Earlier this year, Franklin Templeton introduced the Franklin FTSE Japan Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) exchange-traded fund (ETF), bringing the total number of indexed ETFs to 22.
