Ironbark promotes Alex Donald

Ironbark Asset Management has combined two of its businesses and appointed long standing executive Alex Donald to run the new entity.

The $64 billion manager has merged its funds management and corporate trustee businesses and elevated Donald from his role as head of funds management to chief executive of investment solutions.

The previous head of the fast-growing corporate trustee for managed accounts, Alan Kenny, will become operating chief of the newly merged group.

During his 14 years with the Ironbark, Donald has served as distribution lead and head of funds management.

In the latter role, he managed the development and execution of strategy while also overseeing manager selection, product development, and the distribution of the firm's capabilities into the wholesale and institutional markets.

Before joining the firm in 2009, Donald was head of investment sales for Colonial First State, responsible for selling investment products in the Australian retail market.

The role included research house ratings, platform representation and the activity of the national sales team, as well as helping develop new products.

Donald began his career at Hill Samuel Asset Management in 1996 as an equities analyst on their global equities desk.

He moved to Australia in 2001 and joined Zurich Investments, where he helped restructure Zurich's retail sales business as head of key accounts and was responsible for Zurich's research house, platform and dealer relationships.

For his part, Kenny who did stints at AMP and Federation Alliance also worked at Colonial First State.

Ironbark was founded in 2009 by Deutsche Asset Management's former Australian head, Chris Larsen, and former chief operating officer, Brendan Carpenter.

It has three main businesses: funds management, trusteeship and wealth advisory.

The diversified financial services does not distribute multi-manager products but is a professional trustee for funds and managed account solutions, and partners with investment managers through the investment solutions business.