Morgan Stanley named Salvatore Cucchiara as its new head of Wealth Management Technology on Friday after the group’s former head left for Rockefeller Capital Management.
Cucchiara, previously a managing director in the technology group, is filling the position left open by Christopher Randazzo, who left to join Rockefeller Capital Management as its head of Wealth Management and Technology & Operations.
Cucchiara will report to Robert Rooney, the head of technology at the bank, who oversees Europe, the Middle East and Africa as CEO of Morgan Stanley International.
In a memo sent to all wealth management employees on Friday, Rooney and co-heads of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management Shelley O’Connor and Andy Saperstein said Cucchiara was “ideally suited” for the new role. It also said Merav Pepere will continue in her role as head of Banking Technology. A spokesperson for Morgan Stanley confirmed the information in the memo.
Cucchiara joined Morgan Stanley in late 2016 and led some of the brokerage’s “most critical initiatives, including enhancements to our desktop, mobile and investment systems” the memo said. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, Cucchiara had spent 20 years at Merrill Lynch.
As the new head of Wealth Management Technology, he will continue to oversee the initiatives he was responsible for and also focus on the technology platform’s “stability, speed and cyber security.”
Among recent changes Morgan Stanley has made related to technology, it integrated LifeYield's tex optimization software in November and rolled out its own automated investment tool, or robo advisor, in December.
At Rockefeller, Randazzo will also be part of the company’s executive committee. In an announcement Monday morning, Rockefeller CEO Gregory Fleming, the former president of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, said Randazzo’s experience was “invaluable” and that he had a “unique combination of expertise in wealth and asset management as well as in technology.”
Rockefeller Capital Management offers wealth management, asset management and advisory services to ultra- and high-net-worth families, institutional investors and corporations from offices in New York, Boston and Washington, D.C. At the end of 2017, the firm had $18.3 billion in assets under management.
Morgan Stanley reported having more than $2.3 trillion in client assets under advisement (44 percent of which are fee-based) and 15,712 financial advisors at the end of 2017. It was a record year for the unit in terms of revenue and profit margin, and though the bank set a higher bar for 2018, some analysts expected more.
