Mesirow, an employee-owned financial services firm with $410.3 billion in assets under supervision, has named former bank executive Shawn Beber as its first external CEO since its founding in 1937.
Beber will replace CEO Richard Price as part of the planned succession, with Price continuing on as executive chairman, focusing on organizational strategy and civic and community engagement, according to an announcement.
Mesirow hired Beber after a roughly year-long search to lead the firm across its global businesses that include investment banking, high-net-worth wealth advice and institutional asset management. Beber left a position as president and CEO of the U.S. division of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, where he held several senior leadership roles over the years, including U.S. Commercial Banking & Wealth Management.
“As CEO, Shawn will bring a fresh perspective to the firm’s leadership team while preserving the long-term focus and principles that have guided Mesirow throughout its 90-year history,” Price said in a statement.
Part of Beber’s role will be to continue expanding Mesirow Wealth Management through acquisitions and advisor recruiting. That will include seeing through a number of deals “already in the pipeline,” according to a Mesirow spokesperson.
The firm’s wealth management division currently has about $15.2 billion in assets under management and advisement across more than 40 advisors, with the AUA portion lagging slightly due to reporting delays.
In recent years, alongside recruiting from RIAs and wirehouses, Mesirow has been adding wealth capabilities, including estate planning and tax strategy support.
It has also recently expanded into retirement plan asset management, which can serve both as an organic growth channel for wealth management and a distribution channel for investment products. In August, the firm acquired flexPATH Strategies’ 3(38) custom investment management business, coming on the heels of a May acquisition of Leafhouse’s fiduciary services division.
At CIBC Bank USA, Beber helped expand the bank’s footprint in the U.S., including a $5 billion acquisition of The Private Bank in 2017, according to the announcement.
He also has a public presence in Mesirow’s home base of Chicago, with a seat on the Northwestern Memorial Foundation Board, the Board of Trustees of the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center, and the Board of Directors of the Executives’ Club of Chicago.