Federated Investors Hires Former Fleet Marketing Exec

Thomas N. Munsell, until recently a key marketing executive at Fleet Financial Group's proprietary mutual fund program, has landed a job at Federated Investors.

Mr. Munsell joined the Pittsburgh-based mutual fund and trust service company this month, Federated confirmed. A vice president, he reports to Mark Gensheimer, executive vice president for bank trust sales and marketing.

At Federated, Mr. Munsell is to help develop and support products and services aimed at bank trust departments - including mutual funds and trusts, Mr. Gensheimer said.

"He has a tremendous understanding of the trust business and how trust departments can be successful selling investment products and services to their clients," he said.

Mr. Munsell went to Federated after three years at Fleet, where he was a senior vice president and managing director in charge of product development and strategic marketing for investment products sold through institutional, retail, and trust channels. He left the Boston-based bank this spring and had been an independent consultant.

For the time being, Mr. Munsell, who could not be reached for comment, will divide his time between Federated's Boston and Pittsburgh offices, Mr. Gensheimer said. Where Mr. Munsell will be permanently located has not been decided.

Before joining Fleet in 1993, Mr. Munsell worked two years as a consultant for the Fairfield, Conn.-based Optima Group. Before that, he had spent two years marketing investment products at Cigna Corp., the Hartford, Conn.-based insurance company. From 1983 to 1991, Mr. Munsell held various trust and investment product management posts at Shawmut National Corp.

Former colleagues praised Mr. Munsell for his strategic insight and firm grasp of the practical. They predicted he would quickly become a key resource at Federated.

"Tom has had experience in banking, insurance, and consulting to many different players," said Kenneth Hoffman, president of Optima Group. "He has a good idea of what may look good on paper and what actually works in reality."

Thomas Howe, a former Fleet Investments executive who is now an executive vice president at Citizens Financial Group, Providence, R.I., said: "He's a very strong strategic thinker, who has excellent product management experience and is very deep on the marketing side."

In a related move, Federated last month hired C. Edward Gibson from Deposit Guaranty Corp., Jackson, Miss.

Mr. Gibson, who was director of trust marketing and product development at Deposit Guaranty, will concentrate on developing hub-and-spoke relationships for Federated's international mutual funds, a company spokesman said.

"Business is growing," Mr. Gensheimer said, "and we're staffing up to meet the demand."

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