Mercer has started to rebuild its investment operations consultancy team at Mercer Sentinel with the recruitment of four external and one internal specialist.

After the recent appointment of Robin Solomon as Mercer Sentinel Asia-Pacific leader, the company confirmed the addition of five new staff.

Mercer has recruited former Russell investments services Australia and New Zealand manager Sally Corbett to the team.

Corbett will head up Sentinel's transition management services.

Chris St Amand joined Mercer from MLC, where he was a senior manager of investment operations.

St Amand will take responsibility for operational risk assessments.

Robert Dixon came across from Bank of New York Mellon, where he was a transition manager, and he will be part of Corbett's team.

George Takesian joins the team from Mercer's United States operations, where he worked on the company's dynamic de-risking solution.

Takesian will support the transactional services, including foreign exchange benchmarking and fee reviews.
 
Ashika Narayan comes to the company from ipac, where she was a unit pricing analyst, and she will join the custody team in Sydney.

The new hires will bring the team to 14 staff in total, and this enables for a greater degree of specialisation, Solomon said.

"We are now running the business along four areas of specialisation: transition management, operational risk assessments, transactional services and custody and unit pricing," he said. 

The appointments followed a period of staff departures, with six staff members leaving to take up positions elsewhere, including JP Morgan and AMP Capital.

But Solomon said the changes in the team had not led to any client departures.

"Our clients are all professionals, and they realise there will always be turnover. Before this, we actually haven't had any departures for quite a few years," he said. 

Solomon said Mercer Sentinel would add further staff in Asia to build out an intellectual property hub in Singapore.

Mercer senior associate Craig Plane, who is currently based in Mercer's Hong Kong office, will relocate to Singapore.

"We will also add one more senior hire in Australia," Solomon said.

The company's investment advisory business has also added to its ranks, hiring Jacki Chorazy to its Sydney-based team.

Chorazy has worked for Access Capital Advisers and the Australian Office of Financial Management.