OREANDA-NEWS. October 07, 2016. Bank of America today announced that John Thiel, current head of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, has decided to step down from his position and will take on a new role as vice chairman of Global Wealth and Investment Management (GWIM), effective January 1, 2017.

Andy Sieg, current head of the company’s Global Wealth and Retirement Solutions division, will succeed Thiel as head of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, effective January 1, 2017.

For the past five years, Sieg has led Global Wealth and Retirement Solutions (GWRS), comprised of the GWIM division’s product organization and retirement business. During that time, he worked with Thiel in the implementation of goals-based wealth management and has overseen the strong growth of the retirement business. Sieg was also instrumental in the firm’s development of a unified investment platform that will be critical to providing best-in-class investment solutions to clients.

In addition to his leadership of GWRS, Sieg also currently manages the GWIM Chief Investment Office team together with Keith Banks, president of U.S. Trust, ensuring that Merrill Lynch clients and advisors have a complete range of investment solutions along with the intellectual capital of the entire Bank of America organization to serve clients.

As vice chairman of GWIM, Thiel will advise Terry Laughlin, Bank of America vice chairman and head of Global Wealth and Investment Management, and the Bank of America and GWIM leadership teams on business integration, goals-based wealth management and regulatory matters.

"Since 2011, under John Thiel’s leadership, Merrill Lynch has made tremendous progress by developing and beginning to implement goals-based wealth management,” said Laughlin.

“Recognizing that our strategy has been proven and is now being implemented, John came to me and indicated he was thinking about his future and his desire to connect to the other passions in his life, particularly his commitment to working with organizations that help people who are less fortunate. As he considers how he can make his next important contribution, I’m very happy that he’ll be an important advisor to me, the Bank of America and GWIM management teams, and our advisors.”

“Andy Sieg has more than 20 years of experience at Merrill Lynch and has proven to be both a dynamic leader and accomplished at strategy execution. Under Andy’s leadership, we’ll continue to implement our goals-based advice model. He is ideally suited to lead Merrill Lynch on the next phase of its journey.”

Sieg commented, “One of the first things I learned after joining Merrill Lynch in 1992 was the founding principle that the interests of our customers must come first. I’m proud that we’ve kept that embedded in our company. We have the finest financial advisors in the world, and I am honored to be asked to lead them.”

Sieg first joined Merrill Lynch as an analyst in the Global Wealth Management business. He served in senior strategy and field leadership roles over the next 13 years, including as a market executive in San Diego and New York City. Sieg also led the Emerging Affluent Client Segment within Citigroup Global Wealth Management from 2005 to 2009.

Bank of America
Bank of America is one of the world's leading financial institutions, serving individual consumers, small and middle-market businesses and large corporations with a full range of banking, investing, asset management and other financial and risk management products and services. The company provides unmatched convenience in the United States, serving approximately 47 million consumer and small business relationships with approximately 4,700 retail financial centers, approximately 16,000 ATMs, and award-winning online banking with approximately 33 million active accounts and more than 20 million mobile active users. Bank of America is a global leader in wealth management, corporate and investment banking and trading across a broad range of asset classes, serving corporations, governments, institutions and individuals around the world. Bank of America offers industry-leading support to approximately 3 million small business owners through a suite of innovative, easy-to-use online products and services. The company serves clients through operations in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and more than 35 countries. Bank of America Corporation stock (NYSE: BAC) is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.