AdvisorCentral, the Boston-based account data aggregation firm, has named a new president and chief executive officer, Harry R. Groom, Jr., to replace Joseph Grause.

Grause left the firm last week to pursue other opportunities, confirmed Cathy Angellis, vice president, marketing at AdvisorCentral. She characterized the departure as amicable, but declined to provide further comment on the surrounding circumstances.

In the meantime, Groom, formerly of Putnam, has stepped into Grause's shoes and will lead the firm's second-phase efforts to enhance its technology platform and product functionality, as well as its focus on developing independent broker-dealer relationships.

At Putnam Investments, Groom spent some 11 years running major sections of the transfer agency, including shareholder services, broker and bank operations, annuity processing and the distribution center. AdvisorCentral is a joint venture of Fidelity, Putnam, PFPC and Franklin.

The firm is currently emphasizing mass enrollments with broker-dealers and has already landed about half a dozen such deals, Angellis said. Axa Advisors, Raymond James and AG Edwards are among the firms expected to work closely with AdvisorCentral toward that end.

Since last November, the AdvisorCentral portal has more than doubled its user base, according to the firm. The data aggregator now claims 25,000 IDs and a tripling of its monthly site activity. The firm has also completed the integration of the portal with the Fund/SPEED service and linked to the Bisys and SunGard transfer agent platforms. 

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