A familiar face and veteran institutional asset management executive is taking over at New York Life Investment Management. Meanwhile, Stephen Fisher will continue to lead NYLIM's MainStay Funds business.

Yie-Hsin Hung New York Life Investment Management CEO

This morning Chris Blunt, the freshly-anointed leader of New York Life's investments group, confirms that Yie-Hsin Hung, 52, has risen to CEO of NYLIM, succeeding retirement industry veteran Drew Lawton, 56. Hung and Fisher had served as co-presidents of NYLIM, reporting to Lawton; now Hung reports to Blunt, and Fisher reports to Hung.

The news comes a day after Blunt took over the investments group and New York Life's vice chairman, John Kim (another retirement industry executive), rose to president of the whole company.

Blunt praises Hung for doing "a tremendous job in growing [New York Life's] institutional asset management business, including with [its] fixed income and alternatives-focused investment boutiques" and for providing "outstanding leadership in [New York Life's] international activities."

An alumnus of Morgan Stanley investment banking, Morgan Stanley Investment Management (where she oversaw global strategic acquisitions and alliances), and BridgeWater Associates, Hung first joined New York Life in 2010. She started as head of its institutional investment business, and she rose last year to co-president of NYLIM. She's an alumnus of Northwestern and Harvard.

Lawton will retire at the end of 2015 and now serves as special advisor to Blunt. Lawton's departure comes shortly after New York Life sold NYLIM's retirement plan services business (which Lawton once led) in a deal with Hancock and also shortly after NYLIM bought liquid alts ETF shop IndexIQ. Lawton, like Hung, first joined New York Life in 2010. He previously worked with Fidelity and Aetna.

New York Life now has more than $500 billion in assets under management. As December 31, 2014, NYLIM alone had $289 billion in AUM, and now 1,300 employees fall under Hung's purview.

NYLIM now offers 81 mutual funds and 13 ETFs (now that the IndexIQ deal has closed). NYLIM's nine boutiques include: Ausbil (part of the Dexia acquisition), Candriam (the new name for Dexia), Cornerstone Capital, GoldPoint Partners, Institutional Capital, MacKay Shields, Private Advisors, and Strategic Asset Solutions, as well as IndexIQ. 

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