JPMorgan Names Linda Patel Southeast Director as Bank of America Expands Nonprofit OCIO Team

The appointments at J.P. Morgan Advisors and Bank of America point to two distinct priorities in wealth management: building advisor leadership in a fast-growing region and adding specialized support for nonprofit investment clients. J.P. Morgan has named longtime Merrill Lynch executive Linda Patel Southeast regional director, while Bank of America has added two specialists to its New York outsourced chief investment officer (OCIO) team.

Patel takes charge of J.P. Morgan’s Southeast advisor group

Based in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, Patel will oversee market executives and approximately 80 financial advisors serving Palm Beach, Palm Beach Gardens, Boca Raton, Miami and Atlanta. She joins J.P. Morgan Advisors, the firm’s boutique wealth business for high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth individuals and institutions.

Patel reports to Mollie Colavita, who took over J.P. Morgan Advisors after Phil Sieg’s retirement last year. Patel succeeds Janet Sweeney, who retired earlier this year. The appointment puts a veteran of private wealth management in a regional role spanning several established Florida markets as well as Atlanta.

Patel was most recently a regional managing director at Merrill Lynch Private Wealth, overseeing its private wealth, institutional and international businesses. She has more than 25 years of industry experience. She began her career at PaineWebber in 1998 and joined Merrill through Advest, one of Merrill’s predecessor firms. Patel holds a BBA in international business management from Pace University.

Colavita described Patel as “an exceptional leader with deep experience in private wealth.” She said the appointment builds on the firm’s leadership and momentum in a key market. Colavita also cited Patel’s record of leading and developing advisor teams, saying the Southeast’s growth in residents, families and businesses is creating demand for help with increasingly complex financial needs.

Migration data frames the regional push

J.P. Morgan cited the latest IRS data, saying Florida has gained more than $20 billion in adjusted gross income through interstate migration, the largest net gain of any state. Georgia gained $4.2 billion in net income from domestic migration between 2018 and 2023. The figures offer a measure of the wealth moving into the two states where Patel’s teams will operate; they do not, on their own, show how much of that income will become managed assets or new client relationships.

For wealth firms, population and income movement can create openings to serve people whose financial lives span businesses, family wealth and institutional needs. Turning that potential into durable client relationships depends on advisor capacity and the ability to address those needs. Patel’s remit across multiple markets makes team development part of the assignment, alongside regional oversight.

Bank of America adds nonprofit expertise in New York

Bank of America has strengthened its New York OCIO group with two roles focused on nonprofit clients. Tiffany Kuehner joins from J.P. Morgan Private Bank as a philanthropic executive. A former nonprofit executive and board leader, she has advised individuals, families and mission-driven organizations on wealth management and philanthropy. Kuehner is an emeritus board member and former board chair of Hope for Haiti.

Mark Fitzgerald, who joined Bank of America in 2019 as an institutional client advisor, has moved into a newly created role as endowment and foundation specialist. His background includes decades of institutional experience, including 14 years at Commonfund. Together, the appointments add experience with philanthropy, nonprofit governance and institutional investing to a business serving foundations and endowments.

The bank says nonprofits are seeking help with portfolio strategy, governance and organizational issues. Those needs can extend beyond investment selection: endowments and foundations also have to connect portfolio decisions with their missions, spending needs and decision-making structures. The two new roles give the team dedicated expertise across those related areas, though the bank has not provided a breakdown of how responsibilities will be divided between them.

OCIO growth raises the scale of the opportunity

Bank of America says its OCIO business added more than $18 billion in new assets and approximately 150 nonprofit relationships over the past two years, without acquisitions. It currently oversees more than $100 billion in discretionary assets for foundations and endowments. The independent Chestnut Solutions Institute recently identified the bank as the largest global OCIO provider to nonprofits.

Those figures give the hires a wider business context: the team is adding specialist capacity after a period of asset and relationship growth. The reported totals also describe different measures of scale. New assets and client relationships capture recent growth, while discretionary assets indicate the portfolio value the business oversees. The ranking offers an external comparison, but does not detail the criteria in the information provided.

For nonprofit clients, the practical test will be whether added expertise helps address investment, governance and organizational questions as their needs evolve. For J.P. Morgan, the test is whether regional leadership can support advisors serving clients across a geographically broad set of markets. Both moves put experienced people in roles tied to specific growth needs; their longer-term effect will depend on how effectively the teams translate that experience into client service.