The board of the Ambassador Fund has reorganized and brought on the independent directors of the Monetta Funds board as a cost savings measure.
The board of the First American Funds is preparing for recruitment and succession planning this year.
The board of the Firsthand Funds has elected Rodney Yee, coo and cco of CCM Partners, to replace Kevin Tanner, who resigned last month.
Brian G. Peirce has joined the board of the Stratton Mutual Funds as an independent director to replace John Lombard. Lombard, special counsel to the law firm of McCarter & English, retired from the board this year after serving for 30 years.
The board of the Harbor Funds is seeking two additional independent trustees to add to its five-member board by year's end.
Earlier this year, long-term independent director Thomas Theobald retired from the board of the Columbia Funds following the acquisition of Columbia Management by Ameriprise Financial.
The board of the Croft Funds is adding three new directors in August, following the retirement of Chairman George Edwards.
Thomas Trala, coo and cfo of Turner Investment Partners, joined the board of the Turner Funds as an interested trustee last month.
The board of BlackRock’s iShares Trust has elected long time lead independent director George Parker to replace interested chairman Lee Kranefuss.
Robert Pozen, chairman of MFS Investment Management, will remain as an interested trustee of the MFS Mutual Funds until the end of next year even though he's stepping down as chairman on July 1 of this year.
Charles Ellis has retired as a trustee of the Vanguard Funds after reaching the mandatory retirement age of 72. Ellis said he will now be a spokesman for Vanguard, attending various meetings and answering investment questions that people may have.
Only two independent directors from the board of the Evergreen Funds will join the Wells Fargo Funds board as the reorganization begins to wind down in time for shareholder approval by the summer.
The board of the TIP Funds, which oversees the four mutual funds offered by the TIFF Investment Program, has added N.P. "Narv" Narvekar, president and ceo of Columbia Investment Management Company.
Jamie Baxter, independent vice-chair of the Putnam Funds board, has been elected chair of the Mutual Fund Directors Forum, replacing David Ruder, who had been chairman since the Forum’s inception in 2002.
Janus Goes For Distribution Expertise The board of the Janus Funds has nominated John Cammack and John McGonigle to replace Martin Waldinger and John McCarter when they hit the mandatory retirement age at the end of the year after serving 17 and eight years on the board, respectively. The new director candidates were chosen for their backgrounds in the distribution side of the business, said William McCalpin, independent chair. The board recently approved a change in the distribution from no-load to advisor-based funds (FD, November). After 18 years at T. Rowe Price, Cammack retired as the head of the company's third-party distribution. McGonigle retired four years ago as executive v.p. of mutual fund administration at Charles Schwab & Co., where he helped build out the company's third-party distribution platform. As part of the succession planning, the two candidates would join the board before the retirements in order to provide for a smooth transition. In June, shareholders will also be asked to re-elect the incumbent board.
The board of the OneAmerica Funds has brought on James Isch, interim head of the NCAA, to replace Lowell Short, who resigned in July after taking a job with the Federal Home Loan Bank of Indianapolis.
Interested trustee James Stowers has resigned from the Kansas City board of the American Century funds.
William McNabb is slated to take over as chairman of the Vanguard Funds January 1, succeeding long-time chairman John Brennan.
The board of trustees of the Natixis Funds, Loomis Sayles Funds and Hansberger International Series has brought on two trustees, replacing Charles Baker who resigned and growing the size of the board in anticipation of the retirement of Edward Benjamin next year.
The newly formed board of Charles Schwab's first exchange-traded funds is made up of three independent trustees-- Robert Burns, Mark Goldfarb and Charles Ruffel--and one interested trustee--Walter Bettinger, Schwab's president and ceo.
Michael Seely has become independent chair of the HSBC Investor Funds.
After about five years without a new director, the board of Franklin Mutual Series Funds has added three new members.
The newly formed Impax Asian Environmental Markets fund has appointed Allan McKenzie, former Blackrock coo, as independent chair and Allan Barber, Terence Mahony and Simon Atiyah round out the closed-end fund's board.
The Independent Directors Council appointed four new members to its Governing Council in October. Alfred Osborne, of FPA Funds; Gary Moody, of AllianceBernstein Funds; George Sullivan, of SEI Funds; and Jonathan Zeschin, of Dividend Capital Funds, join the existing 28-member board.
The board of the Vanguard Funds has bumped its size back up to ten members with the appointment of a new independent director.
Two long-time directors of the board of Diamond Hill Financial Trends Fund retired this past month in order to help keep expenses down.
The Natixis Funds has made some new appointments to its board and committees.
The board for the Federated Investments funds has added an independent director after the departures of three long term directors earlier this year.