Northern Trust Capital Markets announced today that it has hired Ben Brownette as a research analyst in its Sydney, Australia office.

This appointment marks the first hire in the region by Northern Trust Capital Markets since acquiring institutional brokerage business, Aviate Global in May this year. This acquisition brought Northern Trust its second office in Australia.

Brownette joins from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, where he spent close to seven years in institutional equities. Previously, Brownette spent three years at an independent equities research house, later acquired by Morningstar. He has more than 12 years of experience in accounting, analytic and equity sectors and has been ranked a top three stock picker by Starmine. He holds a Master of International Business, Master of Commerce (Finance) and a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Sydney.

“We are delighted to welcome Ben to our team,” said Rob Arnott, regional manager, Asia for Northern Trust Capital Markets. “He brings award-winning expertise and his market knowledge will be valuable as we continue to bring ideas to our clients.”

“Asia-Pacific is Northern Trust’s fastest growing region and the Australian business is one of the key drivers of that growth,” said Madeleine Senior, head of Northern Trust in Australia and New Zealand. “Through the extension of our Capital Markets capabilities in our Sydney office, we are well positioned to support our clients in the region with market leading insights and solutions on the ground.”

Northern Trust first established an office in Melbourne in 2007 to provide asset servicing and custody solutions to clients domiciled in Australia and New Zealand. In 2015 it announced that it had established an asset management sales and client servicing team in its Melbourne office to offer its full range of customizable asset management solutions to institutional investors across the region. Today its two offices in Sydney and Melbourne offer customized asset servicing and asset management solutions to sophisticated institutional investors and investment managers.