Chiron Investment Management may have a mythical namesake, but it now has a very real mutual fund and a very real sales force.

Kirsten Pickens Chiron Investment Management Partner, Head of Distribution

Today the Leawood, Kansas-based startup unveiled its first mutual fund, the Chiron Capital Allocation Fund, and a trio of new distribution hires. Watch for the Chiron team to put its flagship world allocation strategy into other product wrappers next year.

Kirsten Pickens, head of distribution at Chiron, confirms the hiring of Kim Cheng, Bill Kelly, and Nick Roberts. They will each cover one of Chiron's three territories.

"We're set on the territory structure that we've got in place right now," Pickens tells MFWire.

Cheng, like Pickens and Chiron investing guru Ryan Caldwell, hails most recently from Waddell & Reed's Ivy Funds [profile]. An alumnus of the University of Kansas, Cheng first joined Ivy six years ago and most recently served as a retirement specialist. At Chiron she now serves vice president and relationship manager. Her role is a hybrid one, as she does both external wholesaling work and works key home offices.

MFWire could not immediately reach an Ivy spokesperson for comment on Cheng's departure.

Kelly and Roberts hailed most recently from Kopernik Global Investors, where they were both partners. Roberts had served as the western divisional sales manager for Kopernik.

Kassim Gaffar, principal and head of distribution and client services at Kopernik, was not immediately to comment on how Kelly and Roberts' duties are being handled.

Kelly joins Chiron as a managing director and covering the East. An alumnus of Saint Bonaventure University, prior to joining Kopernik Kelly worked with IVA, Merrill Lynch, and Oppenheimer & Co.

Roberts joins Chiron as a managing director covered the West Coast. Like Kelly, we worked at Merrill and IVA before joining Chiron.

"We were really fortunate to find individuals that had a geographic footprint that's so wide," Pickens says. "It's a really amazing opportunity to be able to hand pick the people that you work with." 

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