DWS Investments has picked its new national sales manager and plans to reveal its choice next month, Mike Woods, head of US distribution, told The MFWire.

Since taking over from Philipp Hensler as DWS' top distribution executive in August, Woods has taken steps to restructure the organization. One of his early moves was to transfer the RIA-focused team out of the financial institutions group and into the retail group.

In addition, Woods has combined the financial institutions and retail national accounts teams, a move that brought the headcount in the group down from 21 to 18.

At the same time, he's hiring two more senior people. The head of broker-dealer national accounts is set to start next month, Woods said. The other senior-level post is national account manager within the third-party insurance area.

In a recent interview, Woods said that when he started at DWS, he moved to "point the ship in the right direction and get everything aligned properly."

"Why is DWS not bigger in the US? Why has it not made a larger impact? We want to be bigger," Woods said.

Woods said he wants DWS to crack the Top 15 in the next five years. Data from Mercatus' Financial Research Corp. show that DWS had $43.65 billion of long-term assets as of September, making it the 32nd largest fund firm. Including money market assets, DWS ranked 20th, with total AUM of $117.8 billion.

"We want to be in the Top 15 in the next five years," he said. "The immediate goal is for us to stabilize flows." 

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