Barclays Private Bank appoints global heads of family office and client experience

Barclays Private Bank has announced appointments to its senior leadership team with the hiring of Effie Datson as global head of family office and Melanie Aimer as global head of client experience.

In a newly created role, Datson will be responsible for building, managing and growing the Global Family Office (GFO) client segment in partnership with the business and product heads and coordinating across all product areas to further define and enhance Barclays Private Bank's GFO proposition and product set.

Datson has more 25 years' experience in financial services and joins from UBP where she was of head of Hedge Funds. Datson has also held senior roles at banks including Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank.

She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and an AB magna cum laude from Harvard College. She is founder and former board chair of 100 Women in Finance (formerly, 100 Women in Hedge Funds) in EMEA.

In her role as global head of client experience, Aimer will support Barclays Private Bank strategic growth ambitions by taking on end-to-end responsibility for client experience, including product propositions, marketing and distribution and digital face to market and client facing processes.

Aimer joins from BNP Paribas Asset Management (BNP AM) where she was the Global Head of Client Experience.

Aimer previously worked within BNP Paribas Corporate & Institutional Banking (CIB), where she was global head of digital for employees and as global head of client development, first within CIB's Fixed Income division and later within Global Markets.

Datson and Aimer will both be based in London and will report to Jean-Christophe Gerard, interim CEO of Barclays Private Bank.

Gerard commented: "These appointments will help us to enrich our global family office proposition and enhance our end-to-end client experience across the Private Bank."

Datson added: "Global family offices are a priority for Barclays Private Bank, whose proposition is industry leading. I am looking forward to working with the team to further develop services and solutions that meet the unique, and often complex, needs of family offices from across the world while offering them holistic and comprehensive banking, credit, investment solutions, sustainablity solutions and private access to our Corporate and Investment Bank."

Aimer said: "Recent events around the globe have resulted in further demand for holistic, differentiated and seamless client experiences, with digital at the forefront more than ever before. I am excited to be joining a world-leading British private bank, which places clients at the core of everything it does, and look forward to working with the team to continue to develop innovative ways of enhancing the experiences of our international client base of HNWI and family offices."