When Hatteras Funds hired Brian Jacobs as a consultant four months ago, the Raleigh, N.C., company was interested in gaining his perspective on ways to spur growth.

In the end, the company decided the best solution was to hire the consultant as its chief executive officer. Jacobs said he feels like he’s entered on the ground floor of a firm with a unique strategy. Hatteras provides alternative investment products and services, typically reserved for institutional investors, to financial advisors.

During his time consulting, Jacobs, 49, said that he helped Hatteras develop its corporate strategy and recruit executives to its sales team. “I came to the conclusion very early on that they had built a wonderful model to serve financial advisors and their clients,” he said. “I came away with a real appreciation that Hatteras had a good infrastructure to create, manage and distribute alternative investments to financial advisors. I knew I had an opportunity to help them around the edges.”

By “becoming more efficient” and “improving on execution,” Jacobs said Hatteras, which had $1.8 billion in assets under management, has an opportunity to significantly grow over the next three to five years.

“Currently, alternative investments are really geared to institutional investors, not advisors,” he said. “It is unique to take these products directly to advisors. That is what drew me to this firm. The way I see it, much like with mutual funds 25 years ago or separately managed accounts 15 years ago, there is a demand right now for what

Hatteras has. The company has excelled already and developed a good track record. By expanding our services for clients, we can really make this business grow.”

Jacobs replaced David B. Perkins, the company's founder, as CEO. He will continue with the firm as its chairman.

Perkins said Jacobs will be able to take Hatteras to the “next level” because of his industry experience. From 2000 to 2008, Jacobs was a managing director at Allianz Global Investors, where he led sales and distribution of the PIMCO and Allianz mutual funds, as well as managed accounts and closed-end funds to the financial advisor community. Before that, he was director of sales for Eaton Vance for 10 years. Before becoming a consultant for Hatteras, Jacobs was chief distribution officer for Baron Capital.

Hatteras has about 40 to 45 employees and Jacobs said he expects to hire as they grow. Currently, it is selling its alternative investments products and services through 3,000 advisors. Jacobs said more advisors at Hatteras largest clients, including UBS and Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, are getting the necessary licensing to sell alternative investments and that should help Hatteras grow.

“One of nice things about having such a focused approach is that we know what we want to offer to market and we know who we want to offer it to,” Jacobs said. “Growth is all about finding the opportunities from here. … The key is getting in front of more financial advisors.”

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Also on the move this week:

Altrinsic Global Advisors LLC of Greenwich, Conn., hired David McBain to join Altrinsic Global Advisors Canada Inc., its wholly owned subsidiary in Toronto. In He was a senior vice president at CI Investments Inc. and head of CI’s Skylon Funds. With Altrinsic, McBain will focus on institutional client service and new business development throughout Canada.

City National Bank hired Jacqueline Parker as a vice president and senior private banker in its private client services division in Las Vegas. She was an executive vice president and private banking director for Colonial Bank in Las Vegas.

Fidelity Investments hired William J. Henderson as chief executive officer of Fidelity Clearing Canada. Henderson, who worked for Fidelity Investments Canada from 2002 to 2007, was an executive vice president and operations specialist for Market Logics, a strategic planning and consulting firm. He has also worked at TD Waterhouse and Merrill Lynch.

Lovell Minnick Partners LLC, an El Segundo, Calif., based private equity firm, hired Alan F. Warrick as a senior advisor. He was a managing director for strategic business development for Aegon USA Financial Services Group. Before that, he was the chief executive officer of Transamerica Worksite Marketing, which is a unit of Aegon.

Moody's Corp., which is based in New York City, hired Tony Stoupas as a senior vice president and chief information officer. He was a global head of international payments and cross product information technology for UBS. [UBS]