Christopher Lo

The duo will work within the firms research enhanced strategies team, based in London reporting to Christopher Lo, who is based in Boston, the firm’s head of research enhanced strategies and head of active ETFs.

Mr Di Mascio joins from Vanguard where he worked the previous five years, bringing around 12 years of experience to the company. During his time, at Vanguard, he worked as an equity trader and portfolio manager. Prior to this, he held roles at the London Stock Exchange, Borsa Italiana and KPMG.

Mr Bhanot joins from L&G Asset Management, where he worked four of his seven years at the firm as a quantitative strategist across the firm’s index and ETF product. Before that, he served as an intern at Euronext, focusing on funds and ETFs.

The pair will be responsible for supporting the growth and development of Columbia Threadneedle’s active ETF suite of products for investors.

Mr Lo said: “We are delighted to welcome Gianluca and Karan to the team. Both bring highly relevant and complementary experience across portfolio management, quantitative investing and ETF markets.

“Their appointments further enhance our investment capabilities and will play an important role as we continue to expand our Research Enhanced platform and develop our Active ETF offering for clients across the UK and Europe.”