Pair to split top jobs at Fidelity

BOSTON – Fidelity Investments, the world’s largest mutual fund manager, named Abigail P. Johnson and Ronald P. O’Hanley to top roles after splitting responsibility for running the company, Bloomberg News reported.
Abigail Johnson, the daughter of Chairman Edward C. Johnson III, will oversee all customer- and client-focused businesses as president of the personal, workplace and institutional unit, Boston-based Fidelity said last week. O’Hanley, 53, who is coming from Bank of New York Mellon Corp., where he oversaw money management, will become president of asset management and corporate services.
Fidelity created two distinct units as the company has expanded beyond managing mutual funds into stock trading and retirement planning and institutional money management. In their new roles, Abigail Johnson and O’Hanley take over responsibilities previously held by Rodger Lawson, who stepped down at the end of March.
Fidelity is such a diverse organization that one person being in charge wasn’t very realistic to begin with,” Geoff Bobroff, an independent consultant in East Greenwich, said in an interview. “Dividing up the company along these lines seems to make sense.”
Both executives will report to Ned Johnson, who turns 80 in June. Johnson, who has led the company since 1977, has given no indication that he plans to retire soon, and has left open the question of who will succeed him. •