Lovell Minnick Partners, a private equity firm specializing in financial and related business services companies, today announced that Joseph Velli will become a Senior Advisor to the firm. Velli is a veteran senior executive in the financial services and transaction processing industries. He spent most of his career at The Bank of New York (now BNY Mellon) as a Senior Executive Vice President and a member of the bank’s Senior Policy Committee, and most recently served as the Chairman and CEO of Convergex Group, a global provider of execution, software and technology services.

Velli’s career has been devoted to creating, managing and building businesses focused on servicing, processing, payment, record-keeping, consumer banking, institutional and retail brokerage, and software platforms. He will assist Lovell Minnick in the evaluation and due diligence of investment opportunities within asset management, custody and related services, as well as bank divestitures, transaction processing and technology enabled businesses.

“Joe brings a unique combination of leadership skills, operational talents and extensive experience with financial services and technology-enabled businesses,” said Steve Pierson, President and Partner of Lovell Minnick Partners. “I know from long experience that Joe’s strong relationships throughout the global financial services community will also be additive to our sourcing and portfolio company growth initiatives.”

Velli, 58, will join a group of three current Senior Advisors at the firm, including Michael Dura, a former executive at National Financial Services, a Fidelity Investments company; Heinz Hockmann, a former Commerz Bank AG executive; and Alan Warrick, a former Aegon executive.

“I am excited to join Lovell Minnick at a time when tremendous technological change in the financial services industry is creating strong demand for the deep sector expertise and business growth capabilities of the firm,” said Velli. “I look forward to working closely with the talented team to identify and seize new opportunities and build businesses.”

During his 22 year tenure with The Bank of New York, Velli, in addition to running some of the bank’s biggest businesses, also played a key role in over 50 acquisitions including the $2 billion acquisition of Pershing, and the spin-out of the bank’s institutional brokerage businesses. Velli oversaw numerous initiatives, including creating and building the world’s largest ADR business, creating the first ETF-like product known as a stapled ADR, and building the bank’s Issuer Services, Clearing and Global Liquidly Businesses. Velli began his finance career at Citibank.

Velli also has considerable public company board experience, currently serving on the Boards of Directors of Paychex and Computershare. Previously Velli served on E*TRADE Financial Corporation and American Management Systems Boards. Velli has also served on various private boards.

About Lovell Minnick Partners

Since our founding over 15 years ago, Lovell Minnick Partners has focused on supporting companies in the financial and related business services sectors. Having raised $1.7 billion in committed capital, we have provided equity capital for management buyouts, succession and ownership transitions, growth investments, and recapitalizations for over 30 middle-market companies.

We typically make equity investments of between $20 and $100 million and, with access to co-investment, we have completed transactions with values of several hundred million dollars.