Russell Investments has hired Ken O’Keeffe to support the firm’s index-licensing business for exchange-traded funds.

O’Keeffe formerly worked for MSCI Barra, where he most recently served as global head of client service.

He is based in Russell’s office in New York City.

In addition, Jamie Forbes has been promoted to serve as regional director for ETFs for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region. Based in London, she oversees a programme focused on European markets.

In his role as regional director for ETFs based on Russell Indexes, O’Keeffe oversees licensing and future development of new and additional products for ETF providers in the Americas who aim to leverage Russell’s methodology and index design.

“Russell’s index business is committed to innovation in the investable product space,” says Rolf Agather, head of index research and innovation at Russell Investments. “The licensing of Russell Indexes for a wide range of passive ETF products is a rapidly growing part of our business, and we’re very pleased to have more talent pushing a stream of new products through the pipeline in conjunction with existing and new partners. That pipeline includes single factor products and global index products as well as alternative or non-market capitalisation weighted index products.”