Vanguard appoints Spain country head for 'official market entry'

Vanguard has appointed Pablo Bernal as country head for Spain, to oversee its official market entry.

Bernal (pictured), who joined Vanguard in Mexico in 2017, and most recently held the position of head of intermediary sales for Latin America, has relocated to Vanguard’s European headquarters in London, from where he will initially serve the Spanish market.

Prior to Vanguard, Bernal held roles with Sherpa Capital, BlackRock and Deloitte. He is a CFA Charterholder.

He will report to Simone Rosti, head of Italy and Southern Europe.

Robyn Laidlaw, head of distribution Europe for Vanguard, said: “We are very excited for Pablo to join us in Europe and bring Vanguard’s offer to Spain. We have worked with clients in Spain for many years and have developed deep rooted client relationships on the ground, which we will now broaden and deepen.

"Spain offers a great opportunity of serving both wholesale and adviser clients, as well as those clients serving self-directed investors. We believe that Vanguard’s time-tested, 50-year-old investment principles will resonate well with Spanish investors and give them the best chance of investment success.”

Spain is one of the largest investment management markets in Europe. However, the market is still characterised by a relatively low penetration of indexing and ETFs. As one of the largest passive and active investment managers in the world, Vanguard further said it was well positioned to help investors understand the benefits of low-cost index funds and ETFs.

Bernal added: “I am excited to bring Vanguard closer to Spanish investors. As we celebrate Vanguard’s 50th anniversary this year, it is the perfect time to introduce our mission ‘to take a stand for all investors’ to the Spanish market. We believe that our range of broadly diversified, long-term oriented index funds and ETFs, along with our value-added services for intermediaries, will resonate well with a wide spectrum of local clients. We are also planning to expand our operations and team locally later this year[2].”

Earlier this year, Vanguard appointed Alvaro Hermoso Ferreiro as sales executive responsible for supporting clients in Spain. Ferreiro will report to Bernal.