The company is responding to market appetite.

Vanguard has appointed Marco Corsi to lead a new London-based global research centre that will serve exchange traded fund investors and a growing demand for the investment product.

Under Corsi, the team will develop ETF-related research primarily aimed at institutional investors, retail intermediaries and self-directed investors, the company said yesterday.

ETFs are the fastest growing investment product globally, crossing the $5 trillion barrier for the first time earlier this year, according to ETFGI, an independent firm that tracks the sector. 

In the second quarter of this year Vanguard managed $968 billion in ETFs, fueled by four consecutive years of inflows into the product, putting the company in the top three of global providers. 

Before joining the new London operation, Corsi was a director at BlackRock’s iShares family of ETF funds, leading the EMEA product research and innovation team. He has also worked at Decura, Barclays, and Merrill Lynch. In the new post, he will report to Vanguard’s head of international ETFs, Axel Lomholt.

Lomholt said that timing is critical in establishing a dedicated ETF research team to “produce perspective that will be topical and insightful to investors, regulators, and influencers”, and work in concert with Vanguard’s strategy groups globally. 

The Pennsylvania-based investment firm reported $5.2 trillion under management in the second quarter 2018, and serves more than 20 million investors worldwide.