PJT, Sprucegrove Financial Boutiques Appoint New Top Lawyers

As economic markets brace for the outcome of the U.S. presidential election, a pair of financial services firms have named new in-house legal and compliance leaders.

PJT Partners Inc., a publicly traded investment bank, announced Tuesday that General Counsel James Cuminale will retire at year’s end to make way for successor David Travin, its current deputy general counsel. The bank disclosed in a securities filing that Cuminale will remain with PJT after Jan. 1 to assist with the transition of his duties and “provide senior legal advice on transactions.”

Travin has spent the past four years at PJT, a boutique advisory firm founded by former Morgan Stanley dealmaker Paul Taubman. Travin previously worked in-house at UBS Investment Bank and Deutsche Bank AG.

He didn’t respond to a request for comment about his promotion, nor did Cuminale, who joined PJT in 2015 after spending nearly nine years as chief legal officer for Nielsen Holdings PLC, a market research company that reached a deal this week to sell its retail arm to a private equity buyer.

Sprucegrove Investment Management Ltd., a Toronto-based boutique asset manager that was tapped last month to help run investment giant Vanguard Group Inc.’s $9.8 billion International Value Fund, has hired Jeremy Gauld to replace L. Anthony Shapiro as in-house legal and compliance chief.

Gauld comes to Sprucegrove from Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, whose Boston office he joined as of counsel last year after serving as legal chief for Aberdeen Standard Investments Ltd. He didn’t respond to a request for comment about his move to Sprucegrove, which was confirmed by a Morgan Lewis spokeswoman, who noted that the asset manager is a client of the law firm.

Compensation information for Gauld, who began his legal career as an associate at K&L Gates and Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, wasn’t available.

PJT’s Cuminale owns roughly $3.2 million in company stock, per Bloomberg data. He earned $2.2 million in total compensation—including nearly $1.7 million in cash—from PJT in 2019, according to a proxy statement filed by the company for that year.

Cuminale began his career at Ivey, Barnum & O’Mara in Greenwich, Conn., before becoming general counsel at PanAmSat Corp., a former satellite service provider.