HedgeMark Institutional Consultants, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of HedgeMark International, LLC, has announced that Hiroshi Harada has joined the firm as Managing Director and Head of Hedge Fund Research. In his new role, Harada will head the team responsible for the sourcing, due diligence, and monitoring of funds on the company’s managed accounts platform.

Harada was previously Head of Hedge Fund Research for the funds-of-hedge-funds division of Nomura Fund Research and Technologies America, Inc., where he managed two departments and a ten-person analyst team. He joined Nomura in 2004 and was responsible for fund selection, fund due diligence and the development and management of investment products for Nomura’s multi-billion dollar hedge fund and managed accounts platform. In this role, Harada chaired Nomura’s Funds Rating and Investment Committees and was responsible for the daily investment guideline monitoring of all platform managers. He also managed the research and analyst teams overseeing Nomura’s Fund of Hedge Fund business and was responsible for product development for the Bank’s distribution system based in Tokyo.

“Hiroshi brings tremendous experience in global manager sourcing and due diligence,” said Kenneth S. Phillips, the company’s founder and chief executive officer. “His experience and leadership skills reflect our commitment to building the industry’s premier institutional hedge fund platform.”

Prior to joining NFR&TA, Harada was a hedge fund analyst for ACAM Advisors LLC. From 1997 to 2002, he was a Manager with Dai-ichi Life International New York, N.Y. with responsibilities for its reinsurance business in North America.