Salient Partners, an $18.7 billion asset management firm, has appointed Ben Hunt, a former portfolio manager at Tiedemann Investment Group, as chief risk officer.

In his new role as chief risk officer, Hunt will be tasked with identifying and mitigating investment-related and other types of risks on behalf of the firm and its clients.

Hunt spent ten years as a professor at New York University and Southern Methodist University before co-founding SmartEquip, a software firm developing parts schematics and diagrams for the construction equipment industry. In 2003, he left SmartEquip to embark on a career in the capital markets and spent six years at Iridian Asset Management as a senior analyst, risk manager and co-portfolio manager specializing in long and short equity fund management.