A 1985 UC Berkeley graduate, Yeary joined Salomon Brothers Inc. in 1990 and worked for Lehman Brothers Inc. before that. His new appointment is for three years, renewable on an annual basis by mutual agreement. Yeary, a telecom specialist, will donate his $200,000 base salary to the university.

Commercial finance firm CIT Group Inc. named Alexander Mason as its president and chief operating officer. He will join the executive committee, reporting to chairman and CEO Jeffrey Peek.

Mason was vice chairman and COO of Mercantile Bankshares Corp. until its March 2007 acquisition by PNC Bank NA. Earlier, he was vice chairman of Deutsche Bank Americas and was COO for global corporate finance. Mason also spent more than 20 years at Bankers Trust Co.

Private equity firm Carlyle Group announced that Sunil Kaul will join Carlyle Asia Partners, or CAP, in Singapore as a senior director of financial services on Aug. 1. Kaul was president of Citibank Japan and a member of the Citi global management committee. Earlier, Kaul was based in Singapore as Asia Pacific regional head of Citi's retail banking and CitiBusiness.

On July 1, Devinjit Singh will become a managing director of CAP, based in Mumbai. Previously, Singh spent about 20 years at Citigroup Inc., most recently as managing director and head of mergers and acquisitions in India.

Jefferies & Co. expanded its energy investment banking group, Jefferies Randall & Dewey. Former co-president Ralph Eads III was named chairman of the group. Eads also became a vice chairman of Jefferies. Stephen Straty and David Rockecharlie were named group co-heads. Straty joins Jefferies following 17 years at Bear Stearns Cos., while Rockecharlie has worked at Jefferies for five years.

Piper Jaffray & Co. expanded its municipal finance banking business, adding former UBS bankers in California. The team will be led by managing directors Mark Adler and Timothy Carty in Los Angeles, and Mark Curran, a managing director of public finance investment banking in San Francisco.

Adler was a managing director of the UBS' Western region municipal finance operation. Carty led its California education practice. The team also includes managing directors Jim Roth and Jeff Baratta in San Francisco. Other bankers include Eric Choudhury, Jin Kim, Katie Koster and Ivory Li.

In Boston, Piper recently hired Stephen Yamane as managing director. Yamane arrived from Cowen and Co. LLC, where he was a managing director of equity sales and trading.

Pali Capital Inc., the U.S. broker-dealer subsidiary of Pali Holdings Inc., said Amy Noblin joined the firm as a managing director and research analyst, covering softlines retail. Noblin was most recently a senior analyst and principal at Banc of America Securities LLC in San Francisco. Before that, she was an equity research associate at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Inc. in New York.

Bernard Dan will become COO of MF Global Ltd.'s North American businesses. Dan was with the Chicago Board of Trade, where he has served as president and CEO from November 2002 and will leave in July upon completion of the merger with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

David Lau is now a senior portfolio manager with Galleon Group, an equity manager of alternative assets. Lau joins from the Development Bank of Singapore, where he was a managing director and joint head of global financial markets.

Stifel Nicolaus & Co. hired Mark Belford as a managing director, focusing on specialty retail and apparel clients in the consumer and retail investment banking group. Belford was an executive director in the midcap retail and apparel investment banking group at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.

Willis Group Holdings Ltd. brought in Donald Harrington as leader of the employee benefits unit of the national mergers and acquisitions practice. He also becomes senior vice president of Willis of New York Inc. Previously, Harrington was a senior vice president of Aon Consulting Inc.'s private equity services.

Philip Cedar is now a partner in the New York office of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis LLP. Cedar joins the financial services practice from Bear Stearns Cos., where he was a senior managing director in the legal department and a group practice leader for the mortgage and asset-backed securities division.

On July 1, Latham & Watkins LLP will make Hisao Hirose office managing partner of its Tokyo office. He succeeds Bernard Nelson, who is retiring. Hirose is a finance partner of Latham & Watkins Gaikokuhou Joint Enterprise in Tokyo. He was general counsel of Citibank in Japan.

Intellectual property lawyer Shantanu Basu, most recently of Morrison & Foerster LLP, joined Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo PC's Palo Alto, Calif., office.