Investment banker Jason Abt has joined Robert W. Baird & Co. as a managing director in San Francisco, focusing on the restaurant sector. Abt was previously managing director of corporate development at Vincraft Group, a private equity fund focused on the wine industry. He has also worked at Banc of America Securities LLC, Credit Suisse Group and, more recently, at Cowen and Co. LLC, where he advised restaurant, specialty retail, apparel and e-commerce companies on mergers and acquisitions and equity offerings. Abt has an M.B.A. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a B.S. in finance from Arizona State University.

Commercial finance company Crystal Financial LLC has promoted Evren Ozargun and Rebecca Tarby to managing directors and Tyler Harrington to assistant vice president in Boston. The firm also hired Jason Andreotes as an assistant vice president. He previously worked at NewStar Financial Inc. and Raytheon Co. Timothy Lawlor has joined Crystal Financial as an associate. He previously worked at Goldman, Sachs & Co.

Gresham Partners LLC, a Chicago wealth management firm, has tapped Tim Joeng as a principal for alternative and private equity investments. Joeng was previously a portfolio manager and nonmarketable securities officer at the Williams College Investment Office, where he was responsible for investing the college's private equity and real estate/real assets portfolios.

Peter Stein has been named a managing director and head of a new venture serving endowments and foundations at Presidio Group LLC, a capital advisory firm in San Francisco. Stein was most recently with Pacific Alternative Asset Management Co. LLC, leading allocation of a $10 billion fund of hedge funds. Previously, he was vice president and chief investment officer for the University of Chicago from 2005 to 2009, and managing director of Princeton University Investment Co. from 2000 to 2005.

Credit and distressed investor Oak Hill Advisors LP has promoted William Bohnsack Jr. to president from chief operating officer. He had been COO since 2001 and one of four senior partners since 2005. Bohnsack joined the firm in 1993 and was named a partner in 1999.

Boston middle-market investment bank C.W. Downer & Co. opened an office in Mumbai, headed by managing director Shirish Nimgaonkar. Previously with Access International Capital, Nimgaonkar has an M.S. in engineering from Stanford University, an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and advanced degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology.

Stephens Inc. has tapped Jonathan Ruykhaver as a managing director in its infrastructure software industry research practice based in Nashville. Ruykhaver was previously a managing director in equity research at Morgan Keegan & Co. in Nashville, where he covered infrastructure software, focusing on information security. Before that, he was a managing director at ThinkEquity LLC in San Francisco. From 2000 to 2007, Ruykhaver served as a senior vice president in equity research for Raymond James & Associates Inc. in Tampa, Fla.

Ejaz Elahi has joined Deloitte Corporate Finance LLC as a managing director in Chicago. Previously, Elahi led the healthcare industry practice at middle-market investment bank Dresner Partners, where he worked for six years.

Nicholas Leiby has joined middle-market private equity firm Kirtland Capital Partners in Cleveland as a senior associate. He was an analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc.

Philadelphia-based CMF Associates LLC, which serves private equity, middle-market and small-cap public companies, has enlisted Robert Rostron as a director in its financial and operational consulting group, specializing in due diligence and post-transaction work. He was previously a mergers and acquisitions director at Deloitte & Touche LLP.

William Flaherty II has joined Williams Financial Group, a Dallas-based brokerage and advisory firm, as an institutional equity salesman in its capital markets division. Previously, Flaherty was in institutional sales at Global Hunter Securities LLC, Pritchard Capital Partners LLC and Natixis Bleichroeder LLC.

Los Angeles middle-market investment bank Intrepid Investment Bankers LLC has hired Brien Rowe, Marvin Padilla and Philippe Faraut for its consumer products group as managing directors. Rowe will head the group. He was previously a managing director at Sage Group LLC, which he co-founded, as well as co-head of the firm's lifestyle brands practice. Padilla was also with Sage, and Faraut was a managing director in investment banking with Financo Inc.

New York's Foros LLC, the investment banking boutique founded by Deutsche Bank AG alum Jean Manas, has hired Sean Fernandes as a managing director, advising financial institution clients. Fernandes was formerly a managing director in the financial institutions group at Goldman, Sachs & Co., which he joined in 1999. He left Goldman in 2008 for Apax Partners LLP, where he oversaw the financial services investment practice in North America and represented Apax on the board of directors of Bankrate Inc. before rejoining Goldman in 2010.

New York-based investment banking boutique TAP Advisors LLC brought in Omar Jaffrey as a vice chairman. Jaffrey joins TAP from UBS Investment Bank, where he worked for more than nine years, most recently serving as co-head of the Americas special situations group and managing director of global telecom, media and technology investment banking. Before UBS, Jaffrey worked at Merrill Lynch & Co. and Bear, Stearns & Co.

Trevor Anderson has joined Raymond James Ltd., the Canadian arm of North American investment dealer Raymond James Financial Inc. He will work on the firm's energy investment banking team in Calgary, Alberta, as a managing director, effective April 23. Anderson joins after four years at Macquarie Capital. He also worked at BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc., National Bank of Canada and Merrill Lynch Canada Inc.

San Francisco investment bank ArchPoint Partners has hired Kevin Berry as director of business development to oversee deal generation and maintain relationships with the venture capital, private equity and strategic partner communities. He was previously a managing director in Nasdaq OMX Group Inc.'s new listings group. Before that, Berry was a senior vice president at UBS and a vice president at Robertson Stephens.

TSG Consumer Partners LLC in San Francisco has elected James O'Hara as president. O'Hara, who continues as a managing director, joined the private equity firm in 1998 and has been responsible for transaction structuring, due diligence, finance and investment execution, in addition to his position on the investment committee. Prior to joining TSG, O'Hara was a consultant at Bain & Co. and an attorney with Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP.

Atlanta-based private investment firm Argonne Capital Group LLC has tapped Layton Grisette as a principal and Bill Weimar as a vice president. Grisette will focus on acquisitions and portfolio management and will oversee Argonne's recent acquisition of the Krystal Co., a restaurant chain. A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Grisette spent more than five years with Arcapita Inc.

Weimar, who graduated from Vanderbilt University, spent two years at Arcapita and before that worked in the leveraged finance group at Banc of America Securities LLC. At Argonne, he will look for new acquisition opportunities and support existing investments in IHOP Corp., Applebee's International Inc. and Stevi B's Pizza restaurant locations.

Charles Boyle has joined private equity investor Riverside Co. as a senior adviser, software and information technology. Boyle began his career with Colt Industries Inc. before joining Prophet 21 Inc., where he eventually became president and CEO and led a management buyout that took the enterprise software company private. Boyle has advised Riverside on several deals and served as outside board director for several Riverside platform companies.

Former Süd-Chemie AG chairman Günter von Au has joined Advent International Corp. as an operating partner. Before becoming chairman of Süd-Chemie in 2004, he spent three years leading U.S. subsidiary Süd-Chemie Inc. in Louisville, Ky. Prior to that, he spent more than 20 years in management roles at Wacker Chemie AG and its subsidiaries in research and development, quality assurance, production, marketing and sales. From 1996 to 2001, von Au headed the polymer division and was spokesperson of the management board of Wacker Polymer Systems GmbH.

Advent has also appointed two independent regional advisers in Norway: Birger Nergaard and Gunnar Rydning. Nergaard established Verdane Capital, formerly Four Seasons Venture, in 1985, and was joined by Rydning in 1986. They also co-founded the Norwegian Venture Capital Association in 1987.

Robert Easton has been named chairman of the British Private Equity & Venture Capital Association. Easton is a managing director and co-head of Carlyle Europe Technology Partners. He joined Carlyle Group in 2000 from Invensys plc, where he was vice president of corporate development.

Easton succeeds Richard Anton, a partner at Amadeus Capital Partners. Simon Clark, managing partner of Fidelity Growth Partners-Europe, has been named vice chairman.

Ambienta Sgr SpA, a European private equity firm focused on the environmental sector, has named Rudolf Ohnesorge as an investment partner. Ohnesorge, who is based in Munich, spent 10 years at Infineon and, in 2008, joined Siemens Financial Services, where he was managing partner of the growth capital portfolio for the technology sector investment division.

European private equity investor HgCapital has named Kai Romberg a partner. He joined the firm in 2004 as an associate. The firm also recently added seven associates: Hector Guinness, technology, media and telecommunications, from Bain & Co.; Carlo Pohlhausen, TMT, from McKinsey & Co.; Benedikt Kupczyk-Joeris, industrials, from the investment banking division of Bank of America Merrill Lynch; Paolo Mantero, portfolio management, from Italian PE firm Investitori Associati; Annabelle Pluquet, healthcare, from J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.'s investment banking unit; Allister Sykes, renewable energy; formerly of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP; and Benedikt Von Schoeler, portfolio management, from Altium Capital.

Private equity firm H.I.G. Capital LLC has added Carl Harring as a managing director. Before leading several small and medium-sized European leveraged buyouts at HgCapital, Harring spent nine years at Apax Partners in London.

Michael Cohrs has been named an adviser to Northern European private equity firm EQT Funds Management Ltd. and EQT Partners. Cohrs was previously a member of the management board at Deutsche Bank AG, where he co-headed the investment bank, and is a member of the interim financial policy committee of the Bank of England. He will focus on credit and the financial sector.

Cohrs, a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Business School, started his career at Goldman, Sachs & Co. and worked at S.G. Warburg & Co. before moving to Deutsche Bank.

Bertrand Meunier has joined CVC Capital Partners as a managing partner and member of the private equity board based in London. Among other responsibilities, Meunier will lead the new global consumer goods sector group and oversee development of the firm in France.Meunier was previously chairman of the partner committee and head of the sector teams at PAI Partners SAS, formerly part of France's BNP Paribas SA, which he joined in 1982. There, he led investments in information technology and telecommunications for 11 years before turning to the consumer goods, retail and services sector, which he led for eight years.