Pierri was chief executive officer at Pioneer between 2012 and early 2015 before the asset manager was bought out by French rival Amundi from Italian lender UniCredit in a deal closed this year.

BNP Paribas, along with other banks, is making a push into asset management because it is less capital intensive than other areas of banking.

BNP Paribas plans to increase the assets run by its fund management arm by 5 percent a year to 2020 and speed up the development of the business in Germany, China and the United States.