SunTrust Robinson Humphrey (STRH) added John Rizzuto and Michael Lewis to its Equity Research team to boost coverage of the software and real estate investment trust (REIT) sectors. Rizzuto and Lewis join a growing team, as this year alone STRH has broadened its platform to include two new hires in biotech, two in energy and one in healthcare IT.

Rizzuto is joining as managing director and has more than 20 years of industry experience spanning sell-side, buy-side and industry sectors. He is joining STRH from Gartner Invest, where he was the lead enterprise software analyst since 2007. Prior to joining Gartner Invest, Rizzuto was the director of the Enterprise Software Research team at Lazard Capital Markets, which followed his role as global head of the Credit Suisse Software Research Group. His sell-side experience was preceded by five years in the investment community as a technology industry analyst and portfolio manager at a major technology hedge fund. Rizzuto began his professional career as a computer engineer in systems level design and application development.

Lewis brings 11 years of real estate experience and strong relationships with buy-side clients as well as REIT management teams and industry professionals to STRH. He joined the sell-side REIT research team at Bear Stearns in 2007 and transitioned to the team at JPMorgan a year later, having spent the past four years as a key contributor to the REIT research effort at Barclays. Beginning his career at Prudential Real Estate Investors in 2003, Lewis supported a series of commercial real estate commingled funds and separate accounts, first in an Investment Research capacity and later as an analyst on the Global Merchant Banking team.

“As evidenced with these hires, SunTrust Robinson Humphrey continues to add experienced industry analysts who are well regarded by the buy-side for their industry expertise and connections in their industries,” said Biff Woodruff, head of Equities at STRH. “STRH has more than 33 dedicated industry analysts to support the equity platform. We continue to strategically build out our equity platform and are rapidly becoming a trusted adviser to our investors by demonstrating thought leadership in a dynamic, constantly changing environment.”