Franklin Templeton Investments today announced that it has promoted two executives to head its alternative investment and global distribution businesses.

William Yun has been named executive vice president of Alternatives Strategies, a new role dedicated to overseeing Franklin Templeton’s local asset management, joint ventures, real estate, fund of funds and dedicated private equity.

Vijay Advani has been named executive vice president of Global Distribution, with oversight of both retail and institutional distribution.

In his expanded role, Advani, who has served as executive vp of the company’s retail-focused Global Advisor Services since 2005, will lead Franklin Templeton’s intermediary-based and institutional businesses, including sales and marketing.

“The integration of our sales and marketing efforts across channels globally is an extension of the success we have had as an organization in leveraging our global platform. At the same time, I would emphasize that this does not change our approach and commitment to providing the dedicated and specialized servicing that our institutional and retail clients require,” says Advani. “Our goal is to continue to identify synergies in our business and to seek opportunities to better service our clients. We also continue to focus on creating opportunities for our employees and maximizing our internal talent around the world.”

In his new role, Yun will head the company’s specialized and alternative investment groups and will oversee the local asset management investment teams. In addition, he will have responsibility for overseeing both the investment and business sides of the company’s asset management joint ventures, which currently include joint ventures in Vietnam, China and Dubai.

“We see tremendous opportunity for growth in the specialized and alternative strategies space,” said Yun. “The number of investors looking for added alpha as well as increased diversification for their portfolios through a broad range of asset classes, including alternatives, has grown exponentially… We are committed to growing this space and are dedicating the resources and attention to meet evolving client needs.”

“Our business continues to expand in markets worldwide and we believe that establishing a dedicated alternative investments platform for our specialized investment groups will best position us to capitalize on the strong growth and interest we have seen in these areas. Additionally, we believe a unified global approach to distribution is a strategy that will allow us to build on the success we have had in leveraging our global platform,” said Greg Johnson, CEO of Franklin Resources, Inc., which operates as Franklin Templeton Investments.

The global investment management organization is based in San Mateo, Calif.