Jacob Aarup-Andersen, CFO at Denmark’s Danica Pension, is leaving the DKK327bn (€43.8bn) commercial pension provider, where he has spearheaded a major strategy overhaul in the last year and a half to take a top position at Danica parent company Danske Bank.

Aarup-Andersen was named as the successor to Danske Bank’s current CFO Henrik Ramlau-Hansen on 1 April 2016, when the latter has said he wants to resign.

As well as being the new CFO, Aarup-Andersen will also join the bank’s executive board.

Thomas Borgen, Danske Bank’s chief executive, said: “Jacob Aarup-Andersen has shown he is well-versed in strategy and management and possesses the qualifications needed to take up the position as CFO at group level.”

He said Danske Bank was in the process of making itself more customer-focused, simple and efficient, and that Aarup-Andersen would help with this.

Aarup-Andersen joined Danica in May 2014, coming to the pensions subsidiary from the role of chief portfolio manager at Danske Capital, the asset management arm of Danske Bank.

In the short time he has been at Danica Pension, he has overhauled the provider’s investment strategy, putting the focus sharply on taking on direct investments and reducing its holdings in bonds.

He quickly set about hiring in the skills to build an in-house team capable to making such direct investments.

Danica’s subsequent head-hunting activity has been a key factor in the wave of top job changes that has swept through the Danish pensions sector in the last 18 months.

Aarup-Andersen will stay at Danica until the end of December 2015, and then act as deputy CFO for Ramlau-Hansen from 1 January until he takes over as CFO in April.

No one at Danica was available to comment on how he would be replaced at the subsidiary, or the implications of the move.

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