SPF Beheer, Swiss Life, Mercer, Woodford IM, Jupiter, Aegon AM, VAM Group

SPF Beheer – The provider for the €15bn railways scheme SPF has appointed Justus van Halewijn as its new CIO as of 1 February. He is to succeed Marcel Andringa, who has started as an executive trustee for asset management at the €38bn metal scheme PME in September. During the past two years, Van Halewijn has been head of investment management at Achmea, the department managing the insurer’s €40bn in assets. Prior to that, he was head of investment strategy research at asset manager Blue Sky Group for nine years.

Swiss Life – Simon Heim has been named head of Swiss Life’s employee benefits legal practice, where he will continue to focus on Swiss regulatory matters. Heim previously worked as a pensions lawyer and consultant at Towers Watson.

Mercer – Ben Gunnee has been named UK head of fiduciary management, starting next year. Reporting to European head of fiduciary management Michael Dempsey, the new role is a promotion for Gunnee, who currently heads up the Middle East investment business. He was previously a director of the Mercer Sentinel Group.

Woodford Investment Management – Gavin St John-Heath and Simon Osborne have been appointed chief risk and operations officer and head of compliance, respectively. St John-Heath will join from BlueQuant Capital Management early next year, having also worked at Petronas Energy Trading. Osborne, meanwhile, joins from Nuveen Investments and has also worked at PIMCO, in both its London office and California headquarters.

Jupiter – Stephen Mitchell has been appointed head of strategy for global equities. He will join from Caledonia Investments, where he has worked since 2011. Prior to this, he worked at Fleming & Co and JP Morgan Asset Management.

Aegon Asset Management – The asset manager has appointed Thurstan Robinson as global head of communications and marketing. Based at Aegon Asset Management’s headquarters in The Hague, he joins from Aegon Global Pensions, where he was responsible for media relations.

VAM Group – Stephan Kevan has been named group marketing director. He most recently worked at NinetyEast Financial as chief marketing officer and has also worked at old Mutual and Barclays Wealth.

Topics