Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, NN IP,  Barings, IFRS Foundation, Mirabaud, Dahlgren & Partners, AXA IM, Aviva Investors

 

Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board – The Canadian pension investor has appointed Nick Jansa as senior managing director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, responsible for leading the investment activities and portfolio management in the region. Based in Ontario Teachers’ London office, he will report to CIO Ziad Hindo.

 

Ontario Teachers’ also announced that promoting Ben Chan, who joined the investor in 2018, to the role of senior managing director, Asia Pacific (APAC). Ontario Teachers’ said Chan “has been instrumental in growing investment activities in Asia, attracting critical talent to the region, and most recently, overseeing the opening of our new Singapore office”.

 

Jansa spent more than 24 years at Deutsche Bank, where he progressed to managing director, co-head of corporate finance EMEA and global co-head of leveraged debt capital markets. Chan worked at Khazanah Nasional Berhad, where he held progressively senior roles, before moving to Ontario Teachers’. 

 

“Our Investment strategy calls for extensive investment capabilities and growth outside North America in the next five to 10 years,” said Hindo. ”As head of EMEA and APAC, respectively, Nick and Ben will play critical roles in helping us achieve our growth and global ambitions. They will partner with our asset class heads to broaden and deepen relationships with our existing investment partners and make new connections in strategically prioritised areas”. 

 

NN Investment Partners (NN IP) – Adrie Heinsbroek has been appointed to the newly created role of chief sustainability officer as of 1 January 2021.

 

Heinsbroek has been with the Dutch asset manager since February 2017, having joined as principal responsible investment. Before joining NN IP, he was head of sustainability at ING Bank in Belgium.

 

NN IP said that in the new role, Heinsbroek would advise the board on sustainability matters and challenges and their implications for the entire organisation “to help ensure NN IP remains at the forefront of responsible investing”.

 

He will continue to report to Arnoud Diemers, head of innovation and responsible investing platform, and will additionally take on a direct advisory role to Satish Bapat, CEO of NN IP.

 

Bapat said: “As a responsible investor, we aim to improve both our clients’ returns and the world we live in. We do this by looking beyond financial performance, because the people we work for and with, represent more than just the investments we manage.

 

“Today’s announcement illustrates our strong commitment as a responsible investor.”

 

Barings – The asset manager has restructured its German leadership team with a number of senior promotions as the company seeks to drive growth and further extend its focus on exemplary client service.

 

The move has been led by Sascha Becker, who was promoted to managing dDirector and country head real estate Germany, in October as part of a wider repositioning of Barings’ German business, in order to focus entirely on investment management from its offices in Frankfurt, Berlin and Munich.

 

Andrea Scheerer, who joined Barings as head of finance Germany in February, has been promoted to the German executive board, where she joins Becker, Gunther Deutsch and James Salmon. Scheerer has had extensive experience as head of finance in several international property companies, including M7 Real Estate and Hansteen.

 

Robert Schneider, a managing director, who was previously responsible for driving business development for Barings’ Munich office, will now focus on the management and expansion of a pan-European logistics joint venture in his role as portfolio manager.

 

Orpheus Peter and Johannes Miethke, previously senior asset managers, take over joint leadership of the asset management business. Both have long-term experience in this field and have been working for Barings in Frankfurt, for more than five years. They will be supported by Simone Jenemann, who takes over as head of lease management and will join Peter and Miethke on Barings’ management board in Germany.

 

As part of the expansion of the transactions business, Nikolas von Kleist has been promoted to head of transaction management. He has been at Barings, working in Frankfurt, for three years and will also join the management board in his new role.

 

Daniel Köhler, head of real estate treasury Europe, working out of Munich, is the final person to be promoted to the management board.

 

Becker said: “Following our repositioning and focus on our own investment management mandates, we have centralized several structures and processes as well as restructuring the executive and management boards. These initiatives have enabled us to lay a strong foundation for further growth, while continuing to benefit from our tried-and-tested model of local market presence.”

 

IFRS Foundation – The IFRS Foundation has appointed three new trustees and re-appointed seven, effective 1 January 2021. The new trustees are Robert Pozen, Kenneth Robinson, and Erhard Schipporeit.

 

Pozen is a former executive chair of MFS Investment Management and vice-chair of Fidelity Investments. He also served in senior positions at the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Massachusetts government. He is currently a senior lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management and a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

 

Robinson spent almost 40 years in senior positions at Procter & Gamble, having served as a CFO of several large business units and global chief audit executive. He currently serves as a trustee of the Financial Accounting Foundation and a board member of Paylocity and Morgan Stanley.

 

Schipporeit previously served as CFO and chair of VARTA and a member of the executive board of E.ON. He is an independent management consultant and is a supervisory board member for several German companies, including BDO, where he holds the position of vice-chair.

 

Trustees Alan Beller (vice-chair), Werner Brandt, Takafumi Sato (vice-chair) and Kurt Schacht step down at the end of 2020, having completed their second terms of service.

 

Colette Bowe, Teresa Ko, Larry Leva, Michel Madelain, Ross McInnes, Vinod Rai and Lucrezia Reichlin have all been re-appointed for a second three-year term.

 

Mirabaud Asset Management – The investment arm of the Mirabaud Group has strengthened its relationship management team with the hiring of Jérôme Paganini as head of sales for Switzerland. Joining from SILEX Investment Partners, Paganini has more than a decade of asset management sales experience across both the wholesale and institutional segments of the market.

 

Paganini will oversee Mirabaud Asset Management’s sales teams based in Geneva and Zurich. In the Swiss market, the firm is witnessing increased client demand for its sustainable global equity strategies, which have ESG considerations entwined into the multi-thematic investment philosophy and approach.

 

In addition, the group is also noting heightened appeal for its sustainable convertible products, which favour moments of market recovery – while its highly regarded Swiss equities capability continues to resonate with the local audience.

 

Separately, Andrew Lake ahas been named a limited partner from 1 January 2021. He is a lawyer by training and based in London. He joined the Mirabaud Group in 2013 after working with several institutions, such as Merrill Lynch, F&C and Aviva Investors. Since 2014, Lake has led Mirabaud’s fixed income teams and is the lead manager on the group’s flagship global strategic bond fund.

 

Lake will join the circle of limited partners consisting of Etienne d’Arenberg, head of wealth management UK; Thiago Frazao, head of wealth management LATAM; and Alain Baron, head of wealth management MENA.

 

Dahlgren & Partners – Isabella Hugosson has been appointed as partner of Swedish law firm Dahlgren & Partners, which specialises in occupational pensions. She participated in the founding of the firm in 2015, becoming a solicitor the following year, and left to work at Stockholm law firm Kompass Advokat for a further two years, before returning to Dahlgren & Partners as a solicitor in August last year.

 

Prior to this, Hugosson worked as legal counsel for pension fund AMF, then as chief legal council for Swedish insurance firm Bliwa Livförsäkring.

 

Dahlgren & Partners said she worked almost exclusively with pension and insurance legal advice, assisting pension foundations and insurance companies in both licensing and governance issues as well as in business, distribution and product law.

 

AXA Investment Managers – Nigel Yates is joining the asset manager as portfolio manager in the Framlington UK equities team, effective 11 January 2021. He will be responsible for managing the AXA Framlington UK Growth fund, replacing Jamie Hooper, who will be leaving the company at the end of the year to pursue other interests outside financial services.

 

Prior to joining AXA IM, Yates worked at NFU Mutual, the UK registered mutual insurance firm, where he began his career in 2001.

Meanwhile, AXA Switzerland has appointed Volker Reinthaler as its new chief risk officer, effective 1 April 2021. Reinthaler succeeds Olivier Aubry, who will retire next spring, and will report directly to Fabrizio Petrillo, CEO of AXA Switzerland.

Reinthaler joined AXA Switzerland in 2012 as head of asset liability management from the AXA Group. He took over the position of head of pricing and controlling in the property insurance business in 2016. Reinthaler started his career with JP Morgan in London in 2004. Three years later, he moved to Goldman Sachs before joining the AXA Group in 2010 as senior market and credit risk manager.

 

Aviva investors – The asset manager has made two appointments for the portfolio management team of its global buy-and-maintain credit business, hiring Justine Vroman as senior portfolio manager and promoting Matt Raque to portfolio manager.

 

Vroman previously worked at Pictet Asset Management where she was lead portfolio manager across a number of Euro and US Dollar denominated investment grade and crossover credit funds and mandates. Raque was previously a senior research analyst in Aviva Investors’ Chicago office, responsible for the global healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors. 

 

Topics