LGPS Central, RPMI, Alecta, The Pension SuperFund, IPD, Elo, PMI, AustralianSuper, M&G, PRI, Smart, Nikko AM, Mayfair Capital

LGPS Central – The investment pool has announced the appointment of Patrick O’Hara as director of responsible investment and engagement. He will lead the company’s responsible investment (RI) team, ensuring RI is further enhanced, expanded and embedded as a core part of LGPS Central’s investment and portfolio monitoring processes.

O’Hara joins from USS Investment Management, where he was responsible for ESG integration and stewardship across public markets. He has about 20 years of experience in the investment management industry, with over a decade of ESG and investment/enterprise risk experience.

Mike Weston, LGPS Central CEO, said: “Responsible investment is a key priority for partner funds and something we’ve already made major strides in here at LGPS Central. We believe the integration of responsible investment factors, particularly those related to climate, into our investment process both supports long-term returns and is the right thing to do.”

LGPS Central has also welcomed Cara Forrest, client relationship manager, and Satvinder Saini, enterprise risk manager, to the firm.

RPMI – The asset managment firm that runs the £30bn (€33.3bn) railways pension schemes in the UK has appointed Alison Burns to its board as an independent non-executive director.

Burns brings extensive financial services expertise having previously held executive and non-executive roles at Aviva including the position of CEO, Aviva Ireland. Prior to that she held several senior roles within Santander, Bupa, Lloyds TSB and AXA UK. She currently holds board level positions at the National House Building Council, Equiniti PLC and previously Hastings PLC.

Chair of the RPMI board Babloo Ramamurthy said: “Alison’s appointment is an important part of our commitment to delivering the highest standards of governance. Her experience within the pensions and financial services industry, as well as her proven track record as a non-executive director, will be invaluable in helping us ensure we continue to meet the trustee’s mission to pay our members’ pensions securely, affordably and sustainably.”

Alecta – William McKechnie has been appointed as Alecta’s new general counsel and head of its legal department. He will replace current general counsel Charlotte Rydin, who is leaving Sweden’s biggest pension fund to become general counsel at banking group Swedbank in January, as announced in July.

McKechnie is to join Alecta from his current role as head of the legal department at the Swedish division of insurance company If, where he has worked since 2008 in various roles including as chief legal officer, senior vice president and head of corporate law. He also previously worked as a lawyer for Mannheimer Swartling. Alecta said McKechnie will start work in his new role in the first quarter of 2021.

The Pension SuperFund – Margaret Snowdon will be joining the board of the commercial defined benefit scheme consolidator with effect from 1 December.

Snowdon is a vastly experienced pension professional. She is a fellow and former vice president of the Pensions Manaagement Institute and chairs the Pension Scams Industry Group. Until May this year she was a non-executive director on the board of the pensions regulator. Other recent roles include being a member of the Phoenix Group IGC and with-profits committees, the ReAssure Fairness Committee and a non-executive director of XPS Pensions Group.

The pensions regulator has yet to add any superfunds to its assessed list.

Insurance and Pension Denmark (IPD) – Tom Vile Jensen has been appointed as deputy director for Danish group Insurance and Pensions Denmark (IPD), where he will head up climate, solvency and tax. IPD chief executive officer Kent Damsgaard said Vile Jensen would help ensure that the industry played a significant role in the green transition in the future.

Vile Jensen joins IPD from his most recent role as business policy director at trade organisation Danish Auditors (FSR), where he has worked for nearly nine years. IPD said he would start his new job on 1 December.

Elo – Timo Viherkenttä, the former chief executive officer of Finland’s State Pension Fund VER, has been appointed as the newest member of the board of directors of Elo. The third-largest of Finland’s four pension insurance companies, Elo said its supervisory board had appointed Viherkenttä – now professor of practice in business law at Finland’s Aalto University–  to replace Niklas Sonkin as an ordinary member of the board at its meeting on 24 November.

Elo also announced that Ilkka Brotherus would continue as chair of its supervisory board in 2021, Pekka Kampman would continue as first deputy chair and Satu Yrjänen would continue as second deputy chair.

Pensions Management Institute (PMI) – The institute has appointed three new non-executive directors and an executive director to its board.

Alan Whalley has been co-opted from the advisory council as a non-executive director and appointed chair of the board. He has previously served on the board of PMI since 2016. A fellow of the PMI, he has also successfully been re-elected to the PMI’s council to serve a second term. He was first co-opted onto the advisory council in 2015.

Chris Parrott has been co-opted from the advisory council as a non-executive director. Also a fellow of the PMI, he has been on the PMI council since 2013, and is in the middle of serving his second term. He is currently head of pensions and benefits at Heathrow Airport Holdings.

Ruston Smith has been externally co-opted onto the board as a non-executive director. He has over 30 years of experience in the UK and international pension fund and investment industry. He is an experienced chair and non-executive director for companies including JP Morgan Asset Management, Tesco Pension Fund, Tesco Pension Investment Ltd, PTL Limited, Standard Life Master Trust, Smart Pension, The People’s Pension and GroceryAid. He is the co-chair of the DWP Automatic Enrolment Advisory Board and in the past has been chair of the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA).

Anjan Bose has been appointed finance director and appointed on to the board as executive director. 

The board has one more place for an external co-option and are looking for a candidate to appoint in the coming months.

AustralianSuper – The Australian superfund has strengthened its global investment team with several new hires as it positions itself to identify new international opportunities to generate the best possible long-term returns for members. Head of equities Innes McKeand has relocated to AustralianSuper’s London office as the fund continues to build out a global investment team in London and New York. He joins Damian Moloney, head of investments, international, as the second member of the investments leadership team to be located in London.

McKeand will continue his role advising on the development and implementation of a comprehensive strategy for the construction and management of AustralianSuper’s $100bn equities portfolio. He will also play a key role in the establishment and management of the fund’s New York office, and the overall growth of the fund’s international operations, reflecting the truly global nature of its investment portfolio.

“Growing our offices in London and New York is a great opportunity for AustralianSuper to access some of the best talent internationally and to continue to develop a globally elite investment team across some of the world’s most important capital markets,” McKeand said.

As a result McKeand moving to the London office, Justin Pascoe has been appointed deputy head of equities and will take on the additional responsibility for day-to-day leadership of the team in Australia, working closely with McKeand as the fund continues to grow its global footprint.

AustralianSuper has also appointed Paul Clark as senior investment director, property, in London. He will be responsible for AustralianSuper’s real estate investment activities in the UK and Europe. He was formally chief onvestment Officer at The Crown Estate.

Philippe Lenoble has also joined the London team as senior investment director, infrastructure. His experience spans infrastructure financing and investing over two decades. He will be responsible for AustralianSuper’s infrastructure investment activities in the UK and Europe. He was formerly managing director of Goldman Sachs’ Infrastructure Investment Group and senior managing director with the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec’s infrastructure group.

Mikaël Limpalaër has joined the London investment team as an investment director focused on real estate and infrastructure debt. He has extensive real estate debt investment experience and joins AustralianSuper from Aeriance where he held the role of director, real estate lending. Prior to this he held senior positions at Morgan Stanley, Barclays Capital and Société Générale.

M&G – The asset manager is bringing ESG to the heart of how it invests and manages assets with the creation of a new stewardship and sustainability team, led by Rob Marshall. This will help meet increased client demand for ESG-integrated, sustainable and impact products and develop the roadmap to meet M&G’s commitment to achieve net-zero carbon emissions across its investment portfolios by 2050.

The new Stewardship and Sustainability team of 13 professionals will further build M&G’s capability in research, policy, evaluation, integration and reporting of environmental, social and governance risks and opportunities across its investment engine in all asset classes.

It will also leverage M&G’s scale and influence as a global asset manager to engage with investee companies to encourage transition to sustainable business models, including a new Climate Engagement Programme focused on companies with high carbon exposure.

Marshall, head of the new team, has led M&G’s highly regarded credit research team and more recently the global research equity and credit team since 2017.

Federated Hermes – James Wardlaw has been appointed a partner in the asset manager’s infrastructure business. He will be based in London and report to Hamish de Run, head of infrastructure, starting in December.

Wardlaw joins from Campbell Lutyens, a firm he joined in 2011, where he was head of infrastructure globally for eight years and then, latterly, vice chairman.

Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) – Elise Attal has taken over from Alyssa Heath as head of EU and UK policy, as Heath has taken up a new role at the PRI as senior specialist, EU Platform on Sustainable Finance. She will be supporting Nathan Fabian, PRI’s chief responsible investment officer and chair of the Platform. 

Heath has been with the PRI since 2014. Attal joined the PRI this year, from Vigeo Eiris, as senior policy analyst.

Smart – Paul Bucksey has been been promoted to managing director of the firm’s UK workplace business, Smart Pension. The move comes as Smart reorganises to ensure that its platform business and UK master trust have appropriate separation to ensure the needs of all of its clients can be effectively met.

It follows a restructure as part of which Jamie Fiveash was named CEO of Smart in the UK, and Andrew Evans and Will Wynne group CEO and group managing director, respectively. 

Bucksey joined Smart Pension as director of distribution in February 2019. His 

Nikko Asset Management – Tony Glover has taken on the additional role of global head of consultant relations. 

Glover joined Nikko AM on 1 March 2020, as global head of intermediaries and head of international intermediary sales department. He remains in that position, and will continue to be based in Tokyo, with all roles reporting to Stefanie Drews, senior corporate managing director and global head of international sales and strategy and product and solutions, as well as global head of marketing and sales support.

Mayfair Capital Investment Management – The firm’s co-founder, James Thornton, will be stepping down from his role as chief executive officer at the end of this year and Giles King, current executive director and member of the UK executive board, will assume the role of CEO from 1 January 2021.

Thornton will remain with the firm as non-executive chair of the business whilst also sitting on the firm’s UK executive board, investment risk and renumeration committees. He will also continue to work on Mayfair Capital’s largest mandate, the Property Income Trust for Charities in support of the fund director and will be involved in a client relationship and new business role.

King, who joined the UK executive board of Mayfair Capital in 2018 from Westmount Real Estate, was formerly head of investor relations EMEA for CBRE Global Investors and part of its four-strong EMEA executive committee. He also ran the CBRE Global Investors UK Business between 2008 and 2011 and was a member of its global executive committee from 2009 to 2011. During his career, King has managed both UK discretionary and advisory pension fund mandates and run commingled UK value-add funds for a range of US and European institutional investors.

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