HS Trustees, Citrus, M&G, Hymans Robertson, Ortec, People’s Partnership, Insurance Europe, DWS, Ostrum, Royal London, FGC, XPS Group
People’s Partnership – The UK-based provider of workplace pensions has strengthened its commitment to further improving its offering to members by appointing Kirsty Ross as its new proposition director.
Ross joins the provider of The People’s Pension from Aegon, where she was head of workplace investment proposition, and during her career in pensions has also worked for Royal London and Standard Life. She starts her new role at People’s Partnership this month and will lead a growing proposition team, which is currently developing a host of new innovations including retirement products.
In the past year the company, which manages assets of more than £29bn, has unveiled pricing at scheme level, a new set of retirement planning tools and member app and continues to develop its financial wellbeing offering.
DWS Group – Rafael Otero has joined the DWS executive board as chief technology and operations officer. He will take over some of the responsibilities of chief financial officer Markus Kobler, who has been responsible for the chief operating office on the executive board on an interim basis.
Otero had already joined DWS in January 2024 and had initially focused fully on the group’s ongoing IT transformation.
Stefan Hoops, CEO and chair of the executive board of DWS said: “The next step is to develop our IT services into a key strategic area. With his experience in building and managing successful fintech companies, Rafael is ideally suited to continuously improve our technology platform, expand our data and analytics capabilities, and further develop our digital strategy.”
Before joining DWS in January, Otero worked for Deutsche Bank, where he most recently served as chief information technology officer and chief product officer for the corporate bank.
Ortec Finance – Maurits van Joolingen has been appointed to lead the firm’s climate and ESG solutions team.
As managing director, van Joolingen will be responsible for the development and expansion of ClimateMAPS, Ortec Finance’s top-down climate scenario analysis solution, developed in partnership with Cambridge Econometrics to support the risk management needs of financial institutions.
Since joining Ortec Finance in 2008, van Joolingen has partnered with large institutional investors around the world, supporting them with their risk modelling and development of investment policies and strategy using Ortec Finance’s asset liability management and performance measurement technologies.
Van Joolingen has also worked closely with leading global financial institutions, to develop machine learning optimization algorithms, as well as with CalPERS, the California-based pension and health benefit agency, to create a liquidity forecast model for its total portfolio.
Royal London – By 31 December 2024, chair Kevin Parry will have served six years on the firm’s board. He has informed the board that he does not wish to serve beyond this year and the board has therefore accepted his resignation in line with his notice period.
Lynne Peacock, current deputy chair, will take on his responsibilities as interim chair with immediate effect. One of her first actions will be initiating and overseeing a search for a new chair with the full support of the board.
Insurance Europe – The European insurance and reinsurance federation has appointed Thea Utoft Høj Jensen as its new director general. She will take over from Michaela Koller, who has served as Insurance Europe’s director general for the past 18 years, on 5 November 2024.
Høj Jensen joins from global firm FTI Consulting, where she is a senior managing director and head of financial services in its Brussels office. She brings nearly two decades of experience in the financial services sector and European affairs, having worked in both the private and public sectors, including for the Danish government.
Hymans Robertson – The consultancy welcomed two new hires to its Birmingham office, further growing the expertise of the buyout and wind-up transition services team within the firm.
Donna Prince and Nafisha Chowdhury join the leading pensions and financial services consultancy at a time when 2024 buy-in and buyout volumes have reached record highs.
Prince joins with nearly 20 years of experience, including 14-years at Aon where she was an associate partner. She has been a scheme actuary since 2015 supporting trustees through several exercises including end-game strategy, scheme mergers and wind-up as well as funding and risk management. During her time at Aon, Prince was also a senior member of the firm’s buyout and wind-up team, and member options and support team.
Prior to joining Hymans Robertson, Chowdhury was a project manager at Mercer, and brings further experience from her time at WTW, Aon, and the West Midlands Police. Chowdhury has built a wealth of expertise leading on various projects such as GMPE, buy-ins and buyout, and data cleanse projects.
Future Growth Capital (FGC) – The new private markets investment manager, announced by Schroders plc and Phoenix Group in July, has named its senior leadership team.
FGC will support the objectives of the UK’s Mansion House Compact, unlocking investment opportunities in private markets for millions of pension savers to benefit from the diversification and investment return opportunities that unlisted assets can offer, it said.
Appointments from Schroders and Phoenix will form the senior leadership team as follows:
- Paul Forshaw has been appointed chief executive officer and will be responsible for overall leadership and business performance, including taking a lead on business strategy and business development. He was previously head of strategic partnerships at Schroders;
- Phoenix’s James Harvey will become chief financial and COO, responsible for financial and capital management as well as operational control;
- Chaipetch Phrompechrut moves from Schroders Capital to become chief investment officer. He will be responsible for overall portfolio management and investment performance and will also be the lead portfolio manager for the UK and global long-term asset funds (LTAFs);
- Mike Chappell from Phoenix will become the venture’s head of origination, responsible for establishing the firm’s debt origination team and processes.
The senior leadership team will be supported by an experienced board of directors. The first two board appointments are as follows:
- Georg Wunderlin will become non-executive director. He is the global head of private assets for Schroders Capital;
- Michael Eakins will become a non-executive director. He is group CIO at Phoenix Group.
M&G Investments – Joe Sullivan-Bissett has joined the firm’s £137bn fixed income division as an investment director, reporting to David Parsons, head of the fixed income specialist team.
With more than a decade of industry experience, Sullivan-Bissett is the lead investment specialist on M&G’s global macro strategies and sterling credit funds, supporting investment and distribution teams across the UK and internationally.
Sullivan-Bissett joined M&G from Amundi, where he was an investment specialist within the firm’s global fixed income team, covering a broad range of credit strategies. Prior to that, he held several roles at Insight Investment, including investment specialist for fixed-income strategies.
This appointment strengthens the growing team, with other recent additions including Riccardo Cumerlato who joined from M&G’s restructuring team earlier this year, bringing extensive debt capital markets and fixed income knowledge and will be covering a wide range of fundamental credit strategies.
XPS Group – In line with its continued expansion into the insurance consulting sector, XPS Group has appointed David Honour as the head of insurance consulting.
Honour brings a wealth of experience to this role, with a strong background in the financial services industry and a proven track record in financial transformation and enterprise risk management. His expertise spans both the UK and US insurance markets, and he has collaborated with C-suite executives at several multinational insurance companies to develop innovative, tailored solutions that deliver new capabilities and efficiencies.
Honour joins XPS Group from PwC, where he was a partner leading the insurance consulting business within the firm’s risk modelling service practice.
Citrus – The UK-based defined benefit master trust – owned by its participating employers and run for their benefit and their scheme members – has appointed Sally Martin as pensions manager.
Martin has more than 30 years of experience in the industry. Prior to joining Citrus, the majority of her career was spent working in house providing strategic advice, guidance and support to companies and trustees. Over the years she has had responsibility for devising, setting and implementing pensions policy in the UK for companies and trustee boards.
She has also worked with a variety of scheme types including, defined benefit (DB), defined contribution (DC) master trusts, industry-wide schemes and Local Government Pension Schemes (LGPS). Martin has also acted as a trustee and trustee secretary, drawing on her wide-ranging experience to enhance scheme management and governance. She is also a fellow of the Pensions Management Institute (PMI).
Ostrum Asset Management – The affiliate of Natixis Investment Managers has named Gaëlle Malléjac as its global CIO. With this move, Ostrum optimises its organisation by bringing together all its management expertise – insurance and asset liability modelling olutions, fixed income, quantitative and structured – and research – economic research and market strategy, credit research and quantitative research – under one leadership.
Reporting to CEO Olivier Houix, Malléjac will oversee a team of more than 140 investment professionals managing assets totalling €396bn. She will particularly focus on leveraging all of Ostrum’s expertise to develop solutions that address the current and future challenges faced by its institutional clients, especially regarding the central issue of transitions.
Having more than 30 years of experience in asset management, Malléjac joined Ostrum in May 2021 as director of insurance management and ALM solutions.
HS Trustees – Bobby Riddaway has been appointed as managing director with immediate effect. Since arriving at HS Trustees, Riddaway has relaunched HS Trustees into the marketplace to work with schemes in a practical and proportionate way by providing fully accredited professional trustees (APPT) as either co-trustees as part of a trustee board (including chair of trustees), or by providing a professional corporate sole trustee (PCST). He has also continued his work to find practical ESG solutions for all schemes and initiated HS Trustees membership of Pensions for Purpose.
Riddaway has over 30 years of experience in pensions and investments. He is currently chair of trustees on the defined benefit (DB) scheme of a London-based firm of lawyers. He is also currently an asset owner member of the AIMSE Europe council and past chair of the Association of Consulting Actuaries (ACA) investment committee.
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