GSAM, Schroders, abrdn, IGG, Pantheon, Vidett, Natixis, TPT, Royal Mail, BNP Paribas, Amundi
Royal Mail Pension Plan (RMPP) – The £10bn scheme for more than 123,000 members across the UK, has named Michael Airey as chief executive officer. He has taken up the role replacing Richard Law-Deeks who stepped down in June after six years in the role.
With more than a decade of specialist experience in the pensions industry, Airey has served as head of actuarial at RMPP since 2019, and more recently as head of funding and investment following the outsourcing of OCIO services to Blackrock in 2023.
Prior to this, Airey was a plan secretary for the senior executive plan at Royal Mail Pension Trustees and has worked on a range of projects on both Post Office and Royal Mail sections of the plan.
Before joining the plan in 2016, Airey worked at WTW as an actuarial consultant and is a fellow of the Institute of Actuaries.
Schroders – Richard Oldfield has been appointed as group CEO, succeeding Peter Harrison, with effect from 8 November 2024, subject to regulatory approval.
The appointment follows an orderly and comprehensive succession process, which began in April and involved a global search, including internal and external candidates. The process was led by the chair, with the support of a board sub-committee, Schroder’s senior independent director and a search firm.
Harrison will remain as group CEO until 8 November 2024, at which point he will step down from the board. He will continue to work with Oldfield until the end of the year.
Oldfield joined Schroders in 2023, having previously been at PwC for 30 years, where he held senior roles including network vice chair and global markets leader. Reporting to the global chair, he was responsible for building teams to grow PwC’s client-facing businesses profitably, whilst advising global clients on their most complex and challenging issues.
Since joining Schroders as chief financial officer (CFO), Oldfield has made an immediate and significant contribution, providing a fresh perspective on capital management, driving new initiatives such as the inaugural bond issue earlier this year and embedding commercial discipline across the group.
As Schroders’ CFO, Oldfield has responsibility for firm-wide operations along with direct responsibility for financial management, risk management, technology, capital and treasury. A further announcement on the appointment of a successor CFO will be made in due course.
Abrdn – Jason Windsor, previously group CFO and currently interim group CEO, has been appointed as group CEO of abrdn, subject to regulatory approval.
Windsor took on the role of interim CEO in May, after predecessor Stephen Bird announced he was stepping down after four years at the helm.
The firm announced the start of the process of moving to fresh leadership, following a strategic repositioning of the company to a specialist asset manager, and a digitally-focused wealth manager, abrdn explained.
A formal succession process was initiated at that time, supported by an external search firm, which resulted in the board considering several candidates for the role, both internal and external, in line with the group’s long-term succession planning.
Ian Jenkins will continue in the role of abrdn’s interim group CFO, for which a search process for a permanent appointment will soon start.
Independent Governance Group (IGG) – The UK’s provider of professional pensions trusteeship and governance services has appointed Louise Davey, The Pension Regulator’s interim director of regulatory, policy, analysis and advice, as its head of policy and external affairs.
Davey will support IGG to understand the impact of regulatory developments and developing regulatory strategy. She will lead the development and implementation of regulatory policies and procedures to ensure IGG continues to lead the industry in driving up standards and has a strong voice in the development of pensions policy on scheme governance.
Davey will bring a wealth of experience to the role, having joined TPR as a defined benefit (DB) funding case manager 17 years ago. In her time at TPR, she has overseen the development and introduction of key initiatives including the new DB funding code, TPR’s Superfunds guidance, the DC value for money framework and TPR’s General Code of Practice – consistently championing high standards of trusteeship.
As head of policy and external affairs, Davey will be fulfilling a newly created role within IGG, demonstrating the company’s growth and adding a further service for the business to tap into. She joins shortly after the launch of IGGiQ, an innovative data-driven platform to digitally enhance pension scheme management, and IGGnite, a new offering created to provide operationally streamlined and cost-effective professional trusteeship and scheme management services.
Vidett – The UK-based professional trustee and pension governance firm has appointed three new members to its team to support its continued growth plans.
Amanda Ford joins as an assistant manager to support clients with their governance, pensions secretarial and project work. She joins from Aon’s investment team where she was a technical analyst working on different pension schemes of varying sizes, ranging from the small with 28 members to very large, with assets from around £5bn.
Lisa Sweeney also joins as an assistant manager to support Vidett’s trustee team with governance and ongoing scheme requirements. She joins from Mercer UK where she was a pension consultant providing support to client managers and scheme actuaries, including scheme secretarial services, drafting governance documents and member communications as well as acting as a point of contact for trustees and advisers.
Jacob Inerfield joins as a project manager in the governance team, bringing with him significant experience in projects and operations across industries including charity, hospitality, local government and most recently, pensions. He joins from Capita where he was initially an operations manager in local government environmental health, trading standards and licensing, before working in pensions consulting.
Goldman Sachs Asset Management – Claire Felgate joins the firm’s client solutions group as head of international, global consultant relations.
Felgate joins as a managing director based in London. She returns to Goldman Sachs – where she started her finance career – following a long chapter at BlackRock. There she held leadership roles in consultant relations (EMEA), defined contribution, and defined benefit sales. Most recently, she co-led BlackRock’s EMEA consultant relations group, directly managing a large team and delivering the firm to the top global and local consultants.
Pantheon – The global private markets investor has appointed Arnab Mazumdar as partner and chief data and innovation officer, as well as two new managing directors, Christian D’Amico and Brian Hanson, to continue to expand the firm’s presence and reach in key global growth markets.
Mazumdar will spearhead and accelerate digital and data innovation across the firm. He will lead and evolve Pantheon’s digital transformation strategy, including the firm’s data capabilities and analytics. He joins Pantheon following 16 years at BlackRock, where he held several leadership positions, including chief digital officer for BlackRock Private Markets and co-founder and chief operating officer of the multi-asset solutions group, the firm’s multi-asset private markets investment team.
D’Amico will serve as head of German speaking Europe. Within this role, he will oversee client servicing and business development across the firm’s portfolio of solutions in private equity, private credit, infrastructure and real estate, encompassing traditional closed-ended funds, individual customised accounts, and semi-liquid solutions targeting the private wealth channel, including the Pantheon Global Private Equity (PGPE) fund.
Hanson is managing director in the firm’s US private wealth division, which oversees the AMG Pantheon Fund (P-PEXX), one of the largest registered private equity funds in the US with approximately $3.7bn in assets under management.
TPT Investment Management (TPTIM) – The fiduciary management company and part of the TPT Retirement Solutions Group has appointed Martin Shimell as senior investment manager.
In his new role, Schimell is responsible for leading TPTIM’s portfolio management activities, the development of innovative investment strategies and helping to guide the team in carrying out its fiduciary duty across economic cycles. He will report to Peter Smith, head of investment at TPTIM.
With more than 15 years in the industry, Shimell ‘s expertise will be an asset in achieving TPTIM’s growth plans. Prior to joining TPT, he served as an investment specialist in the OCIO team at Schroders Investment Management.
Natixis Investment Managers – Cecile Mariani has been appointed as head of global financial institutions and global consultants - international. She is based in London and reports to Fabrice Chemouny, head of international distribution for Natixis IM, and will be a key member of the international business development senior team.
In her new role, Mariani will collaborate closely with Matt Coldren, head of financial institutions for Natixis IM in the US, to provide seamless investing solutions to global financial institutions around the world. She will leverage the unique global capabilities of Natixis IM and its diverse range of investment managers to provide tailored investment options to meet the unique needs of these clients.
Mariani joins from T. Rowe Price, where she served as a vice president of group, head of EMEA and APAC GFI (Global Financial Intermediaries).
Amundi – Philippe d’Orgeval has been appointed as Amundi’s deputy group chief investment officer.
D’Orgeval started his career in 1995 at Rothschild Gestion as a portfolio manager and buy-side analyst for four years before joining Pargesa in 1999 as a portfolio manager and analyst. In 2001 he joined AXA Investment Managers as head of fund research and in 2003 was appointed CIO of AXA Multimanager in London.
In 2006, d’Orgeval joined the global risk department and became chief risk officer in 2010. He was then promoted to head of AXA IM UK in 2016.
He joined Amundi in December 2020 as CEO of Amundi in the UK.
BNP Paribas Asset Management – Carmine De Franco has been hired as the firm’s head of the quant equity portfolio management team. Based in Paris, he reports to Olivier Laplénie, head of quant portfolio management.
De Franco joins BNP Paribas from Ossiam where he spent 12 years in various positions, first as portfolio manager and then as head of research and ESG, where he worked on the design, implementation, and management of quantitative strategies for global institutional clients.
With extensive experience in systematic and responsible investment solutions, De Franco is a recognised figure in the field of quantitative finance, regularly speaking at industry conferences and contributing to financial researching papers. His recent research topics have focused on sustainability, applications of machine learning and artificial intelligence in finance, Bayesian learning and portfolio construction under uncertainty.
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