The People moves for 9 April 2020 can be found here.

Sampension, APG, Aegon, DUFAS, LOIM, Capital Cranfield, Schroders, PGB, BMO, SPP, Vasakronan; Barings

Sampension — Danish labour-market pension fund Sampension has appointed Anne Louise Baltzer Engelund as its new product director and member of its management group. The fund said she will now head up its actuarial, customer law and IT development departments in what is a newly-created role.

Baltzer Engelund is replacing former mathematical director Flemming Windfeld, who Sampension said is stepping down from the role to look for new challenges, but remaining available to the pension fund for a period. Baltzer Engelund has worked for Sampension since 2007 as head of its actuarial department, which includes product development. Prior to this, she was an actuary at Denmark’s largest commercial pension provider PFA since 2001, having begun her career at Pension Denmark in 1999. She will start work in her new role on 1 February.

APG - Pieter Jongstra has been elected as new chair of the supervisory board (RvC) of Dutch APG Group. He succeeds Jaap van Manen, who resigned on 1 January. Since then, Jongstra had been acting chair. APG manages €534bn of pension assets for several pension funds, including the €459bn civil service scheme ABP.

Jongstra has been a member of APG’s RvC since February 2015. For most of his professional career he has worked at EY. Between 2015 and 2018, he chaired the Dutch professional organisation of accountants (NBA). APG’s RvC also comprises Dick van Well (vice chair), Roger van Boxtel, Maes van Lanschot, Edith Snoeij and Claudia Zuiderwijk.

Aegon – Boaz Magid has been appointed chief financial officer at Aegon Netherlands as of 1 April. He is to succeed Rutger Zomer, who has decided to leave the company after 12 years. Magid is currently chief investment officer at Aegon.

Anke Schlichting, chief technology officer, is to join the executive board and will also take on the role of chief transformation officer. According to Maarten Edixhoven, Aegon’s chief executive officer, she had gained ample experience in complicated technolgical and transformational issues at Accenture, APG and Aegon.

Aegon has also appointed company secretary Annie-Marie Roth as the successor of Maarten van Luijn as director of legal matters. Clim Parre is to succeed Rob Spuijbroek as chief people officer, while Spuibroek is to become Aegon’s global head executive staffing. Aegon has also named Wim Hekstra as chief operating officer for Aegon Netherlands.

The company said the appointments were part of succession planning and talent development. It added that Maarten Edixhoven and Willem Horstman would remain in their positions of CEO and chief risk officer, respectively.

DUFAS – Dick van Ommeren has been appointed as chair of the Dutch Fund and Asset Management Association (DUFAS) as of 1 February. He is managing director of Triodos Investment Management. Van Ommeren will succeed Roelie van Wijk, following her departure as global head of responsible business and public affairs at Aegon AM. Prior to this, Van Wijk was CEO of Aegon subsidiary TKP Investments.

Van Wijk, who chaired DUFAS for two years, is to focus on non-executive board positions, advice and supervisory roles. The association also named Bas NieuweWeme, CEO at Aegon AM, as trustee.

Lombard Odier Investment Managers (LOIM) – The Geneva-headquartered asset manager has hired four sustainability experts to work in its sustainable investment research, strategy and stewardship team.

Kristina Church has joined LOIM as senior investment strategist for sustainable investment from Barclays Capital, where she was global head of future mobility thematic research. In her role at LOIM, Church will focus on research and investment strategy for sustainability across all asset classes and will produce a regular outlook for clients.

Thomas Höhne-Sparborth has left Roskill Consulting Group, where he was director of economics and analytics to join LOIM as senior sustainability analyst. At LOIM, he will focus on the financial and macroeconomic analysis of sustainability challenges and their implications for business models and risk-return dynamics across all industries and geographies.

Ruairidh Cumming has joined as quantitative analyst from Cabot Financial, where he was responsible for developing bespoke pricing models using machine learning tools to inform analysis and build advanced predictive models. Laura García Vélez, an environmental engineer, has also joined as a quantitative analyst. She was previously at the World Wildlife Fund, where she used innovative data science approaches to identify potential emerging human threats in the protected areas network, and to provide advice for the planning and monitoring of different climate change and environmental initiatives.

Capital Cranfield – The trustee services provider has added Jon Millidge, Paul Watson and Richard Hubbard to its team of professional trustees, saying this was in response to continued high demand for its services. Millidge has had responsibility for group pension policy and held a number of senior roles, including group human resources director. Capital Cranfield said he was “a leading light in the campaign for legislation for CDC pensions”.

Watson is a qualified actuary with 20 years of investment consulting experience and joins Capital Cranfield after nine years as a partner at Mercer. Hubbard joins from BP, where he held senior corporate finance and investment roles. He chairs the pension committee of the Church of England Pension Board responsible for three schemes, and he also has trustee experience with BP’s cross-border scheme.

Schroders – The UK listed asset manager has made a series of appointments for its buy and hold credit investment desk. Daire O’Sullivan, Mervin Coutinho and Marco Conti have been appointed as portfolio managers. O’Sullivan was most recently head of liability-driven credit at Aviva Investors, where Coutinho also worked. Conti joins from DWS.

Teodor Stefanov has joined the buy and maintain credit team as a solutions manager, having most recently worked at Axa Investment Managers.

PGB – Jochem Dijckmeester has been appointed as new chair of the €29.5bn Dutch multi-sector pension fund PGB as of 1 February. He is to succeed Ruud Degenhardt, who will stay on as vice chair until the end of the year. Dijckmeester has been trustee for strategic communication at PGB since 2016, and was named vice chair last year. He will focus on the scheme’s future and its relationship with its stakeholders. Dijckmeester has been trustee at the €8.7bn Pensioenfonds UWV.

This year, the PGB board has to fill in several vacancies, including the vacancy of Freek Busweiler, who died last year. In addition, Bert Coenradie and Frans de Haan will step down this year. PGB said Degenhardt will focus on guiding the changes on its board.

BMO Global Asset Management – Nora O’Mahony has been appointed head of product for the EMEA region. The appointment follows BMO GAM’s decision to regionalise its product structure, strengthening its focus on product development in EMEA and North America. O’Mahony has worked for Fidante Partners, Citi and GAM, where she was head of global product and fund Development.

SPP — Johanna Lundgren Gestlöf has been hired by SPP, the Swedish subsidiary of Norwegian financial group Storebrand, as its new sustainability manager. She is joining the firm from her previous job as senior consultant at Nordic management consultancy Qvartz, where she has worked since 2016. SPP said Gestlöf has a background in politics and in disruptive business and strategy development.

Vasakronan — Christian Fredrixon  has been appointed by Sweden’s largest real estate company Vasakronan as its new head of real estate investments. The firm, which is owned jointly by national pension buffer funds AP1, AP2, AP3  and AP4, said he is replacing Johanna Skogesti, who moved up to become its CEO last autumn. Fredrixon joins Vasakronan from Swedish property firm ICA Real Estate where he was head of strategy and investment – a position he has held since 2013. Before that, he was a partner at Munich-based Catella Real Estate. Vasakronan said Fredrixon will become part of its management team, starting work in the new role on 4 May.

Separately, Vasakronan announced that its current head of property development in Stockholm, Anna Nyberg, would now take charge of the overall coordination and completion of the firm’s largest project Sergelhuset. Meanwhile, Jan-Erik Hellman – now regional manager in Uppsala – would take over Nyberg’s role and also take responsibility for the coordination of the company’s project operations in all locations, Vasakronan said.

Barings — MassMutual financial services subsidiary Barings has appointed Thorsten Slytå  as regional head of real estate for Scandinavia and Robbert-Jan van Baal for as head of real estate acquisition for Benelux. Slytå joins from his most recent position as director of the Nordic region at the real estate fund management arm of M&G Investments, M&G Real Estate. Slytå works out of Stockholm.

Van Baal, who is based in the Netherlands, joins Barings from AXA Investment Managers where he was head of asset management for the Netherlands. Barings said both men would now report to its head of European transactions Gunther Deutsch.

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