Publica, one of Switzerland’s largest pension schemes with CHF40.5bn (€43.5bn) in total assets, has appointed Sandro Doudin, the current head of the investment strategy development team at Versorgungsanstalt des Bundes und der Länder (VBL), Germany’s supplementary pension provider for public sector employees, as the new chief investment officer.

Doudin will take over as head of asset management and member of the Publica’s management board on 1 July 2025, the scheme announced.

He succeeds Stefan Beiner, who will leave Publica at the end of February to join consultancy c-alm.

The new CIO is an expert in pension investments, currently responsible at VBL for investment strategy, capital investment, and sustainability.

VBL is the largest supplementary pension fund for the public sector in Germany, with around €60bn in total assets and more than six million members.

The team Doudin leads at VBL is responsible for designing the asset and liability management (ALM) strategy and strategic asset allocation, the fund’s responsible investment strategy, for selecting and regularly monitoring asset managers, and for managing investment projects and driving the scheme’s business strategy, according to his LinkedIn account.

“Sandro Doudin convinced us, particularly with his profound knowledge of defining investment strategies and asset-liability management processes,” said Doris Bianchi, Publica’s director.

Prior to joining VBL, Doudin served as pension investment manager at Zurich Insurance, overseeing the implementation and monitoring of investment and de-risking strategies for pension plans globally, with assets totalling $25bn.

Doudin joins Publica while the scheme is implementing the investment strategy that Beiner helped design, which consists of increasing its allocation to equity and real estate, reducing fixed income and emerging market debt investments, and investing in infrastructure private equity for the first time.

Publica recently launched a new programme to invest €1bn in infrastructure in partnership with the Pensionskasse of the city of Zurich (PKZH), Credit Suisse Pensionskasse, Aargauische Pensionskasse (APK), the pension fund for the employees of the canton of Aargau, and APG.

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Luigi is IPE's Berlin-based DACH correspondent. His coverage includes regulation and the latest pensions and investments trends, and, being a native Italian, he also covers Italy’s pensions market. He has reported from Italy and Germany on international politics and business for European and US publications including USA Today, Bloomberg BNA and for the investigative magazine L’Espresso. He was previously Germany correspondent for Mergermarket covering M&A.View full Profile

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