People moves: André Tapernoux exits Mercer’s Swiss business

Keller Pensionskassenexperten, AP3, VFPK, Lazard Fund Managers, Jupiter Asset Management, State Street, Vanguard, JO Hambro Capital Management

Keller Pensionskassenexperten – André Tapernoux, the former head of risk management at Switzerland’s pension regulator, has left Mercer to join Keller Pensionskassenexperten, a local pensions consultancy. Tapernoux will join Keller, a family business, at the beginning of September as one of four partners.

An actuary, Tapernoux was head of risk management at the Oberaufsichtskommission Berufliche Vorsorge (OAK) from 2012 until January 2015, after which he moved to Mercer to lead its local retirement business. 

Tapernoux spoke to IPE in 2016 about the pressures facing Swiss pension funds from liability management and regulatory change.

AP3 – The SEK353.1bn (€33.6bn) Swedish state pension buffer fund has appointed Mattias Bylund as chief operating officer. He was previously chief financial officer and chief risk officer, and has worked for AP3 for 16 years in a number of investment and operations roles.

Verband der Firmenpensionskassen (VFPK) – Hubert Stücke, managing director of the €1.1bn Pensionskasse for Nestlé Deutschland, has been elected to the board of the association of German corporate pension plans. With his appointment, the VFPK board is back to the four members it counted before the death of Peter Hadasch, one of the founders of the association, in October last year.

Stücke has spent his entire career at Nestlé in Germany. He was chief financial officer of Nestlé Deutschland from 2007 until 2017 and since the beginning of this year he has been the board member responsible for business and corporate development. He has been on the board of Nestlé’s pension schemes since 2007.

VFPK noted that as CFO of Nestlé Germany, Stücke was actively involved in political discussion on issues surrounding Pensionskassen, and that he was very familiar with occupational pension topics.   

Lazard – The $238bn asset manager has hired Stephan Heitz as a managing director and head of Lazard Fund Managers. He takes on responsibility for retail and institutional distribution in Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium and Luxembourg, from the company’s office in Zurich. Heitz was previously head of continental Europe for AXA Investment Managers, where he worked for nine years. He was CEO of Swiss Life Asset Managers between 2001 and 2008.

Jupiter – The UK-listed fund manager has hired Paul van Olst as head of Netherlands as it seeks to build its international presence. Van Olst is based in the company’s new office in Eindhoven and will be responsible for building a distribution team for the country. He joins from Fidelity International where he worked for 15 years in various sales management roles in the Netherlands and Benelux, most recently as head of distribution for the Netherlands.

Jupiter has also hired William Lopez from Columbia Threadneedle as head of Latin America and US offshore, as well as Nick Anderson from BlackRock as a senior adviser on the Middle East and Africa.

State Street – Jörg Ambrosius and Mike Fontaine have been appointed co-heads of global services for State Street in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

Ambrosius was previously head of sector solutions for EMEA and is based in Munich. He joined State Street in 2001, having started his career with Deutsche Bank. Fontaine was previously executive vice president of US investor services, and has relocated to Dublin for his new role. He joined State Street in 2007 as part of the company’s acquisition of Investors Financial Services Corporation.

Vanguard – The passive investment giant has hired Paul Young as European senior exchange-traded fund (ETF) capital markets specialist. In his new role he is responsible for supporting the liquidity of Vanguard’s products. He was previously head of ETF capital markets for EMEA at State Street Global Advisors. He has also worked at UK wealth manager St James’s Place and Morgan Stanley Investment Management.

JO Hambro Capital Management – Ken Lambden has left JOHCM after less than two years as chief executive. Emilio Gonzalez, chief executive of JOHCM’s Australian parent company Pendal Group, has temporarily relocated from Sydney to London to fill in while a search gets underway for a permanent replacement.

Before joining JOHCM in October 2016, Lambden was chief investment officer at Barings Asset Management, and previously worked at Schroders for 15 years, including spells as CEO for Australia and global head of equities.