Aviva, Man Numeric, B&CE, The People’s Pension, PDN, Banden en Wielen, Blue Sky Group, Northern Trust Asset Management, LGIM, MFS, Lincoln Pensions, Kames Capital, Salvus, KPS, ShareAction, Unigestion, BNP Paribas

Aviva – Mark Wilson has stepped down as chief executive officer of UK insurance company Aviva after five years in the position. He will remain with the company until April next year to assist with the transition to a new CEO, the company told the stock market earlier this week.

In the statement, Aviva said Wilson had been specifically brought in to “deliver the turnaround” of the company. “The board and Mark believe that given the turnaround has been successfully completed, it is time for new leadership to take the group to the next phase of its development,” the statement said.

Aviva’s non-executive chairman Sir Adrian Montague will take over Wilson’s responsibilities in the interim as the board begins the search for a permanent CEO.

Wilson oversaw a streamlining of Aviva’s offerings, halving the number of markets it operated in. He said: “I have achieved what I wanted to achieve and now it’s time for me to move on to new things. It has been an honour to lead Aviva through this period of immense change. I am happy I leave the company in a strong position from which it can thrive.”

Man Numeric – The quant arm of listed asset manager Man Group has hired Robert Lam as co-head of credit, alongside Paul Kamenski, to lead and build out the group’s newly launched credit business. 

Lam was previously in charge of quantitative research for credit at Apollo Global Management. He has also worked at New York-based boutique Incapture Investments and Deutsche Bank.

Kaminski joined Man Numeric in 2012 and was most recently a senior quantitative researcher in the firm’s strategic alpha research group. He began leading the firm’s research in fixed income and corporate bonds in 2017.  

Kamenski said: “A portion of our credit models use the valuation and information flow signals we’ve been trading in our equity strategies for many years, while also employing an entirely new set of fixed income specific data sources and signals.”

Lam added: “The industry as a whole is still in the early days of quantitative credit investing, which we believe creates a potential advantage for those with existing data proficiency and a differentiated systematic approach.”

B&CE/People’s Pension – B&CE, provider of The People’s Pension auto-enrolment master trust, has appointed Tim Gosling as head of pensions policy. He joins from the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association, the UK pensions industry trade body, where he was defined contribution policy lead since 2015.

Gosling replaces Andy Tarrant, formerly head of policy and government relations at B&CE. Tarrant has stepped back from his full-time role but will continue to work on “special projects”, B&CE said.

The non-profit group hired former Labour pensions spokesman Gregg McClymont earlier this year as director of policy and external affairs.

PDN – The €7bn Pensioenfonds DSM Nederland (PDN) has appointed Marlies van Boom as a board member, succeeding Roel Mesters. Van Boom has also taken over as chair of the scheme’s investment and financial risk management committees. She is also a member of the supervisory board of the €8.6bn pension fund of steelworks Hoogovens and the investment committee of the €9.9bn scheme for the hospitality industry, Horeca & Catering.

Banden en Wielen – Selma Smit has started as independent chair of the €667m Dutch pension fund for the wheels and tyres sector (Banden en Wielen). Currently, she is a partner at consultancy GPSS and has supervisory positions at the pension funds for the window pane industry (Vlakglas), the accountancy sector, and Dutch chemicals company Chemours.

Blue Sky Group – The €22bn Dutch asset manager Blue Sky Group has appointed Hilko de Brouwer as head of account management. De Brouwer has previously worked worked at ABN Amro, Kempen and Robeco in various investment and customer service roles.

Blue Sky Group said that, with the appointment of De Brouwer, its management team is fully staffed again. Last year, it named Jack Jonk as chief investment officer , while Rob Brand and Pieter Westland have started as head of portolio management and head of investment strategy, respectively.

Northern Trust Asset Management – Wouter Sturkenboom has joined the $900bn (€780bn) asset management group as chief investment strategist for its Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and Asia Pacific regions. In this newly created role, Sturkenboom will be responsible for designing, implementing and communicating global investment strategy to clients. He was previously a senior investment strategist at Russell Investments, and held a similar role at Kempen Capital Management before that.

His appointment follows that of Marie Dzanis, who joined in July as head of Northern Trust Asset Management’s business for EMEA.

Legal & General Investment Management – LGIM has appointed Richard Lee as chief financial officer. He was previously group performance director for Legal & General, LGIM’s parent company. He has held a number of senior positions with the financial services giant since joining in 1997, including CFO and chief risk officer for Legal & General Retirement.

MFS Investment Management – Madeline Forrester has been promoted to head of global consultant relations and joined MFS’ senior institutional leadership team. She was previously head of the company’s UK institutional business.

Forrester has worked at MFS since 2014, and was previously head of AXA Investment Managers’ UK institutional arm. She also held senior UK and global distribution roles during a 16-year tenure at Threadneedle Asset Management.

James Lindsay , previously director of UK and Ireland institutional at the asset manager, will take on Forrester’s UK sales responsibilities and become head of UK sales.

Lincoln Pensions – The UK covenant adviser has appointed Fiona Page to its advisory board. Page has spearheaded several technological developments in the UK and US markets, including RiskFirst, formerly PensionsFirst, which provides risk analytics to pension providers. She also designed PFaroe a pensions analytics and reporting system widely used in the UK.

Page has also run her own consultancy and was a founding partner of asset management firm Quadrant Capital, which become part of the Bank of New York in 2002. 

Darren Redmayne, CEO of Lincoln Pensions, said: “Technology is driving innovation in all areas of professional services and covenant advice is no exception. Lincoln Pensions has a strong track-record of innovation in the covenant marketplace and we see even greater adoption of technology bringing more sophisticated covenant risk management services to our clients. Fiona’s experience will strengthen our approach in this area and we look forward to welcoming her to the team.”

Kames Capital – The Edinburgh-based asset manager has hired Peter Gibson as senior consultant relations manager. Prior to a brief spell at UK boutique Artemis Investemnt Management, he worked at William Blair, and M&G Investments. Kames Capital is the UK branch of Aegon Asset Management.

Salvus Master Trust – The £150m (€171.7m) UK defined contribution master trust has hired Bill Finch as head of sales. He joins from B&CE, provider of rival master trust The People’s Pension, he was responsible for managing the firm’s relationships with payroll software and service providers. He has also worked at Aegon Scottish Equitable and Friends Provident.

At Salvus, one of his first responsibilities will be to lead the company’s authorisation team as it seeks permission from the UK’s Pensions Regulator (TPR) to continue operating as an auto-enrolment defined contribution provider. TPR introduced its authorisation regime at the start of this month.

Kring van Pensioenspecialisten – Edwin Schop has been elected treasurer of the Dutch association of pension specialists, Kring van Pensioenspecialisten, succeeding Tim Zuiderman. Schop is to focus on legal matters. The current board comprises Hedwig Peters (chair), Fokko Covers (vice chair), Gerard van ’t Hoff, Alfred Kool, Adriaan Smits, Henk-Jan Strang and Mark Verschuren.

ShareAction – Paul Dickinson, founder and executive chair of CDP, a charity running an environmental impact disclosure system, is to become chair of the responsible investment campaign organisation, replacing Emma Howard Boyd. Dickinson has served on ShareAction’s board for four years, and Howard Boyd will continue to serve on the board.

ShareAction said Dickinson’s experience of growing CDP was a good fit for its “ambitious and dynamic plans, as the responsible investment charity looks to expand its work deeper into Europe and beyond”. It will shortly be launching a search for two new trustees to facilitate its plans to expand the reach of its campaigns. 

Unigestion – The $24.9bn Swiss investment house has appointed Didier Anthamatten and Nicolas Poignant to its equity derivatives team. Anthamatten joined earlier this year from Pictet where he was head of equity derivatives trading. At Unigestion he is a senior investment manager. Poignant has been promoted to assistant investment manager, having joined in 2015 as a quantitative analyst.

BNP Paribas – The multi-asset and quantitative solutions team of BNP Paribas Asset Management in Amsterdam has been extended with the appointment of Mark van den Berg as senior solutions designer. Van den Berg joined from Actiam where he gained experience with risk and portfolio management over the past seven years. The company also extended its Dutch sales team with Simone Kamies as business development manager. She joined from Van Lanschot Kempen, where she has focused on Dutch retail investors since 2016.

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