Aon, Dimensional Fund Advisors, Gabler, Hymans Robertson, LPP, PKH, Schroders, Stapi

Stapi – Ingi Björnsson, chief executive of Icelandic pension fund Stapi, has requested to leave the fund. He will continue working at Stapi until a new chief executive has been appointed, or until an agreement has been made with the pension fund’s board. Stapi said it had begun the process of finding a replacement for Björnsson. 

PKH – Johann Despriée has been appointed as chief risk officer/chief compliance officer at PKH, the Norwegian pension fund for health enterprises in the Oslo metropolitan area. He comes to the pension fund from Lillevold & Partners where he was a partner and chief executive, and was also PKH’s actuary. Despriée has also worked as actuary for the Norsk Hydro pension fund.

Local Pensions Partnership (LPP) – The £12.5bn (€14.5bn) pension services provider has appointed Alan Schofield to its board as a non-executive director, representing Lancashire County Council. Schofield is deputy chair of the council’s pension fund committee, and was closely involved in the work that led to the establishment of the LPP in April 2016. He is one of two shareholder non-executive directors on the LPP board and will serve as a member of the remuneration and nomination committee. Lancashire County Pension Fund was one of LPP’s two local government pension scheme founders.

Gabler – Olav Rune Øverland, chief executive of Norwegian consultancy Gabler, has decided to leave the firm after working there for 17 years. Gabler’s CFO Aksel Bjerkvik has been appointed by the board as chief executive until a permanent replacement for Øverland is in place. The departing chief executive said he had reached a point where he wanted to hand over responsibility to a new leader and reflect on his own future. Chairman of Gabler, Johan Solbu Braaten, said Øverlund had generated both results for the firm and shareholder value. 

Dimensional Fund Advisors – Gerard O’Reilly will become co-chief executive officer alongside Dave Butler as of the last week of September. Eduardo Repetto, who has been serving as co-CEO and co-chief investment officer, will be leaving the Texas-based investment manager that month. He will have been at Dimensional for 17 years. O’Reilly is currently co-CIO and has been with Dimensional since 2004. He will continue as CIO and join the parent company’s board of directors.  

Aon – Lucy Barron has joined the company’s investment consulting team as a partner, coming from AXA IM, where she was head of solutions management. In that role she led the team responsible for working with clients to structure, implement and manage liability driven investment (LDI) solutions. Before this, Barron held client-facing LDI roles with Legal & General and Insight Investment.

Schroders – The asset manager has appointed Stephen Bowles to the newly created position of head of delegated sales, for defined contribution and defined benefit schemes. He will have responsibility for the distribution of the firm’s growing fiduciary management services. In connection with Bowles’ appointment, Tim Horne has been promoted to head of UK defined contribution. Horne joined Schroders in 2011 from what was then Towers Watson. 

Hymans Robertson – The actuarial and advisory consultancy has appointed Richard Purcell to the role of technical and innovation lead within its life and financial services practice. In this role, he will be driving product innovation services for life insurers. He joins from Vitality, and previously held risk and valuation roles at Pensions Corporation and Willis Towers Watson. Purcell is also editor of The Actuary, the magazine of the Institute & Faculty of Actuaries.

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