GIIN, PGGM, Länsförsäkringar, BayernInvest, ITS, IPD, JPMAM, ICG, NGFS, SEI, BNP Paribas Asset Management
Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) – Eloy Lindeijer, the former chief investment officer for the €252bn Dutch pension asset manager PGGM, has joined the board of the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN). The GIIN is a non-profit organisation dedicated to increasing the scale and effectiveness of impact investing.
During his tenure at PGGM, which Lindeijer left in October 2020, he spearheaded efforts to increase impact investments in healthcare, climate, food security and clean water to €20bn by 2020, a target which was eventually missed by several billion euros.
Lindeijer said he wanted to contribute to “creating a chain reaction” in his new role. He said: “It’s about measuring impact on people and the planet, accelerating partnerships and best practices. As board member I will strive to strengthen collaboration between stakeholders – in particular, between asset owners and their asset managers – and contribute towards global sustainability standards, as the GIIN expands its membership and programs.”
Länsförsäkringar – Fanny Wallér, current head of Länsförsäkringar’s communication and sustainability department, is leaving the company. The news came as the Swedish pensions and insurance group announced it was splitting its communication and sustainability operations into two separate departments. The firm said it was aiming to increase the focus on sustainability.
Länsförsäkringar said it had recruited Lena Hedlund to the newly-created role of communications manager, and that chief economist Alexandra Stråberg would head up the new sustainability department.
Hedlund has worked as the firm’s information manager for nearly four years, having been a consultant in the department since 2015. In 2011-2012 she was head of communications at Alecta.
Länsförsäkringar said this organisational change would come into effect from the turn of the year, when Wallér is set to leave the company. In a post on LinkedIn, Wallér said she would be moving on to “new challenges,” but did not yet know what to expect.
BayernInvest – The German asset management firm has appointed Daniel Kerbach as its new CIO, effective 1 December. In his new role, Kerbach will be responsible for investment management, ESG strategies and mandates. He succeeds Arnd Sieben, who will focus on the management of institutional portfolios. He will concentrate on expanding the offer of services in the newly created Multi Asset & Pensions division.
Kerbach served as CIO at Merck Finck Privatbankiers from 2017. Prior to that, he was deputy CIO and head of asset management at Bank Julius Baer in Zurich. He also worked at LGT Capital Management, Winterthur Asset Management and Pioneer Investments.
Independent Trustee Services (ITS) – The firm has appointed Sarah Horan as a director, as the company continues to deliver on its ambitious growth plans by further expanding its presence in the north-west of England. Horan, who will be based in Manchester, has more than 30 years’ experience in the pensions industry, having worked most recently as head of trustee services at the £11bn Co-op scheme.
Her other previous roles include stints at Mercer and KMPG, and she has extensive experience of major corporate and scheme transactions, funding, covenant and investment, as well as trustee compliance, governance and supplier management.
Horan’s appointment marks ITS’s seventh major hire of 2020, with other recent appointments including John Lovell as director of governance services, as well as Akash Rooprai and Tegs Harding as trustee directors.
Insurance & Pension Denmark (IPD) – Louise Lange Thomsen has been appointed as the new head of the executive secretariat, human resources and internal services for Danish pensions and insurance lobby group Insurance &Pensions Denmark (IPD). She currently works for the industry association as chief consultant, having been on IPD’s staff for 13 years.
IPD said Lange Thomsen would now become part of its management team, taking part in meetings of its executive board and board of directors.
Prior to working at IPD, she was a development consultant for Denmark’s Ministry of Economic and Business Affairs, now the Ministry of Business and Growth. IPD said she would start work in her new role immediately under the title of deputy director.
JP Morgan Asset Management (JPMAM) – The asset manager has appointed Paolo Gazzola as an executive director. He joins JPMAM’s Global Fixed Income, Currency & Commodities (GFICC) business as an insurance and pensions fixed income investment specialist. He starts with immediate effect.
Gazzola joins from BlackRock where he was a director and senior product strategist across a range of fixed income products, including coverage of €/£ core investment grade, and served as an insurance client portfolio manager and sales team liaison. Prior to this he was a senior an account manager for PIMCO’s financial institutions group, where he managed life, P&C and re-insurance clients in Italy and the UK.
Grantham Research Institute – Professor Sam Fankhauser, the institute’s director, will be leaving in March 2021 to join the Oxford Net-Zero Initiative at the University of Oxford. He joined the Institute when it was launched in November 2008 and has been director since May 2011. He is also co-director of the ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy and principal investigator for the Place-based Climate Action Network.
Intermediate Capital Group (ICG) – The global alternative asset manager has hired Francesco Girino as head of marketing and client relations for Italy. He has joined ICG from BlueBay Asset Management, where he worked for six years, most recently as sales director of Italy. Prior to that, he worked as an associate director at Russell Investments. Earlier in his career he worked for several years at UBS.
At ICG Girino’s role will be to broaden client relationships in his local market. His appointment is part of a wider focus for ICG on Italy: in September ICG announced the opening of a dedicated investment office in Milan enabling Luigi Bartone, head of ICG Italy, and his team to work more closely with new and existing portfolio companies. ICG already has a number of local investments including DOC Generici, one of Italy’s largest independent generic pharmaceutical companies.
Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) – The NGFS has expanded its steering committee to include the following three new members: Bank of Canada, Bank Negara Malaysia and the Financial Services Agency of Japan. The three are appointed for a two-year term, starting 18 November.
Six new members have joined the Network over the last two months: National Bank of Romania, Central Bank of Seychelles, Commission de Contrôle des Activités Financières (Monaco), Bank of Slovenia, Bank of Israel and IVASS, the Italian Institute for the Supervision of Insurance. The NGFS now has 75 members and 13 observers from five continents.
SEI – Wasil Mohar has been appointed as a client strategy director for SEI’s UK Institutional Group. He joins SEI from Willis Towers Watson, where he spent the past 14 years in their actuarial and investment practices. Mohar is a qualified actuary.
SEI is one of the first and largest global providers of outsourced investment management services. It recently launched ’Enhanced CIO’, a new package of services aimed at supporting large institutional investors that have made a strategic decision to insource investment management.
BNP Paribas Asset Management – The asset manager has a new US leadership team in Johanna Lasker and Amanda Raynor, CEO of BNPP AM USA and deputy CEO, respectively, with effect from 1 January 2021.
Lasker will assume her new role alongside her current responsibilities as the head of the Official Institutions Group. She replaces Daniel Klein, who will be returning to Europe. Raynor also assumes her new role on top of that as COO of BNPP AM USA.
Lasker joined the New York office of Fischer Francis Trees & Watts, a predecessor of BNP Paribas Asset Management, in 1997. Raynor has been with BNPP AM since it acquired Fortis, which she had joined in 2002 from Harbor Capital Management in Boston.
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