Border to Coast, William Blair, Hymans Robertson, Finanstilsynet, CEM Benchmarking, Achmea, Tabula, Ahold, BNP Paribas

Border to Coast Pensions Partnership – The partnership has appointed three new members of its board – Andrew November, John Holtby and Jeffrey Watson. Two existing non-executive directors, Enid Rowlands and Sue Ellis, have also announced their decision to retire from the board.

Doug McMurdo, chair of the Border to Coast joint committee and of Bedfordshire Pension Fund, said, “These appointments demonstrate the ongoing close connection between Border to Coast and its 12 local government owners as it delivers on its purpose to deliver sustainable investment returns.”

The board will be comprised of three women and four men, with one vacancy left to fill.

William Blair Investment Management – Johnny Chen has joined the firm’s emerging markets debt (EMD) team as a portfolio manager. He joins from NN Investment Partners, where he was a portfolio manager responsible for Asian rates and currencies for the company’s pan-Asian and global emerging market debt portfolios. He previously worked at ING Investment Management.

In his new role, Chen will focus on Asian sovereign debt markets. The appointment further strengthens William Blair’s emerging markets debt investment capabilities, and follows the appointment of a specialist EMD team, led by Marcelo Assalin and Marco Ruijer in January 2020, from NN IP.

Hymans Robertson – The pensions and financial services consultancy has promoted William Chan to lead its DC investment consulting. He joined Hymans Robertson in 2015 after more than 10 years as an investment consultant at JANA Investment Advisers and MLC Implemented Consulting in Australia.

In his new role, he will lead Hymans Robertson’s DC investment proposition, portfolio construction and implementation for a broad range of DC clients and under a diverse range of governance models.

Over the past three years, Chan has led the DC research area at Hymans Robertson where he has focused his time on researching DGFs, multi-factor equities, ESG funds and pre and post-retirement solutions in the DC marketplace.

Chan has also joined the newly formed Pension Advice Taskforce set up by the Personal Finance Society.

Danish FSA (Finanstilsynet) — Sean Hove, currently an assistant director of the Danish FSA (Finanstilsynet) has been appointed as the new head of the regulator’s office for investor protection. The FSA said Hove had been in charge of its office for the supervision of medium-sized banks since 2012 and is now taking on this change in responsibilities.

Hove has previously worked as a special consultant for Danmarks Nationalbank, the Danish central bank, and the Ministry of Finance. The FSA said he will start work in the new role in mid-March.

CEM Benchmarking (CEM) – The company has expanded its UK team with the appointment of Rhijuta Dahal and Joao Barata as investment analysts and David Jennings as a client relationship manager. Dahal and Barata will deliver high quality cost and performance benchmarking analysis, while Jennings will manage an ever expanding portfolio of CEM’s UK and European clients.

John Simmonds, principal, said: “The growing need for UK trustees to better understand their costs and generate value for money for their members has significantly increased demand for our peer group analysis and insight. To support this and our continued growth in the UK and Europe, we have moved into a new UK office and bolstered the existing UK-based team with more experts.”

Dahal joins from Mercer’s manager research team and Barata was previously an investment analyst at LCP and Mercer. Jennings spent the last 12 years at Lazard Asset Management, managing a range of UK and European pension scheme clients.

Achmea – Katharina Maass has been named as fund manager of Achmea’s Innovation Fund as of 1 March. She joins from ING Group, where she worked since 2008. She started as principal investment manager and leaves as senior program manager and lead partnerships global advanced analyst.

Prior to ING, Maass worked as investment manager at NIBC Bank. She started her career as strategy consultant at McKinsey.

The Achmea Innovation Fund started on 1 October and focuses on fast growing startups in fintech and insurtech aimed at health, mobility, living, undertaking and financial wellbeing.

Tabula Investment Management – The fixed income ETF provider has appointed Jason Smith to the newly created role of chief investment officer. He was most recently a senior portfolio manager at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, where he was focused on a variety of fixed income portfolios including rates, inflation, LDI and secured finance. Previously, he was head of portfolio management for the absolute return funds at Barclays Capital.

Ahold Pensioenfonds – Sylvia van de Kamp has been appointed as a member of the investment committee of the €5.8bn Ahold Pensioenfonds. Van de Kamp is head of external strategy management at APG Asset Management. She is also a member of the investment committees of the €18.8bn Dutch railways scheme SPF and SPOV, the €4.5bn pension fund for public transport.

BNP Paribas AM – Hessel van Beijma has started as senior manager for client relations at BNP Paribas Asset Management. He has more than 20 years of experience in asset management, accrued by several employers including BlackRock. Van Beijma started his career as account manager and risk consultant at Sedgwick (Marsh McLennan) in 1994.

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