300 Club – Pascal Blanqué, global chief investment officer at Amundi, has become a member of the 300 Club, a group of top investment professionals who collectively aim to challenge mainstream investment practice by speaking out publicly. Blanqué is the 17th member of the club, after Jan Straatman, global CIO at Lombard Odier Investment Managers joined last month.

Aviva Investors –  Christian Taphoorn has been named senior client relationship manager for Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg (Benelux). He is responsible for client relations with institutional and wholesale clients, and reports to Catrinus van Willigen, Aviva’s managing director for Benelux. Taphoorn joins from BlackRock, where he has held a similar position since 2012. Earlier, he worked for PingProperties, developer of Dutch real estate funds, and commercial property investor DTZ Zadelhoff.

Confluence — Katie Kiss has been appointed director of performance analytics at financial reporting data firm Confluence, to work in its London office. She was previously global solution manager for performance at SS&C Technologies, and before that, UK head of performance at UBS Global Asset Management. Kiss will report directly to Philippe Grégoire, managing director of performance analytics at the company.

Danica Pension — Lars Ellehave-Andersen has been hired by Danica Pension, and will be spending his first year at the group as interim head of Danica Pension in Norway. On August 1, 2016, he will start work as the new commercial director of the Danica group in Denmark, becoming a member of its board. Ellehave-Andersen recently left pension provider PFA, having been its chief commercial officer.

Lombard Odier Investment Managers — Gregor Gawron is joining Lombard Odier Investment Managers (LOIM) to head up its new catastrophe (CAT) bond and insurance-linked strategies (ILS) team. He was most recently at Dynapartners in Zurich. LOIM is also hiring Simon Vuille and Marc Brogli to complete the three-person team. Vuille joins LOIM after working at a single family office, while Brogli, like Gawron, was working at Dynapartners. The new ILS team will be based in LOIM’s Zurich office, reporting to Jan Straatman, LOIM’s CIO.

Nordea Asset Management — Mark Lovett is joining Nordea Asset Management as its equity CIO, to be based in Copenhagen. He will take over from Christian Hyldahl, head of Nordea Asset Management, who has been covering the equities role during the recruitment process. Lovett comes to the Nordea group subsidiary from Ignis Asset Management in the UK, where he was head of equities and deputy chief investment officer. Before that, he was co-CIO for European equities at Allianz Global Investors, and a member of the European management group responsible for the firm’s equity platform.

Royal London Asset Management – Steve Webb has joined as director of policy and external communications. Webb was most recently the UK’s pensions minister, but also worked at the Institute for Fiscal Studies at as a professor of social policy at Bath University. 

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