People Moves: LPPs Pardo Exits; PensioenFederatie Names Brussels Chief

Local Pensions Partnership, Pensions Federation, Fondo Pensione Priamo, Wells Fargo Asset Management, PGIM, Universal-Investment, Schroders, Polar Capital, Alpha FMC, SimCorp

Local Pensions Partnership (LPP) – Pedro Pardo has left his role as investment manager at LPP, the £15.2bn (€17.1bn) collaboration between three Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) funds. He joined last year following the Berkshire Pension Fund’s formal agreement to join LPP.

Pardo was at Berkshire for eight years, supporting pension fund manager Nick Greenwood in overseeing the LGPS fund’s assets, which totalled £2.1bn as of 31 March 2018. Prior to joining Berkshire in 2010, he worked at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development for 11 years.

Pardo told IPE he planned to take some time off “while reassessing my next steps”.

Pensions Federation – Theo Langejan has started as director of the Brussels office of the Dutch Pensions Federation as of 1 June. He succeeds Sibylle Reichert, who has been appointed executive director of the Association International de la Mutualité in Brussels, an industry organisation for healthcare insurers.

Langejan has been an adviser to the Pensions Federation since 2017. Prior to this, he was a senior adviser at consultancy firm Twynstra Gudde and the Dutch ministry of foreign affairs.

Reichert has represented the Pensions Federation in Brussels for the past 10 years. She chaired the committee on occupational pensions of the European Association of Paritary Institutions for Social Protection (AEIP), and was active in a number of PensionsEurope’s working groups.

Fondo Pensione Priamo – Nicola Settimo has been appointed as chair and Matteo Colamussi as deputy chair of the supervisory board of Italy’s Fondo Pensione Priamo, the second-pillar pension fund for public transport sector employees.

Settimo takes over from the previous chair Mario Rocco Carlomagno while Colamussi, who was already a member of the fund’s supervisory board, replaces the previous deputy chair, Laura Moscetti.

Changes to the composition of the supervisory board are made every three years by the fund’s assembly of delegates, with half being elected by the employees’ union and the other half by the association of employers. Settimo currently works for the Italian Labour Union as a manager responsible for rail and local public transport complementary pension policies, while Colamussi is general manager of southern Italian road and rail firm Ferrovie Appulo Lucane.

Wells Fargo Asset Management (WFAM) – Nico Marais has been appointed sole chief executive officer and head of the €415.6m asset manager, replacing Kristi Mitchem, who left WFAM in January to become CEO of BMO Global Asset Management.

Marais recently shared the CEO role at WFAM with Kirk Hartman. The asset manager said Hartman will continue to serve as chief investment officer and take on the additional role of president of WFAM. 

Marais has been at WFAM since February 2017, having previously been head of multi-asset investments and portfolio solutions at Schroders. Hartman joined WFAM in 2002.

PGIM – Cameron Lochhead has been named global head of PGIM’s institutional relationship group. Based in Newark, New Jersey, he will lead a team with representatives in Chicago, London, Munich, Singapore and Sydney, with plans to expand into Shanghai later this year.

Lochhead joined Prudential Financial’s €1.2bn investment management business in 2016 as managing director. Before that he held senior roles at Russell Investments and was a partner at Guggenheim Partners in New York. 

Universal-Investment – The €36bn asset manager has appointed Daniel Andemeskel as head of innovation management, a newly created role. He joins from AXA Investment Managers in Paris, where he held a similar role.

Andemeskel has been tasked with developing “new business models” and improving client service quality, Universal said. As part of this role, he will assess how the group can use artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain technology, digital assets and big data. 

CEO Michael Reinhard said: “It is precisely these skills that Universal-Investment needs to achieve our goals and remain one of the innovation drivers in the fund industry.”

The German asset manager and investment platform aims to become the “leading European fund service platform for all asset classes” by 2023.

Schroders – The UK-listed asset manager has hired Lisa Stuart as a client director to work with its UK institutional clients. Stuart joins from BlueBay Asset Management. Before that she was a consultant relations manager at BlueCrest Capital Management.

Polar Capital  – The £13.8bn asset management group has appointed Gerard Cawley as head of its Japan investment team, replacing James Salter who has decided to take a break from the industry. Cawley has worked alongside Salter since joining Polar Capital in 2005 as a fund manager in the Japan team, and has been lead manager of the Polar Capital Japan Value fund since its launch in 2012. 

Alpha FMC – The investment consultant has hired benchmarking expert Emma Haffenden as a senior manager to broaden the types of benchmarking that Alpha currently undertakes. Haffenden was previously at Accenture where she was responsible for a number of strategic asset management benchmark programmes, following their acquisition of Investit in 2017. Alpha said the expansion of its benchmarking practice represented “a key milestone” in its expansion strategy. 

SimCorp – Christian Kromann has been appointed chief operating officer, a new position within the company. Kromann will take up the position on 1 August, joining from TIA Technology, where he was CEO. SimCorp provides technology and software to asset managers, institutional investors and consultants, including PenSam, Nordea, Willis Towers Watson, Universal-Investment, Storebrand and Groupama.