Jerry Gandhi, former COO at the UK’s Now Pensions, has been hired by French energy firm Schneider Electric to oversee its UK and Irish pension activities.

Gandhi, who stood down as Now’s COO last summer, will now be in charge of the Invensys Pension Scheme, he told IPE.

The fund saw part of its sponsor company sold to Siemens in 2012, resulting in the launch of a £225m (€284m) trust to make deficit payments in place of an insolvency event being triggered by the sale.

Prior to joining Now in 2011, Gandhi was group pensions director at RSA Insurance Group and in 1999 founded consultancy CAP Services.

He also spent nearly a decade at Inchcape as group pensions director.

In his new role as pensions manager for the UK and Ireland, he will be in charge of company pensions for employees in the region.

Following the sale of the Invensys rail business to Siemens in 2012, the company was acquired by Schneider.

The new scheme sponsor said earlier this year it had offered to guarantee £1.75bn worth of scheme obligations.

The agreement also saw the proceeds from the Reservoir Trust split evenly between fund and sponsor.

As of September last year, the fund had an IAS 19 surplus of £306m.

Invensys former chief executive, Robin Claessens, recently joined consultancy Redington as a managing director.