PensionsEurope, European Parliament, ACPR, Angelo Gordon, MAN Group, Aviva Investors, Comac Capital, Capital Cranfield, Northern Trust, JP Morgan, State Street, MSCI, Standard Life, SEI Investments

PensionsEuropePekka Eskola has joined the European industry group as economic adviser. Eskola joins from the European Parliament, where he spent nearly nine years as economic and policy adviser to its vice-president and other MEPs on matters of economic governance and social protection. He replaces Thomas Montcourrier, who left PensionsEurope in October after four years to join ACPR, the French Prudential supervisory authority. The association last week announced that the managing director of Shell’s Dutch pension fund, Janwillem Bouma, had been elected as its chairman, replacing Joanne Segars.

Angelo, Gordon & Co Jenny Morton has been named head of consultant relations, joining the alternative investment manager from MAN Group. At Man, she was global head of consultant relations and has held similar roles at Putman, Fidelity International and Boston Partners Asset Management.

Aviva InvestorsMichael Grady has been named senior economist and strategist, joining from Comac Capital. Grady, who will be based in London, has previously worked for the Bank of England, where he was senior manager in the markets directorate.

Capital Cranfield TrusteesMartin Flavell and Stella Girvin have joined the independent trustee company as client directors. Flavell has previously worked at BAE Systems, Plessy and GEC-Marconi but joins from Italian tech company Finmeccania, where he was UK head of human resources. Girvin spent 14 years with Travis Perkins as pensions manager and, more recently, head of compliance and standards before her move. She began her career at Mercer and in May was appointed to the board of the Standard Life Master Trust. 

Northern TrustBo Thulin has been named head of the custodian bank’s Nordic business, joining from JP Morgan. Thulin was previously JP Morgan’s head of investor services for Sweden and Norway but will expand his remit into Finland and Denmark as part of the new role, where he will report to the head of institutional investor group EMEA Penelope Briggs.

State Street Global AdvisorsAltaf Kassam has been named head of EMEA investment strategy and research. He joins from MSCI but has also worked at UBS Investment Bank, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs.

Standard Life InvestmentsPeter in de Rijp has been named investment director for the Benelux. In this newly created position, he is to focus on business development, working with the company’s Dutch investment director Johan Langerak. In de Rijp joins from SEI Investments, where he was managing director of client services, joining in 2006 as managing director of sales for the Netherlands. Prior to this, In de Rijp was senior account manager at Fortis Investments and account manager at AMEV Pension Fund Services.