UK- Sue Applegarth has taken over from Geoff Henry as managing director of the specialist pensions administrator, Merchant Navy Pensions Administration (MNPA).

Henry, who held the position for seven years, will meanwhile remain as chief executive of the £3bn Merchant Navy Officers Pension fund (MNOPF), owner of the administrator.

Says Henry: “we have achieved our aim to establish MNPA as a quality third party administrator. It is now time for me to step away and let the new management team take the business forward,” he says.

Applegarth joined at the beginning of last year as development director and a potential successor to Henry who announced he was retiring this year.

Before joining MNPA, Applegarth spent over 20 years with Aon Consulting and ended up as head of business development with special responsibility for administration outsourcing.

When the Merchant Navy scheme launched over sixty years ago, the trustees decided to run the administration themselves and so created a dedicated team. In 1998 they decided to market the specialist administration skills to third party clients via MPNA.

Its initial brief was to generate a little extra income by providing administration for schemes with up to 5,000 members. Since 1995, the brief has been extended to cover schemes with up to 20,000 members.

MNPA has also recruited Mary Wratten as HR director, a role that was recently elevated to board level. Last month Sarah Sex joined as operations director from Mercer Human Resource Consulting’s pensions administration practice.

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