AkademikerPension, AllianzGI, Gresham House Ventures, IPCC, Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, J O Hambro Capital Management (JOHCM) and People’s Partnership, Swedish Pensions Agency, SH Pension
AkademikerPension – Dan Wejse, a former head of research for fundamental equities at Nordea Asset Management, has been hired by Denmark’s DKK157bn (€21bn) AkademikerPension as its new head of global equities. He will take up the role on 1 October. Wejse said on LinkedIn that the pension fund’s plan was to establish a strong process for internal active management of global equities, and that in the new job, he would also be responsible for external global equity mandates.
Rikke Berg Jacobsen has also been appointed by AkademikerPension as its new ESG manager. She is currently head of sustainability research at Nordea Asset Management in Denmark.
People’s Partnership – Laura Ellis has joined the UK’s largest commercial workplace pension scheme as its new head of bid management. Ellis, who has more than a decade of working in sales and business development, has previous experience across a number of sectors, including law, insurance, fintech, real estate, as well as employee benefits, pensions and financial wellbeing. People’s Partnership said that Ellis joins the not-for-profit financial services business at a time of “real growth” for the organisation.
IPCC – Ben Caldecott, the head of sustainable finance at the University of Oxford, will help oversee the development of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) next finance update for climate mitigation. Caldecott co-leads a chapter of the panel’s seventh annual progress report with Purnamita Dagupta, a professor of environmental and economics at India’s Institute of Economic Growth. Other contributors climate finance professors Nadia Ameli and Irene Monasterolo, from University College London and Utrecht University, respectively. Among other things, the chapter will explore methodologies to develop climate information for sectoral impact and risk assessments, and identify gaps and disparities in available climate data and associated services. Meanwhile, the IPCC has appointed Raffaele Della Croce, co-head of the Singapore Green Finance Centre and advanced research fellow at Imperial College’s Centre for Climate Finance and Investment, to help lead the development of a chapter on finance in relation to climate impacts – both in relation to society and communities, and natural ecosystems.
Allianz Global Investors (AllianzGI) – The active asset managers today announced that Bjoern Jesch is joining the firm as chief product officer, a new role. Based in Frankfurt, Jesch will join the company on 1 September 2025 and become a member of AllianzGI’s executive committee, reporting to CEO Tobias Pross. He brings over three decades of diverse industry experience to AllianzGI. Previously, he worked for DWS Group, where he was most recently global CIO and CEO of DWS Switzerland. Before DWS, Jesch was global head of investment solutions & products investment management at Credit Suisse (2018 – 2020) and chief investment officer & head of portfolio management at Union Investment (2012 – 2018).
Swedish Pensions Agency (Pensionsmyndigheten) – The agency has appointed the leaders for three new departments it has been creating this year out of the former production department. Pär Hedén has been appointed as the new head of department for public pensions at the Swedish Pensions Agency, having worked at the organisation since 2019 and having been acting head of that department since 5 May. Jonas Krantz has been hired as the new head of department for housing and income support. He is currently acting head of department at the Swedish National Agency for Education’s IT department, and will take up his position at the Pensions Agency on 17 November. Meanwhile Biljana Lajic, who has worked at the agency for 15 years, was appointed back in April as the new head of department for joint insurance issues and survivors’ pensions, having been acting head of the production department since last September.
SH Pension – Jens Lindberg Ankelstam has been hired by the Swedish pension fund as its head of business and marketing. He comes to the occupational pension provider from pensions and insurance group Folksam, and will now take a place in SH Pension’s management team, the fund said.
Gresham House Ventures — The growth equity investor has appointed Jens Düing as head of portfolio, private equity, as the business continues to expand its senior team. Before joining Gresham House Ventures, Düing served as a senior partner at Frog Capital, where he oversaw the firm’s investment operations, leading deal sourcing across Europe. Since beginning his career at Dresdner Kleinwort in 2002, he also gained experience at Pioneer Point Partners, Fidelity Equity Partners, and Apax.
J O Hambro Capital Management (JOHCM) – Roshni Bolton has been appointed as a fund manager and Jack Gater as an analyst within JOHCM’s global emerging markets opportunties team. The two join existing senior fund managers James Syme, Paul Wimborne and Ada Chan. Bolton rejoins the firm after 12 years of experience across equity markets and fund structures, having started as a UK equities analyst at J O Hambro. Gater first joined the company in 2022 as a member of the investment risk team.
Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) – Sam Younger has been appointed as the new independent chair of the IFoA’s regulatory board, beginning his term on 22 September. Younger is currently chair of the Consumers’ Association (Which?), chair of the Advertising Advisory Committee of the Advertising Standards Authority and a member of the remuneration committee of New College, Oxford. He served as the inaugural chair of the Electoral Commission from 2001 to 2008 and as chief executive of the Charity Commission for England and Wales from 2010 to 2014.
