Insurance Sweden, PFZW, Finnfund, Cambridge Associates, Kempen, Man Group, Barnett Waddingham, PKZH, Credit Suisse, Pemberton, BlueMark, Natixis

Insurance Sweden – Johan Sidenmark, the chief executive officer of Sweden’s second-largest commercial pension fund AMF, has been appointed as chair of the supervisory board of the industry association Insurance Sweden (Svensk Försäkring).

The lobby group said he took over from the former chair Fredrik Bergström on Monday, with Bergström having left the role, because he was leaving his job as CEO of Länsförsäkringar. A new chair will be elected at the association’s annual general meeting on 12 May, it said.


PFZW – Dirk Schoenmaker has joined PFZW as a member of the board this week. He will also chair the fund’s investments committee. Schoenmaker replaces board member Age Bakker, whose term of office came to an end.

Schoenmaker is professor of finance at Rotterdam School of Management and also director of the Erasmus Platform for Sustainable Value Creation at Erasmus University. Previously he was director of European affairs, competition and consumer policy at the ministry of economic affairs and deputy director of financial markets at the finance ministry.

Henny Kapteijn became a member of the supervisory board of PFZW on 1 January. Kapteijn is an independent supervisor, director and board advisor. She currently holds board and supervisory positions at pension funds PGB and Shell, at Achmea IM and the European Money Markets Institute in Brussels.

PFZW this week announced it would dump fossil fuel companies who did not produce a “convincing and verifiable” strategy to align with the 1.5°C goal in the Paris climate accord. Companies have two years to do so.


Finnfund – Johanna Raehalme has been appointed as head of Finnfund’s first regional office in Africa, which is being set up in Nairobi, Kenya. The Finnish development financier and impact investor, which is 95.7% owned by the Finnish state, said opening the new office would strengthen its updated strategic goals, which emphasised Africa, with half of the fund’s upcoming investments to be made on that continent.

Raehalme said Nairobi was a natural location for the new base, with many of Finnfund’s existing investee companies as well as co-financiers being based in the region. “We also see a lot of new opportunities in East Africa, and having local presence greatly supports executing new investments,” she told IPE.


Cambridge Associates – The global investment firm has made four senior hires across Europe: Stefan Lummert as investment managing director; Nick Rees as investment managing director; Devon Zimmerling as investment director; and Sarah Acheson as investment director.

Lummert will be based in Munich where he will report into Alex Koriath, head of the European pension practice and regional head of Germany. Lummert will manage client investment portfolios with an emphasis on infrastructure, private credit, and private equity. Having worked with institutional investors in the DACH region for over two decades, with roles at J.P Morgan Asset Management and Allianz, he will play a significant role in strengthening the firm’s capabilities in the region.

Rees joined the firm in London where he will help European private clients navigate the intricacies of private wealth to realize their investment goals. His expertise in ESG, alternative investments and structuring will be instrumental in supporting growing demand for sustainable and impact investing services.

Additionally, Zimmerling and Acheson have been appointed as investment directors for the European private client practice. Based in London, both will support Cambridge Associates’ private investment team due to the growing LP demand for these strategies. Zimmerling re-joins the firm after working in venture capital, whilst Acheson has transferred from the firm’s real assets team.


Kempen Capital Management – The firm is further strengthening its UK fiduciary management team, by appointing Iain Brown as head of strategic clients fiduciary management UK from April 2022.

In his role at Kempen, Brown will work with large UK defined benefit schemes and take the lead in introducing asset-class specific solutions to larger UK institutional prospects, as Kempen has already achieved in the Netherlands.

Brown was formerly EMEIA pensions and retirement leader and UK pensions partner at EY where he built the firm’s pension consulting business and was a founding partner of EY’s OCIO/fiduciary manager evaluation team. He advised trustees, corporates and governments, including some of the world’s largest pension funds, on governance, OCIO/fiduciary management, financial and operational risk management, funding policy and investment strategy.

Additionally, Nikesh Patel has been promoted to head of client solutions UK. He will report to Wilse Graveland, head of fiduciary management and institutional solutions. Based in London, Patel will have overall responsibility for Kempen’s UK fiduciary management proposition and client solutions. He was previously head of investment strategy for Kempen in the UK.

Alastair Greenlees and Arif Saad will become co-heads of UK investment strategy, with a primary reporting line to Michel Iglesias del Sol, chief investment strategist at Van Lanschot Kempen. Daniel Riddaway will join the UK portfolio management team as senior portfolio manager in February 2022. He was previously part of the fiduciary management team at Charles Stanley.


Man GroupMan Group’s private markets business, Man Global Private Markets (Man GPM), has hired Matthew Moniot and Jonathan Imundo as co-heads of credit risk sharing. Both join from alternative credit manager Elanus Capital Management and will report to Eric Burl, head of Man GPM.

Moniot will be responsible for managing Man GPM’s new CRS strategy and team, including portfolio management and origination.

Imundo will continue to spend a majority of his time on the existing Elanus business, retaining his role as president and head of client solutions at Elanus with primary responsibility for the successful ongoing management and return of capital to existing Elanus investors. In his Man GPM role, he will be focused on business development, working with Man Group’s sales team and clients on new CRS solutions.

The credit risk sharing asset class is growing into a significant market. Institutional pension investors Alecta and PGGM have completed 10 co-investments in credit risk since they started a collaboration on this in May 2020.


Barnett Waddingham – The UK firm has appointed Mark Parry as head of manager research to bolster the continued development of its investment consulting team. Parry has more than 20 years’ experience in the industry, having held numerous senior roles. Prior to taking a career break to raise his young family, Parry was a senior investment manager at Aberdeen Asset Management.

The firm said it would continue recruiting a significant number of talented people across all business areas and offices over the next 12 months to support increased client demand.


PKZH – The Pensionskasse of the city of Zurich has elected Melanie Gajowski as the new president of its board of trustees, replacing the city councillor Daniel Leupi who announced his resignation on 8 February.

Leupi will continue to be part of the board as an ordinary member to avoid potential conflict of interests between the roles in the board, as the head of the finance department and in the city council.

Gajowski held various positions at Deutsche Bank and UBS. She has been partially self-employed as an economist and ethicist since 2013 and consulted on regenerative economic and financial systems.


Credit Suisse Pensionskasse – The pension fund for the Swiss bank has appointed Joachim Oechslin as the new president of the board of trustees, succeeding
Philip Hess.

Oechslin has been an employer representative on the board of trustees since April last year. The Credit Suisse’s executive board has named Ina Hasdenteufel and Claude Täschler as new members of the board of trustees as employer representatives.

Hasdenteufel succeeds Hess, while Täschler replaces Christian Machate. Hess was the head the board of trustees for more than 20 years. Machate served on the board for almost 14 years.


Pemberton – The alternative credit specialist has named Olivier Renault as portfolio manager and head of risk sharing strategy. This new strategy of Pemberton’s will invest in junior tranches of loan portfolios originated and serviced by banks.

Before joining Pemberton, Renault spent more than 10 years at Citigroup, most recently as global co-head of financial Institutions group (FIG) solutions. He also started the structuring and advisory practice at Stormharbour, steering it to become one of the leading non-bank structuring platforms in Europe.


BlueMarkPaige Nicol has been named director for Europe, a newly-created role, at the provider of impact verification services.

Nicol has held several leadership roles in impact investing, philanthropy, and professional services throughout her career. She was most recently a director of strategy & insights at Luminate, a philanthropic organisation founded by Pierre and Pam Omidyar and before that she was manager on the intellectual capital team at Omidyar Network.


Natixis Investment ManagersMabrouk Chetouane has been hired as head of global market strategy, solutions, international, a role in which he will lead and manage the global market strategy team responsible for developing the in-house macroeconomic, asset allocation and investment views within Natixis IM Solutions.

Based in Paris, Chetouane joins from BFT Investment Managers, where he was head of research and strategy. Before this he was at IHS Global Insight as a principal economist and he previously also spent six years with Banque de France.

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