People moves: Former Tesco Pension chief joins London CIV

London CIV – The UK-based Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) investment pool has announced that Danny Firth, a former chief operating officer and chief executive officer of Tesco Pension Investment, is joining as its new COO.

The appointment comes as Martin Gloyne, who has spent the last three years strengthening London CIV’s operational capability, plans to retire later this year.

Firth brings more than 30 years of experience leading operations, governance and risk across pensions, investment management and financial services, with a career spanning senior executive leadership, operational transformation and complex stakeholder environments. He joins from Tesco Pension Investment, where he led strategy, governance and culture for the £12.9bn UK Tesco Pension Scheme’s investment manager, working closely with trustees, sponsors and regulators.

Firth also held several other senior operational leadership roles at Tesco Pension Investment, including deputy CEO, COO, and chair and CEO of its authorised alternative investment fund manager.

Firth will formally take up the role of London CIV’s COO from 16 March and will work closely with Gloyne and the executive team to support the continued delivery of the pool’s strategic priorities, including its Fit for the Future programme.

His appointment follows the recent expansion of the London CIV team as the organisation prepares for the next phase of Fit for the Future. This includes Dagmar Dvorak joining London CIV to lead its four-strong Strategic Asset Allocation team, and James Beaumont being appointed Head of Public Markets in 2025. These appointments further strengthen the pool’s investment and operational capability.

Industriens Pension – Dorthe Bundgaard has been hired by the Danish pension fund as its new legal director. Bundgaard will head up Industriens Pension’s law and compliance department when she starts the new job on 2 March, replacing Mikkel Holmgren, who Industriens Pension said had accepted a position outside the company.

Bundgaard joins from Danish pension provider PFA, where she was a legal director, having worked at the firm for 22 years. In her new job at Industriens Pension, she will report to insurance director Joan Alsing.

APG – The supervisory board of APG Group has appointed Annemarie Mijer as a member of the executive board, effective 1 March 2026. She will assume the role of chief finance and risk officer on 1 April 2026. Her four‑year appointment has been approved by the regulators.

Mijer will succeed Maarten Blacquière, who is leaving the firm following the end of his four-year term.

Mijer has more than 25 years of experience in risk management, finance and governance at banks, insurers and pension institutions. She has a strong track record in highly regulated and complex environments and has held several senior leadership positions, including serving as chief risk officer and statutory board member at multiple financial organisations.

The Pensions Regulator (TPR) – Ben Gunnee is joining TPR’s top team as interim executive director, market oversight.

Gunnee is a senior institutional business leader with more than 25 years of experience in the pensions market, including roles within investment consulting, fiduciary management and private markets asset management.

With the current Pension Schemes Bill poised to transform the pensions sector, Gunnee will continue TPR’s transition to a more prudential-style of regulation as the pensions landscape consolidates towards fewer, larger schemes. He will be responsible for the teams that supervise and engage with the businesses and trustees in the pensions market.

Alongside Gunnee’s interim appointment, TPR is launching a recruitment exercise to appoint a permanent executive director, market oversight, led by recruitment agency Odgers.

Gunnee will lead the market oversight directorate from 23 February 2026, replacing current interim executive director Julian Lyne, who joined TPR on an interim basis last April. Lyne is leaving to take up a new opportunity with an investment management firm, following a handover with Gunneeto ensure a smooth transition.

AP3 – Anders Horn has been hired by the Swedish national pensions buffer fund as portfolio manager for private equity, within the alternative investments department, having worked for seven years at Fidelio Capital in Stockholm.

AP3, which is one of the three remaining buffer funds in Sweden’s income pension system since AP1 and AP6 were axed this year in a reform, said Horn was previously part of the investment team at real estate investor Areim and an analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Meanwhile, Emilie Beijbom has been recruited by AP3 as senior legal council, having worked as legal council at AP1 for five years until its liquidation this year.

European Commission – The EU executive has announced two personnel changes in its financial services department, DG FISMA.

Didier Millerot has been appointed director for general affairs, which will see him leaving his role as head of unit for sustainable finance. Millerot took over from Martin Spolc when the new Commission took up its mandate. IPE has asked the Commission who will replace Millerot.

Meanwhile, Astrid Cousin has been appointed as director for horizontal policies within DG FISMA. Horizontal legislation or regulation, which refers to rules on a specific theme that apply to a range of different sectors or actors, has been on the rise in the EU, frustrating the pension fund industry in the process.

Cousin currently serves as head of unit responsible for strategic coordination in the Directorate-General for Competition and previously held the position of head of unit for state aid to financial institutions within the department. She has also served as a member of the cabinet of former Commissioner for competition Margrethe Vestager, where she was responsible for files related to the Banking Union, the Capital Markets Union and industrial policy. 

The date of effect of Millerot’s and Cousin’s appointments will be determined later, the Commission said.

Van Lanschot Kempen – Michelle Darracott has been appointed UK CEO and will be responsible for growing the firm’s bespoke fiduciary management offering for UK pension schemes.

Darracott brings more than 30 years of experience across the UK pensions and investment landscape. Most recently, she served as a professional trustee at BESTrustees, a provider of professional trusteeship services to UK occupational pension schemes, and as a non-executive director at TPT Retirement Solutions. She was previously chief strategy officer at master trust Smart Pension and she has held several senior positions at Legal & General Investment Management, including head of strategic change.

Johan Cras, who has served as interim CEO of the UK business, will resume his prior role as senior adviser for investment management clients. Subject to regulatory approval, Darracott’s appointment will be effective in April.

Jupiter Asset Management – Piers Hillier has joined the firm as chief investment officer. He will oversee the group’s investment management teams and capabilities, lead the development of new investment propositions and support the attraction of industry-leading talent.

Hillier joins from Royal London Asset Management, where he served as CIO from 2015, and brings with him over 30 years of experience in investment management. Prior to his last role, he was head of international equities at Kames Capital, CIO at LV Asset Management, and held senior European equities positions at WestLB, Deutsche Asset Management and Schroders.

Jupiter has undertaken a series of changes to strengthen its investment capabilities in the last two years, sharpening its focus in areas where client demand is greatest and reinforcing access to high-conviction, differentiated investment expertise, it announced.

BlackRock – Cyprian Njamma has been appointed as head of investment strategy for UK defined benefit (DB) pensions, underscoring its continued expansion and enhancement of its UK pension capabilities.

The appointment strengthens BlackRock’s leading OCIO offering and reflects the firm’s commitment to delivering end-to-end solutions for UK pension schemes, it announced.

In this role, Njamma will lead the development of investment strategy across BlackRock’s UK DB pensions OCIO business, overseeing a specialist team spanning portfolio construction, asset allocation and tailored investment advice. His appointment comes as BlackRock continues to build out its long‑term partnerships, working alongside clients as a trusted extension of their investment team to provide bespoke strategy, robust implementation and ongoing support across their full portfolio.

Njamma joins from Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM), where he was a senior member of their UK pensions OCIO team. At GSAM, he advised some of the UK’s largest institutional clients on strategic asset allocation, portfolio construction and outcome-oriented investment solutions.

Ostrum Asset Management – The affiliate of Natixis Investment Managers has announced the appointment of Maud Pierre-Minuit as head of sustainable transitions. She succeeds Nathalie Beauvir, who remains involved within the team by refocusing on her core technical and research expertise as a senior ESG strategist.

Pierre-Minuit joins Ostrum from consulting firm I Care by BearingPoint, where she was senior manager for the sustainable finance division. She spent a significant portion of her career at Groupama Asset Management before joining La Française Asset Management in 2017.

In her new role at Ostrum, Pierre-Minuit will be responsible for coordinating the work of the team’s eight experts and strategists to ensure the roll-out of its ESG strategy, while developing new thematic ranges in coordination with the investment management teams. She will also support institutional clients in taking climate and biodiversity issues into account.

DC Investment Forum (DCIF) – The UK not-for-profit research group has welcomed Lindsay Nickerson as its new chair, with Anil Shenoy named vice chair.

Nickerson, who previously served as vice chair of the DCIF, is an institutional director at Nordea Asset Management, working within the UK team since 2024. She formerly spent a decade at Aon as an investment consultant, specialising in defined contribution investment within the master trust and manager research teams.

Previous DCIF chair Dave Whitehair is now the immediate past chair of the group and will remain on the board until the end of 2026.

New vice chair Shenoy joined IFM Investors’ UK client solutions team in 2025, where he focuses on building and managing relationships with UK institutional investors. He previously spent five years as head of UK institutional at Janus Henderson, after earlier investment and consulting roles at PricewaterhouseCoopers and Standard Life.

Hymans Robertson – The pensions and financial services consultancy has promoted risk transfer specialist Tom Caron to operations lead of its risk transfer team.

Caron will have operational responsibility for the team, leading on resourcing, people development, knowledge sharing and regulatory compliance. Alongside this, he will continue to provide expert advice to trustees and sponsors on their own risk transfer projects.

Caron joined Hymans Robertson in July 2019 and has been a valued member of the risk transfer team ever since. Over the years, he has contributed to a broad spectrum of transactions of varying scale and complexity, gaining deep experience and playing a key role in helping clients achieve their long-term strategic objectives.