People moves: Lothian Pension Fund names financial chief

Lothian Pension Fund – The second largest local government pension scheme (LGPS) provider in Scotland has appointed Jennifer O’Brien as the new chief financial officer. She succeeds Alan Sievewright, who has moved to a new role.

O’Brien brings more than 20 years of experience in financial leadership across regulated and complex financial services organisations. She has held senior roles in both smaller businesses and large corporates, including Aegon, RBS, and M&G, where she served as divisional CFO and led finance strategy, transformation, and M&A integration.

O’Brien has extensive expertise in strategic finance, governance, risk management and financial stewardship, with a strong track record of supporting sustainable, long-term value creation. She brings a collaborative, commercially grounded approach to working with boards, investment teams and stakeholders, with a focus on financial discipline, operational effectiveness and delivering secure outcomes for members.

Legal & General (L&G) – Rob Groves has been appointed as chief investment officer of L&G’s institutional retirement business.

Groves brings nearly three decades of investment experience delivering for pension clients across market cycles. He joins L&G from Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC), where he was CIO and an executive committee member, leading investment strategy, asset‑liability management and portfolio construction for a £55bn portfolio. He was responsible for building a market-leading back-book optimisation capability through active portfolio management, capital recycling and disciplined de‑risking.

At L&G, Groves will support the synergy between institutional retirement and asset management in growing back‑book optimisation profits. His appointment further strengthens L&G’s investment leadership as the pension risk transfer market continues to grow in the UK and internationally.

In his role, Groves will lead global investment strategy and portfolio management for L&G’s institutional retirement business, supporting secure, long‑term outcomes for 800,000 customers and helping trustees and sponsors access scale, strong governance and dependable delivery. He will also join the institutional retirement’s senior leadership team.

Groves succeeds Gareth Mee, who served as CIO of institutional retirement before his appointment as chief executive officer in December 2025.

SEI – Chris Roberts and Azka Ali have been appointed to the SEI Master Trust board of directors. Allan Course has retired as chair of trustees after 15 years of service, and Roberts assumed the position effective 1 May.

Course first joined the SEI Master Trust as a director from 2007 to 2011 and has served as chair of trustees since 2016.

Roberts is an accredited professional trustee and career pension professional. With 25 years of experience in various trustee, consulting, and management roles, he is skilled in translating technical and complex pensions matters to non-pensions specialists.

His expertise spans the full market experience as a trustee, with specialities in change management, member engagement, and complex investment strategies. Roberts is a member of the Pensions Management Institute, and his prior experience includes acting as managing director for a large professional trustee firm.

Ali is an actuary and professional trustee across defined contribution (DC), defined benefit (DB), and collective DC (CDC) schemes. She currently serves as regional leader for the Midlands at Vidett, the UK’s professional trustee and pension governance firm.

Her experience includes 15 years in consulting at Mercer, where she advised trustees, delivered projects for corporate clients, and led the Birmingham team. Ali was also seconded to the World Economic Forum to support its work to advance the pensions and retirement ecosystem in response to shifting demographics and longer retirements.

Universal Investment Group – The firm has named Nils Mordt as head of international sales and relationship management. Based in London, he will lead the firm’s sales and client relationship strategy across international markets.

Mordt will be responsible for driving commercial growth across key markets, deepening strategic client partnerships, and aligning international sales activity with Universal Investment’s long-term objectives. The creation of this position reflects Universal Investment’s ambition to continue its path of global expansion and strengthen its international client base, it stated.

Mordt joins from CACEIS, where he served as managing director and head of regional coverage UK, US, Middle East, and Asia. Prior to that, he spent more than six years at RBC Investor Services, most recently as head of UK client coverage, and previously held senior roles at CME Group.

Aberdeen Investments – Kate McGrath has been named head of ESG, fixed income, succeeding Marianne Zangerl, who has been appointed global head of multi-asset and alternative investment solutions.

McGrath will report to Jonathan Mondillo, global head of fixed income, and will work closely with Zangerl to ensure a smooth transition.

In her new role, McGrath is responsible for ESG oversight across the fixed income department’s ESG and sustainability‑focused strategies and mandates, and thematic strategies spanning the UN Sustainable Development Goals and climate transition. She is accountable for setting and delivering the fixed income ESG strategy.

McGrath will also lead the continued development and implementation of ESG processes, tools and investment frameworks across fixed income, and plays a central role in global client engagement on sustainability, regulation and climate transition.

Bringing more than eight years of experience in sustainability and ESG, McGrath was part of Aberdeen’s sustainable investment team and joined the Aberdeen fixed income ESG team in 2020. She most recently served as a senior manager, leading day‑to‑day ESG activity across investments.

Avida International – John Renkema has been appointed as partner, head of private markets.

Renkema joined on 1 May 2026 and will be based in the Netherlands, focusing on advisory services in private markets. With his appointment, Avida responds to the growing demand from institutional investors for strategic advice in private equity and other illiquid asset classes.

Renkema brings extensive experience in private markets. He spent 24 years at APG Asset Management, where he initially focused on commodity investments and, for more than 18 years, was responsible for building and monitoring a global private equity portfolio of over €50bn. His expertise includes portfolio construction, operational setup, manager selection, and structuring both individual private equity investments and full-scale private equity programmes.

People’s Partnership – The provider of the UK master trust People’s Pension has bolstered its senior leadership team by appointing Peter McCusker as its first chief legal officer. 

McCusker brings extensive experience as a senior lawyer and corporate governance specialist to the firm and has an impressive track record supporting organisations trhoguh strategic change. He joins from Pinsent Masons, where he was a corporate partner in London.

He previously spent 11 years at Royal London, most recently serving as group deputy general counsel from 2020 to 2024 and has held significant executive leadership roles within both Royal London and Royal London Asset Management.

M&G Investments – Paul Haegy has been recruited as head of infrastructure debt and private placements within M&G’s £81bn private markets business. He will lead the scaling of the firm’s origination and structuring infrastructure debt opportunities as part of its broader ambition to be the go-to asset manager in Europe for private markets, underpinned by long-term capital from its Life business.

Haegy joins M&G following more than 15 years at Goldman Sachs, most recently as head of EMEA infrastructure and energy financing, where he built and scaled a multi‑billion‑dollar financing franchise. He brings expertise in energy transition, digital infrastructure and complex credit structures to build on M&G’s heritage as a major European infrastructure debt investor, originating and structuring opportunities that support the delivery of scalable mandates for institutional clients.

Haegy reports to James King, head of M&G’s private and structured credit platform, which is supported by shared origination, research and portfolio construction to deliver long-dated, solutions-led outcomes for both the life business and third-party investors.

Additionally, Lee Tindell has been appointed as asset management chief information and technology officer. He joined on 5 May and will lead technology change across the firm, focusing on engineering excellence and the use of data, AI, and analytics to support the enhancement of client outcomes and M&G’s growth agenda.

With more than 25 years of experience leading large-scale technology transformation programmes in global financial services businesses, Tindell joins from Mercuria, where he was chief technology officer for applications and was instrumental in strengthening data capability and modernising business-critical platforms.

HSBC Asset Management – Srilatha Singh has been appointed as co-head of quantitative equity strategies. Based in London, she will report to Guillaume Rabault, global CIO, quantitative strategies, ETF and Indexing.

In this role, Singh will support the firm’s quantitative equity research agenda, with a focus on accelerating innovation and strengthening capabilities across HSBC AM’s quantitative equity platform. Her remit will include advancing research priorities and supporting the continued evolution of systematic investment solutions for clients.

Singh brings 28 years of experience in quantitative investing and innovation, combining deep, end-to-end expertise in factor investing with a strong record of research leadership. Most recently, she served as head of research and innovation at Equity Quant Investing (formerly AXA Rosenberg) within AXA Investment Managers, now part of BNP Paribas.

Pictet Asset Management – Malick Badjie has joined the firm as global co-head of sales and member of the executive committee, alongside Niall Quinn, global co-head of sales.

Badjie joins from Robeco, where he was for nine years, most recently as global head of sales and marketing and member of the executive committee. He has more than 23 years of experience in senior client-facing roles in London, the US and the Middle East. Both Badjie and Quinn will report directly to Raymond Sagayam, managing partner and co-CEO of Pictet Asset Management.

Badjie succeeds Luca Di Patrizi, who, after 27 years at Pictet AM, will be stepping down from his current role as head of European sales in September 2026. Di Patrizi will transition to the position of strategic advisor, focusing on specific projects and initiatives aimed at accelerating Pictet AM’s business growth and transformation, until his retirement. In this capacity, Di Patrizi will continue to report to Sagayam.

SH Pension – Carl Lybeck has now been appointed as the permanent CEO of the Swedish pension fund, and will officially start in the role on Friday 8 May.

Lybeck, a board member and vice chair of SH Pension, has been acting CEO of the SEK7.1bn (€660m) pension fund since the beginning of this year following the departure of the previous CEO Annelie Helsing.

Catrina Ingelstam, chair of SH Pension, said Lybeck had been appointed after a thorough recruitment process for the top job. “Carl is a committed leader with experience in building and developing businesses, which are important qualities in SH Pension’s continued growth journey,” she said.