People moves: Schroders Capital Solutions picks CIO

Schroders Capital – The $97.3bn (€93bn) private markets business of Schroders has appointed Vikram Bhandari to the newly-created role of head and chief investment officer of Schroders Capital Solutions.

Bhandari is based in London and reports to Ingo Heinen, global head of business development and product.

In his new role, Bhandari will help drive business growth and lead Schroders Capital’s private markets solutions strategy and execution. “The senior appointment reflects the firm’s client-centric approach and will further leverage its private markets solutions capabilities on a global scale,” the firm said.

Bhandari brings a wealth of experience as a direct investor across multiple asset classes, with a strong track record in managing multi-private markets portfolios. Prior to joining Schroders Capital, he worked at BlackRock as senior portfolio manager, expanding the firm’s multi-alternatives private markets solutions business in EMEA over the course of seven years, working with multiple client segments including defined benefit (DB) and defined contribution (DC) pensions, insurance, wealth, sovereigns, family offices and other institutions.

Danica – Christoffer Møllenbach has been hired by the Danish pensions arm of Danske Bank as its new chief financial officer, replacing Thomas Dyhrberg Nielsen as of 1 March.

Møllenbach is being appointed to the role from within the group, where he is head of group finance at Danske Bank. He has been a member of Danica’s board of directors twice since 2016, most recently as deputy chair.

On Danica’s board, Møllenbach will be replaced by Terese Dissing, head of group accounts at Danske Bank.

LCP – Gavin Smith has joined the firm from Legal & General, where he was previously financial risk director.

Smith will join LCP’s pensions actuarial and risk transfer teams as a principal and will help clients design bespoke solutions and implement their endgame strategies. He will draw on his deep understanding of how an insurer considers and manages risk, to help pension schemes that wish to run on or utilise surplus do so in a robust way that optimises risk and member and stakeholder outcomes.

For pension schemes that want to insure, Smith will bring best-in-class advice and execution, drawing on his prior experience of heading the pricing and execution function at L&G, where he was responsible for new business quotes, pricing strategy, and post-sale actuarial implementation.

Nikko Asset Management – The asset manager has made a number of changes to its senior leadership, effective 1 April 2025.

President and representative director Stefanie Drews will take on the additional role of CEO, overseeing the entire firm. 

Kuniyuki Shudo will join as representative director and executive chair.

The appointments will continue to strengthen corporate governance as the firm carries out its global growth strategy.

Shudo joins after a career in trust banking, where he currently serves as executive adviser of Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank. Prior to this, he held other key leadership positions as executive officer and managing executive officer, and at Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group, the bank’s parent company, as a director and member of the audit committee on the board.

Yutaka Nishida will resign from his position as representative director and executive chair. He will remain on the firm’s board of directors to ensure a smooth transition, before resigning from the board at the regular general shareholders meeting scheduled for June 2025.

MinPension – Annelie Nordin has been appointed by the Swedish pensions dashboard service as head of communication and external relations. She started work in the role soon after the start of the New Year.

Nordin has previously worked at the National Government Employee Pensions Board (Statens Tjänstepensionsverk, SPV), where she held several leading positions, and before that she was at Skandia.

Capital Group – Jenna Lawford has been appointed as head of client relations, Europe. Based in London, she will report to Grant Leon, head of European client group.

Lawford will lead a team dedicated to ensuring that Capital Group clients continue to “receive superior servicing to meet their growing and evolving needs”, the firm said. She will engage with senior executives at the firm’s key clients across Europe, while also scaling the firm’s strategic initiatives with clients throughout the region.

With more than 20 years of industry experience, Lawford joins from Neuberger Berman, where she served as senior vice-president, head of client services, EMEA, and led the institutional client service team. She has previously held senior client relationship roles at Lyxor Asset Management, JP Morgan Asset Management, and Legal and General Investment Management.

ICG – The alternatives asset management firm is expanding its services to Swiss clients by opening an office in Zurich and appointing Jürg Rimle as a managing director within its client solutions group.

Rimle joins ICG with an extensive track record serving clients across Switzerland, most recently as head of Switzerland for Fidelity International, where he also led the strategic client programme. At Fidelity, he was responsible for the firm’s business and operations throughout the country, in addition to account management and service set-up for international strategic clients across banks, asset managers, family offices, IFAs, insurance firms, pension companies and corporate treasuries.

Benoît Durteste, CIO and CEO of ICG, said: “With significant institutional and private wealth relationships, Switzerland is an important market for ICG, and having a dedicated office and senior client solutions executive will advance our effort to deliver best-in-class investment solutions to our clients there.”

Towers Watson – The WTW business, with Scotland offices in Edinburgh and Glasgow, has expanded its senior team with the appointment of Keith McInally and Heather Meighan.

McInally, based in Edinburgh, joins as a director in the retirement team, to lead investment strategy for WTW’s Scottish retirement clients. He brings a wealth of investment experience as well as collective defined contribution (CDC) expertise to further enhance Towers Watson’s pension scheme advisory breadth in the Scottish market.

McInally joins from abrdn where he was a key member of the solutions team, focusing on DB and DC/CDC investment solutions, as well as driving new business initiatives.

Meighan joins as head of growth and client management in the global outsourcing business. A former partner at Hymans, she brings years of experience in the financial services sector, having held senior leadership roles in client management, sales and pension administration.

Carmignac – The firm has announced the appointment of Mathieu Dubicq as a business development director with a focus on alternative investments.

The firm has been steadily expanding its proposition in recent years with the launch of several new strategies, and Dubicq will support the group with the development of the range, identifying areas for product innovation in line with client demand, as well as highlighting the range to Carmignac’s clients, including institutional and wholesale investors and allocators concentrating on separately managed accounts.

Dubicq will primarily focus on the UK and Switzerland.

He has more than 25 years of experience in alternative investments and joined Carmignac from Ellipsis AM, where he had worked since January 2023 as head of development, responsible for sales and the development of the firm’s long/short UCITS fund.

Sacker & Partners – The UK’s specialist law firm for pensions and retirement savings has appointed Charlotte Bracken and Max Berlevy to its business development team.

Bracken returns to Sackers as a senior business development manager to lead client relationship initiatives and drive the ongoing evolution of the firm’s client relationship programme. In this role, she will manage relationships with professional trustees and advisers, ensuring the continued success of Sackers’ long-standing partnerships. Most recently, she led the marketing team at Independent Governance Group.

Berlevy joins as a senior business development executive and will focus on driving new business opportunities. His previous role was bids lead at global staffing group Phaidon International.

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