People moves: PGGM names new CFRO, Pictet gains ex-Public deputy CEO [updated]

PGGM, Pictet Asset Management, Publica, PDN, DSM, Kempen, Anthos, UBS Asset Management, Newton Investment Management, Deka Investment, ASR, Truvalue Labs

PGGM – The supervisory board of the €250bn Dutch asset manager PGGM has appointed Willem Jan Brinkman as chief financial and risk officer (CFRO) as of 1 November. Currently principal investment manager at PGGM Private Equity, Brinkman will also be vice chairman of the asset manager’s executive board.

Brinkman joined PGGM in 2015, initially combining his job with his role as CFRO of the Dutch Investment Institution (NLII). At PGGM, he implemented a new private equity strategy in part aimed at impact investments targeting climate change, water scarcity, food security and healthcare.

Before joining PGGM, Brinkman worked as a partner at KPMG Corporate Finance, advising Dutch pension service providers, including A&O on its acquisition by PGGM in 2013.

At PGGM he will be succeeding Paul Boomkamp, who is to become a member of the executive board at Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam. 

Pictet Asset Management – Susanne Haury von Siebenthal , former head of asset management at Switzerland’s largest penson fund, has become a non-executive director of the Swiss holding company that controls all the asset management entities in the Pictet Group. The appointment takes effect from January 2020.

She currently holds several board and investment committee positions at Swiss foundations and pension funds and was most recently a non-executive director at BlackRock Asset Management Switzerland .

She has held various senior positions with Credit Suisse and UBS as well as heading institutional asset management at Bank Leu. From 2004 to 2013 she was head of asset management and deputy CEO at Publica , the Swiss pension fund for federal employees. 

PDN – Jos Op Heij has been appointed a board member of PDN, the €7.3bn pension fund of Dutch chemicals giant DSM. He is to focus on risk management and compliance. Since April, he had been compliance and alert officer at DSM , where he has worked since 1985. Between 2005 and 2012, he was also a trustee and a member of the pension fund’s investment committee.

Kempen – Ben Kramer has left Kempen to become chief client officer at Anthos Fund & Asset Management , the asset manager for the Brenninkmeijer family, the heirs of retail chain C&A.

At Anthos, Kramer is a member of the management team headed by Jacco Maters, the former chief executive at Delta Lloyd Asset Management. Recently, Anthos announced that it would extend its services to third parties. In 2017 Kramer moved from BMO Global Asset Management to Kempen, where he had been responsible for the firm’s relationship with pension funds and insurers. Kempen said it would fill in Kramer’s position internally.

UBS Asset Management (UBS AM) – Barry Gill, the Swiss asset manager’s head of active equities, has taken on the position of head of investments, succeeding Suni Harford, who was recently appointed president of UBS AM and a member of the group executive board of UBS. 

Gill will become a member of the UBS AM executive committee, reporting to Suni, and continue to be based in New York. Ian McIntosh will take over as head of active equities, having been Gill’s deputy since 2016.  

Newton Investment Management – Ilga Haubelt has been hired as head of equity opportunities, a new role created in connection with the “formalisation” of Newton’s active equity team as comprising two principal hubs – equity income and equity opportunities. 

Haubelt, who joins Newton on 4 November, was most recently at Deka Investment, where she was head of global equities, overseeing a team of 23 people and assets of more than £12bn (€13.7bn). 

As of 30 September Newton managed £23.5bn of active equity mandates, of which equity opportunities accounted for £11.1bn.  

ASR – Dutch (pensions) insurer ASR has named Gisella van Vollenhoven and Gerard van Olphen as members of its supervisory board (RvC) for a four-year period. Van Vollenhoven is to succeed Annet Aris, who completed her term. Van Olphen’s appointmentment follows an extension of the RvC with a sixth member.

Van Vollenhoven was director of pension supervision at supervisor De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) from 2017 to April 2019. Van Olphen is chief executive of APG, the €529bn asset manager and pensions provider for the large civil service scheme ABP.

The supervisory board said it intended to appoint Ingrid de Graaf-de Swart as a new and third member of the executive board as of 1 December.

Truvalue Labs – Adam Salvatori has been hired as global head of client solutions at the provider of AI-driven environmental, social and governance (ESG) data. The role is new. Salvatori was most recenlty global head of commodities systematic trading strats and head of Americas commodities investor strats at Goldman Sachs.