NETHERLANDS – Jeroen Steenvoorden, director of the Dutch company pension fund association OPF, has been appointed managing director of medical specialist pension fund SPMS.

Steenvoorden, 44, will leave OPF and replace current SPMS MD Gerard Krijnen from I January 2006.

Steenvoorden’s successor at OPF has not been named yet. “It is a work in progress,” he told IPE.

Krijnen, 54, has been at SPMS since 1985 when he started as deputy director. He will be taking early retirement for health reasons and will leave SPMS on 1 March 2006.

However, after showing Steenvoorden the ropes he will continue to support his successor as a personal advisor.

“I think two months is a little bit short for such a big pension fund,” Krijnen told IPE. SPMS has AUM of approximately €4.6bn.

Krijnen noted that Dutch pension funds were undergoing turbulent times in the wake of new regulations, and he praised the appointment of Steenvoorden whom he said has the skills to take on such a “colossal job”.

“I am very glad, and we can congratulate the medical specialists in Holland that someone like Jeroen is going to work with the fund,” Krijnen said.