The Investor Forum, PostNL, Legal & General Investment Management, Belgian Association of Pension Institutions (BAPI), BVV, Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), F&C Investments, Nordea Asset Management, Vontobel Asset Management, AXA Investment Managers, SCIO Capital, Société Générale Securities Services

The Investor Forum – The Forum has been formally launched with the appointment of Simon Fraser as chairman and Andy Griffiths as executive director. Fraser was formerly CIO at Fidelity Worldwide Investment. He is currently chairman of Foreign & Colonial Investment Trust and a non-executive director at Ashmore Group. He is also a former non-executive director at Barclays. Griffiths has 20 years’ experience as a research analyst and investment professional at Capital Group.

PostNL – René van de Kieft has been appointed chairman of the board of trustees at Stichting Pensioenfonds PostNL, the Dutch mail pension scheme. He replaces Peter van Gameren, who will remain on the board. Van de Kieft worked at SFB, pensions manager of the construction workers scheme, from 1993 to 1999 and served as director finance and control, CFO and COO at PGGM from 1999 to 2009. He also worked as CFO at Q-park and has been interim CFO at the Dutch Chamber of Commerce since 2013. In addition to his role on the trustee board at PostNL, Van de Kieft is on the board at ABP, AGH and the industry-wide scheme for the hospitality industry, PHenC.

Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM) – Sarah Aitken has been appointed head of institutional business for Europe and the Middle East, replacing Hugh Cutler. She will start in her new role in September. Until 2013, Aitken was head of distribution at Insight Investment Management. Prior to joining Insight in 2005, she was a managing director at Merrill Lynch Investment Management, where she was head of institutional relationship management. She began her career as a UK equity analyst at Cazenove and later joined JP Morgan.

Belgian Association of Pension Institutions (BAPI) – Stephan Neetens has been appointed secretary general of the organisation, starting his new role at the beginning of July. He replaces Karel Van Gutte. Neetens trained as a lawyer and joins from an advisory role within the pensions and international affairs policy unit for Belgian deputy prime minister Alexander De Croo.

BVV – Heinz Laber, chairman of the €25bn German banking industry pension fund, has been reappointed for a second four-year term. He also currently serves as a board member for UniCredit Bank. Additionally, the 15-strong supervisory board elected new sponsor representatives – Carola Gräfin von Schmettow of HSBC Trinkaus & Burkhardt and Frank Annuscheit of Commerzbank. Carsten Anlauf of Berliner Volksbank and Jürgen Tögel of Deutsche Bank were elected to represent the interests of beneficiaries.

Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) – Kevin Smith has been appointed to the new role of chief service delivery officer, responsible for delivering administration services to the scheme’s participating institutions and members. Smith has more than 30 years’ pension management experience, with previous roles at Aon Hewitt, Capita and Scottish Life.

F&C Investments – Paul Myles has joined the institutional client management team to expand on the services F&C Investments provides to the local government and corporate pension schemes. He joins from Nordea, where he was director and head of UK and Ireland institutional business.

Nordea Asset Management – Christophe Girondel has been appointed global head of institutional clients. He will take this position in addition to his role as global head of wholesale fund distribution. Girondel will now take on the two client-facing units previously run as separate business units.

Vontobel Asset Management – Hervé Hanoune has been appointed head of fixed income and a member of the management committee. He joins from Amundi Asset Management, where he headed the company’s global aggregate bond team. Before then, he held various positions as a senior fixed income portfolio manager at Crédit Agricole in London and Singapore.

AXA Investment Managers – Daoyu Chen has been appointed UK LDI portfolio manager. She joins from Goldman Sachs, where she traded sterling interest rate swaps and cross currency swaps for over five years.

SCIO Capital – Kevin Flaherty has joined the European structured credit fund as head of syndicate. Previously, Flaherty was managing partner at Trimast Capital and head of structured product syndicate for Europe, Asia and Australia at Deutsche Bank in London.

Société Générale Securities Services – Bertrand Blanchard has become country manager for the UK, joining from Société Générale’s Johannesburg branch in South Africa. Guillaume Lenoir has been appointed chief of strategic initiatives implementation, joining from EuroCCP.

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