Pension Protection Fund, West Midlands Pension Fund, Financial Conduct Authority, Redington, Willis Towers Watson, Spence Johnson, Newton Investment Management, BNY Mellon, bfinance, UBS Asset Management

Pension Protection FundLeanne Clements has joined the UK’s PPF as responsible investment manager. Clements was most recently responsible investment officer at West Midlands Pension Fund. She held a similar position at the London Pensions Fund Authority and has also worked at Pensions and Investment Research Consultants (PIRC), a proxy voting and engagement firm. Ebba Schmidt, who was the responsible investment manager at the PPF and implemented its responsible investment strategy, died last year.

Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) – Acting chief executive Tracey McDermott is to leave the FCA on 1 July. In January, she decided in early December 2015 to withdraw from the process to appoint the permanent chief executive but would continue as acting CEO until a permanent replacement was in post. Andrew Bailey was appointed as the new chief executive on 26 January and is due to take up the position this summer.

RedingtonJinesh Patel has been appointed vice-president of the DC & Financial Well-being Consulting Practice. He joins from Willis Towers Watson, where he provided defined contribution consultancy advice. Before then, he worked at HSBC.

Spence JohnsonWill Mayne has been promoted to director. He studied Economics at the University of Cambridge and management at the Judge Business School before running a team of analysts at Informa. Since joining Spence Johnson, he has worked on a wide variety of strategic projects across European institutional.

Newton Investment ManagementJulian Lyne has been appointed global head of distribution. He was previously head of business development and global consultant relationships at Newton. He joined the company in the summer of 2014 from F&C Investments, where he was head of institutional business.

BNY MellonRichard Gill has been appointed head of BNY’s Markets business in the EMEA region. Gill has worked at BNY Mellon for more than 20, years and his previous roles include co-head of FX Trading and chief FX Dealer. Meanwhile, Ileana Sodani is to lead the Asset Servicing Relationship Development business in the EMEA. She formerly held the position of chief relationship officer of Pershing’s EMEA business.

bfinancePeter Hobbs is joining as managing director of private markets. Hobbs recently left MSCI, where he was head of real estate research. Hobbs was previously head of global research at Deutsche Bank’s real estate investment management business RREEF, before joining MSCI in 2010.

UBS Asset ManagementAsher Garnett has joined as director of UK business development for the global real estate business of UBS. Garnett joins from BlackRock, where he spent the past five years. Prior to this, he spent four years on CMBS at Bank of America.