Retirement Industry People Moves

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Amundi U.S. Appoints Head of ESG

Annie Chor Joyce has been named as head of environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) for Amundi U.S., the U.S. business of Amundi, an asset management firm. The appointment is effective as of December 6.

Joyce will be responsible for driving the ESG strategic direction for the U.S., collaborating closely with senior leadership, global ESG teams, investment management groups, and marketing and distribution teams across the firm globally, as well as with external industry partners. She reports jointly to Lisa Jones, president and CEO of Amundi U.S., and head of the Americas, and Elodie Laugel, chief responsible investment officer, based in Paris. Joyce’s appointment follows Amundi’s commitment as a signatory to the United Nations-sponsored Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) and recent commitment to de-carbonization efforts through its participation in the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative.

“Annie has tremendous experience across a diverse range of organizations and issues related to responsible investing, and her background provides a strong foundation for her to lead our ESG strategy in the U.S.,” Jones says. “As a firm that is deeply committed to responsible investing, we continue to invest in resources aimed at strengthening our global leadership in ESG. We are confident Annie will be instrumental in leveraging Amundi’s global ESG resources and expertise for our clients in the U.S. and across the Americas.”

Joyce has a decade and a half of experience in the financial markets and sustainability, working with institutional and wealth investors across the impact investing spectrum in both public and private markets. She joins Amundi U.S. from MSCI Inc., ESG Research, where she was vice president, ESG consultant. She led MSCI’s fixed-income ESG coverage and worked closely with institutional clients on integrating ESG and climate strategies across their enterprise, investment decisionmaking and product development activities.

Prior to MSCI, she worked at several impact-driven organizations, including Social Finance, a national impact finance and advisory nonprofit; Éclat Impact, an impact investing fintech startup; and the World Economic Forum. Prior to this, she worked at Barclays Capital in global markets.

Verus Adds to Management Committee

Verus, an investment consulting and outsourced chief investment officer (OCIO) provider, has announced the addition of Annie Taylor and Anne Westreich, both managing directors and senior consultants, to its management committee.

Taylor joined Verus in 2003 as a performance analyst. She has focused her career on serving Taft-Hartley clients. Taylor leads the firm’s Taft-Hartley sector team and serves on the firm’s OCIO committee and has been instrumental in growing the OCIO practice.

Westreich joined Verus in 2006 as a consultant serving mostly the not-for-profit sector. Her institutional investment management experience, analytical skills and deep knowledge of financial markets are instrumental in helping clients meet the difficult challenges of developing and implementing an effective investment policy. Westreich sits on the investment committee and has recently taken on the responsibility to lead Verus’ not-for-profit sector team.

In addition to Taylor and Westreich, the Verus Management Committee includes Jeffrey MacLean, CEO; Shelly Heier, president; Ian Toner, chief investment officer (CIO); Scott Whalen, executive managing director; Kraig McCoy, chief financial officer (CFO) and chief operating officer (COO); Faraz Shooshani, managing director and senior private markets consultant; and Mark Brubaker, managing director and senior consultant.

Cinctive Capital Expands Investment Team

Cinctive Capital Management, a multimanager alternative investment firm focused on long- and short- equities, has announced the expansion of its investment teams as the firm enters its third year of managing client assets.

Cinctive was launched in September 2019 in a strategic relationship with the Employees Retirement System of Texas (ERS) and PAAMCO Launchpad, a subsidiary of PAAMCO Prisma. Since then, the firm has grown with new mandates from institutional investors, opened a satellite office in Dallas and had significant hires from top-tier investment management firms. As of September 30, Cinctive has grown to 70 people from its initial launch of 35.

“From the beginning, our team has focused on building a differentiated platform that could take advantage of a white space that we saw in the industry and provide uncorrelated returns to our investors. We are particularly pleased with our success during times of market risk, including the first quarters of 2020 and 2021,” says Richard Schimel, co-chief investment officer (CIO).

Since its launch, Cinctive, whose portfolio managers focus on specific sectors, has hired individuals from leading firms in the hedge fund industry. Their momentum continued this past year with appointments from organizations including Citadel, ExodusPoint, Millennium and Sculptor (formerly Och-Ziff). Professionals that have joined Cinctive over the past year include:

Michael Tierney—portfolio manager, technology. Tierney joined Cinctive in November 2020 from Citadel’s Surveyor Capital unit. He leads Cinctive’s office in Dallas, which opened in the first quarter of 2021.  

Britt deVeer—portfolio manager, industrial. deVeer joined Cinctive in February. He previously held roles at Millennium, Soros Fund Management and Citadel’s Aptigon unit.

Jeff Eisenstein—portfolio manager, financials. Eisenstein joined Cinctive in March from Citadel’s surveyor unit. Before Citadel, he held roles at Alyeska and Morgan Stanley.

Paul Chung—portfolio manager, health care. Chung joined the firm in March, along with members of his analyst team from ExodusPoint, where he was a portfolio manager. He had previously been at Millennium.

Bryan Blum—portfolio manager, consumer. Blum joined Cinctive in June to focus on the consumer sectors including gaming, leisure and restaurants. He had previously focused on the consumer space at Millennium.

Mitch Nordon—senior analyst, risk arbitrage. Nordon joined in June to help launch and oversee Cinctive’s first risk arbitrage portfolio. He works directly with Schimel and co-CIO Larry Sapanski. Nordon previously held risk arbitrage roles at several prominent firms.

On the operations side, Taylor Bond joined the firm as chief technology officer in March. Bond previously served eight years as head of front office technology and development at Sculptor Capital Management. Bond is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and was a nuclear-trained submarine officer.

Faegre Drinker Names New Partner

Faegre Drinker has announced that Yana Johnson has joined the firm as a partner in the corporate practice in San Francisco. Johnson comes to the firm from Jackson Lewis.

Johnson brings over 22 years of experience and will assist the firm’s public company clients in executive and employee benefits matters. Johnson has experience working in the technology, biotech, construction, health care, financial services, manufacturing, private equity, entertainment, hospitality, temporary staffing and government contracting industries.

Johnson advises public and private companies, private equity firms, venture capitalists, boards of directors, compensation committees and high-profile executives and management teams on executive compensation matters, including public disclosures, “say-on-pay,” equity plan disclosure, solicitation and engagement matters, stock exchange listing standards and corporate governance. She also has significant experience in helping clients negotiate executive employment agreements and design equity and phantom equity plans and awards, long-term incentive compensation and deferred compensation plans. Johnson is fluent in relevant corporate governance, securities and tax reporting issues related to executive compensation and benefits.

Johnson guides domestic and international buyers and sellers through executive compensation, benefits and human resources (HR) issues that arise in business transactions, including mergers, asset sales, spinoffs, financings and initial public offerings (IPOs). She regularly advises clients on issues related to broad-based compensation arrangements, including 401(k), pension, health, welfare, fringe benefit and early retirement plans. Johnson also advises venture funds, plan sponsors and financial institutions on compliance with Title I of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), including in credit facilities, investments and plan vendor arrangements.

Johnson earned her juris doctor from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, where she was the articles editor for the “Hastings Law Journal” and served as a judicial extern for Thelton E. Henderson, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Aon Hires Global Analytics and Actuarial Leader

Aon has announced that Doug Melton has joined the team as its new global analytics and actuarial leader, health solutions. In this newly created role, he is responsible for the development and execution of the health solutions department’s analytics that serve clients through data, research and analytics.

Prior to joining Aon, Melton was the analytics leader of Evernorth’s Clinical Analytics and Population Health Sciences Organization, where he worked on building out the health analytics function at Cigna. He has led many research initiatives and studies pertaining to population health, well-being and chronic condition interventions.

Melton has also worked with multiple health care organizations, creating analytical products and solutions to advance the whole health of a customer by seeking to identify and drive health risk prevention and management, while creating ease and simplicity for customers to obtain medical care.

In his new global role at Aon, Melton will be advising clients on several focus areas, including customizing solutions and analytical capabilities across regional markets; understanding differences in language, demographics and other factors; using analytics to solve common-use case issues such as supply chain management, shortage of specialties within client organizations, increased demand for behavioral health and other areas; and advising clients on how to use telemedicine to serve the health needs of a workforce.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, he is also focusing on workforce resilience, disease progression and the onset of new conditions such as mental illnesses due to the pandemic.

Hub Announces Multiple Acquisitions

Hub International Limited, a full-service global insurance brokerage and financial services firm, has announced that it has acquired the assets of Gold Sky Benefits LLC. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Headquartered in New York City, Gold Sky Benefits is a boutique insurance benefits consulting firm focused on providing employee benefits solutions, including health plan analysis and design, human resources (HR) technology review and implementation, executive benefits, and retirement planning services.

Gold Sky Benefits Managing Partners Michael Gold, Jason Minnella and Michael Pontillo and their team will join Hub Northeast. 

Hub also announced it has acquired certain assets of Benefit Partners Group LLC and Benefit Partners Financial Group LLC (collectively, Benefit Partners Group). Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Headquartered in Libertyville, Illinois, Benefit Partners Group is a full-service employee benefits brokerage and retirement consulting firm. It provides group health, dental, life and disability insurance; flexible spending account (FSA); health savings account (HSA); health reimbursement account (HRA); 401(k); and HR and Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) compliance services to more than 500 corporate clients locally and nationwide.

Benefit Partners Group founding partner Russell Warye and his team will join Hub Midwest West.