New Pension Head for FTSE 100 Company

(March 19, 2012) — A rising star in the pension investment industry is to take over one of the United Kingdom’s largest corporate funds, aiCIO has learned, as the head of the scheme steps back next month.

Chetan Ghosh, Pensions Investment Manager at the £4.3 billion Centrica pension fund, is to assume the newly created role of Chief Investment Officer in April, a source close to the situation has confirmed.

In the new role, Ghosh, who joined Centrica in 2009, will have overall responsibility for the three UK schemes of the energy company that emerged after the nationalisation of British Gas and subsequent demerger in 1997. The company has since acquired various smaller companies in the UK and around the world and is one of the top 30 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Ghosh’s ascent comes as John Clark, Director of Pension Investment at Centrica, has decided to step back as he heads towards retirement. Clark will remain Chairman of the Investment Committee, but most of the day-to-day decisions will be taken by the new CIO.

Ghosh, 37, who was instrumental in implementing the Centrica’s liability-driven investment approach, has a background in investment consulting and is one of a growing number of ‘rising stars’ in pension fund investment.

Ian McKnight, investment strategy manager at the Royal Mail Pension Fund, Larissa Benbow Head of Investments at the pension fund of high street bank HBOS and Sharonjit Clare, Senior Investment & Strategy Manager at the telent Pension Fund are in the same cohort that is shaking up Europe’s retirement landscape.

See next month’s aiCIO magazine for a closer look at the world’s brightest and fastest rising stars in institutional investment.