The latest hires, promotions and appointments for the week ending 19 December 2025.
Brightwell, the outsourced service provider for the BT and Mineworkers’ pension schemes, has appointed James Pearson in a newly created role as head of member services operations, based in the company’s Chesterfield office.
He joins from Capita, where he worked for over 17 years in several roles, including serving as director of pensions operations and business change.
In his new role, Brightwell said Pearson would be responsible for administration operations, including finance and payroll, planning, reporting, data management, and insight and service operations across all clients.
Simon Langworthy, chief administration officer, said Brightwell had been scaling up its member services team to meet client needs, growing headcount from 130 to more than 200.
L&G’s Laud to jointly lead UBS investment team
UBS Asset Management has appointed Barry Gill and Sonja Laud as co-heads of its investments business, jointly responsible for the asset manager’s direct public and private markets capabilities.
Laud leaves her role as global chief investment officer at Legal & General Asset Management, where she has worked since 2019. She has also worked at Fidelity, Barings, Schroders, and DWS. She will take up her new position on 1 July 2026.
Laud will also take on the role of head of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
Gill has worked at UBS for 30 years, and has been a member of the management team for the asset management unit since 2019, responsible for traditional and hedge fund capabilities.
UBS’s investments business manages more than $1.8trn (£1.3trn).
Aleksandar Ivanovic, president for asset management at UBS, said bringing the company’s real assets and investments businesses together under the joint leadership would “enable us to leverage the best of our expertise and technology across the breadth of our direct public and private markets capabilities to meet the evolving needs of our clients and capture the significant growth opportunities”.
