Annesley Wallace was named chief pension officer of the C$97 billion ($71.1 billion) Ontario Municipal Employees' Retirement System, Toronto.
Ms. Wallace assumes the role from Blake Hutcheson, president and incoming CEO of OMERS, a spokesman for the pension plan confirmed Wednesday.
Prior to her promotion, Ms. Wallace was senior vice president for pensions and communications at OMERS. In her new role, she will continue to work in pension services, aiding in administration of the pension fund, the spokesman said.
"Annesley joined pension services almost two years ago and, with the support of her strong team, has started an impressive journey to modernize, innovate and digitize the engagement model with our 500,000 members and 1,000 employers," Mr. Hutcheson said Tuesday in an internal memo to OMERS staff, obtained by P&I. "She joined pension services from the infrastructure team, where she was a proven and accomplished professional in investing, value creation and at reframing existing assets to capitalize on new opportunities," the memo said.
With her promotion to chief pension officer, Ms. Wallace will retain her current leadership duties and add responsibility to "help drive the innovation agenda across all of OMERS," the memo said.
Ms. Wallace will continue to report to Mr. Hutcheson, the spokesman said.
In December, OMERS announced that Mr. Hutcheson, then president and chief pension officer, would succeed CEO Michael Latimer after his retirement at the end of May.
Following Ms. Wallace's promotion, Mr. Hutcheson's sole title will be president of OMERS, until the June handoff of CEO responsibilities from Mr. Latimer, the memo said.
On Monday, OMERS Private Equity, a management division of the pension plan, named Saar Pikar a managing director on its growth equity team, the spokesman said.
Mr. Pikar joined on a full-time basis as a managing director after spending seven months as an operating adviser to the team, Mark Shulgan, managing director of head of growth equity, said in an internal memo to OMERS staff obtained by P&I.
Mr. Pikar was previously CEO of CDI Technologies, now Troxell-CDI, until he resigned in 2018, the memo said. He reports to Mr. Shulgan.