London CIV, the investment pooling company that exclusively manages Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) assets for all London boroughs and the City of London, has brought in Andrien Meyers, a lead advocate for the formation of London CIV and current Head of Pensions Investments at both the London Borough of Sutton and Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, to take on the newly-created role of Chief Proposition Officer.
Meyers’ appointment is part of the company’s evolving strategy to ensure the UK capital’s local authorities and City of London (both London CIV’s partner funds and shareholders) continue to have further choice in utilising London CIV and cementing a more collegiate London LGPS community. This comes at a time when the leading political parties are in broad agreement that further LGPS integration across England and Wales is required and, more pertinently, likely to become a directive.
Next year marks the 10th anniversary since London CIV was launched by partner funds in order to collectively increase efficiency, drive down costs and compound value for London’s LGPS. In that time, the London LGPS community has worked together to pool more than £30bn in assets (as of 30 April 2024) through London CIV, which has created over £70m in savings to date.
However, while investment pooling across England and Wales has proved successful over the last decade, there is growing stakeholder consensus that it only forms a single component to a wider strategy required to make LGPS work more efficiently.
Meyers’ role forms a core part of London CIV’s next strategy phase to launch a choice of products and services beyond pooling that will further strengthen the London LGPS community’s continued ability to work together and deliver a sustainable LGPS in the coming years and decades.
Meyers has been involved in public life for over two decades. He has held senior positions at a diverse range of London Councils, whilst also having senior advisory and NED roles in the investment industry. In his current role at Sutton and Kingston, Meyers has successfully integrated the pensions investment/accounting/governance shared service of the two funds, whilst setting up and implementing several strategies – the most important being investment and governance. The success of the Sutton and Kingston Funds has resulted in national and international recognition.
In the past Meyers has served as a Senior Policy Advisor to the Minister of Local Government via the LGPS Scheme Advisory Board, provided strategic and operational advice to both national and local Government, whilst always placing the taxpayer, pension fund members, residents and businesses at the heart of what he does. He has been at the forefront of national change with regard to local government pensions, resulting in much industry attention and national awards.
Further Meyers is an independent politician at the City of London Corporation, where he chairs the Investment and Equity Diversity and Inclusion committees.
In taking up his new role at the London CIV, Meyers will look to work closely with partner funds on proposition development, whilst enhancing the client experience and furthering a collaborative approach here in London.
Such unrivalled knowledge and experience will enable this new phase for London’s LGPS community to kick off with a running start, comments Dean Bowden, CEO at London CIV: “I’ve worked closely with Andrien since I joined London CIV two years ago and am regularly struck by his in-depth experience of LGPS workings, as well as his strive to deliver more value to its members.
“As we look to provide our partner funds with more choice in how best they can generate further efficiencies, cost savings and value beyond investment pooling, I know Andrien is perfectly situated to help us deliver on this next phase for London’s LGPS community.”
Andrien Meyers, Chief Proposition Officer at London CIV, added: “Having been involved with London CIV since its conception over a decade ago, I am extremely excited to now play a more formal role. Given the future direction of the LGPS, the exciting journey the LCIV has been through over the past couple of years – now more than ever before London is united and I look forward to collaboratively working with our London Funds to be innovative, generate efficiency and do what’s right in the best interests of our members.”
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