Premier has named Alastair Aird as its chief executive officer.

Aird, who will lead the firm’s strategic growth plans and expansion of its trustee, wealth planning and employee benefits arms, has been a non-executive director at Premier for 16 years. He previously worked as global chairman of media agency Wavemaker, a division of WPP, held senior roles at WPP, and worked at Leo Burnett and The Walt Disney Studios. Following Aird’s appointment, executive chairman, Dai Smith, has become non-executive chairman, but will continue to be actively involved with Premier’s client base and the business.

Aon has appointed Virginia Burke as a senior public sector pensions consultant.

Burke’s new role within the public sector benefits and governance team will see her lead the delivery of Aon’s McCloud implementation services for clients, particularly the Local Government Pension Scheme. Prior to joining Aon, Burke served as a client development consultant at ITM, working on the firm’s services and client base in the LGPS. She has previously spent five years with Equiniti, latterly leading on business development for the data solutions part of Equiniti Paymaster, and five years as a senior consultant at Hymans Robertson.

Mercer has hired Ben Stone as a partner in its risk transfer team.

The London-based role will see Stone advising clients on how to effectively manage their pension risk, either through bulk annuity, member option exercises, longevity swap, migration to a master trust, or other alternatives. Stone joins from PwC where he led the Pension Risk Transfer team, advising trustee and corporate clients on 30 buy-in, buyout and longevity swap transactions. He has previously served as an actuary at Willis Towers Watson, as well as leading projects such as the 2015 Lehman Brothers Pension Scheme buyout, the £4.4bn British Airways Pension Scheme buy-in in 2019 and last year's £3.8bn full-scheme buy-in transaction for the ASDA Group Pension Scheme.

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