Strachan had been head of new business for Jersey corporate clients at Kleinwort Benson. At Ipes, he succeeds Andrew Mason, who has left the company.
At Kleinwort Benson, Strachan’s duties are being assumed by Joe Truelove, who has headed up business development for the company’s corporate fiduciary operations in Guernsey, and is now head of Channel Islands business development. Kleinwort said Truelove is being supported in this capacity by its Manchester-based UK head of business development, Simon Gordon.
Offices in four jurisdictions
In addition to Jersey, where its offices are on the Esplanade in St Helier, Ipes has offices in London, Guernsey and Luxembourg. It employs more than 120 people, has around 75 corporate clients, 5,000 individual investors, and manages more than $37bn in assets.
As managing director of its Jersey operation, Strachan will be responsible for building relationships with the local funds industry, winning new business and providing a senior level point of contact for Ipes’s Jersey clients. He reports to group chief executive Kevin Brennan.
Strachan, a native of South Africa, was educated at Diocesan College in Cape Town and the University of Stellenbosch in Stellenbosch.
He trained as a chartered accountant in London with PricewaterhouseCoopers before moving to Jersey in 1998 to join PwC’s offshore tax group. He moved to Kleinwort Benson’s private equity and mezzanine funds team in 2001.
In August, Strachan was named to succeed Ogier partner Richard Thomas as chairman of the Jersey Funds Association.
Separately, Ipes announced that it had named Andrew Whittaker, formerly managing director of Capita Financial Group’s Specialist Fund Services division, to head up its UK operation as managing director. The title is a new one and was created in response to recent and anticipated growth, a company spokeswoman said.
Previously operations director Caroline Hughes had overseen the running of the London office, the spokeswoman added.