IFM Investors, a global provider of investment services to institutional investors across infrastructure, has announced the appointment of Alex Joiner as Chief Economist, in a newly created role for the firm.

Mr. Joiner is a PhD qualified macro-economist and brings with him over a decade of experience across Australian, New Zealand and Asian economies, with a focus on financial markets, risk, investment and quantitative research.

Most recently, Mr Joiner was the Chief Economist for Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Australia, where he held a strong record of successful forecasting and worked closely with the Australian and global equities, fixed income and FX teams.

Prior to that, he held economic roles at ANZ Bank where he provided value-added analysis, ideas and solutions for the management of clients’ financial market risk; and reinvented economic analysis and client advisory tailored to appropriate exchange rate, interest rate and commodity risk management strategies. He also acted in a consultative role on numerous macro-economic models and spent two years focused on Asian economies before working as Senior Macro Economist focused on the property sector.

Mr Joiner will commence his role with IFM Investors in July 2016 and will report to Joshua Lim, Chief Commercial Officer.

Brett Himbury, CEO, said the role will allow Mr Joiner to provide leadership in formulating views on macro and micro economic inputs, for both existing and new investments. Himbury said:

“Alex is an impressive macro economist, and his breadth of experience means he will be a key member of the IFM Investments Committee.”

“He will be instrumental in working with our investment teams globally and assisting with investment decisions across all asset classes.”