American Equity Investment Life Holding Co. has named Tolga Uzuner as chief investment officer for asset management of American Equity. Uzuner will be responsible for executing the company’s alpha asset strategy and building its subsidiary asset management firm, the West Des Moines-based retirement services company said in a press release. As part of the company’s investment management strategy, Uzuner will partner with Jim Hamalainen, chief investment officer of insurance, and Jeff Lorenzen, chief risk officer. Uzuner and Hamalainen will function as co-CIOs, leading one integrated investment function and partnering to broaden the company’s investment management capabilities and revenue generation sources, including through partnerships. In a November interview with the Business Record, American Equity CEO Anant Bhalla said that investing in physical assets such as real estate and infrastructure to generate greater active return on investments, or alpha, will be one of the company’s core strategies. Uzuner was previously managing director of Investments at JP Morgan Chase before transitioning to Apollo Global Management, where he ran and built investment offices in the U.S., Europe and Asia. Most recently he owned his own firm, Austra Global, providing an outsourced CIO function to new private equity entrants to insurance.