Japanese pension funds are seeking to bolster returns in a volatile market by doing something many of them have never done before: appoint chief investment officers.

One of those funds, the Organization for Small & Medium Enterprises and Regional Innovation Japan, an agency that promotes smaller firms, established a position that¡¯s equivalent to a CIO in April.

It gave the job to Takashi Yamashita, who previously helped design the portfolio of Japan¡¯s Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF), one of the world¡¯s biggest retirement fund managers. He¡¯ll oversee ?12 trillion ($83 billion) in assets tied to a fund to aid small businesses, at the firm known as SME Support Japan.