McKernan wil join the team in the autumn from SWIP and will drive both the sterling retail and institutional credit business.
He will report directly to Craig Macdonald, who will take over as head of credit when Andrew Sutherland retires at the start of July.
McKernan will manage the Standard Life Corporate Bond Fund, and a range of other large credit mandates. The Corporate Bond Fund has around £611.6m under management, of which just over half is invested in the UK. The fund’s performance over the past year is shown in the graph below.
A spokesperson for SWIP said the team would use McKernan’s notice period to assess team roles before making a decision as to how his responsibilities will be managed in the future.