DC Focus: The Future of Retirement

A highly experienced and trusted investment and pensions’ solutions professional with deep DC insights, who likes to keep an eye on future market needs and how to deliver them.

David has over 30 years experience in asset management and pensions solutions, including senior roles at Mobius Life, AllianceBernstein, Sun Life of Canada Asset Management, Xafinity, Aon Consulting and Capita Hartshead. 

As Chair of the PASA Master Trust Working Group, and a regular contributor to industry working groups, David sees a strong sense of purpose and drive in the industry at a time of technological innovation and information empowerment. 

Focused and practised at complex problem solving in the DC workplace solutions and investment management industry, David views the current opportunities the industry face as potentially huge game changers for savings and outcomes.

If there is one thing which drives David forward every day, it is being in an industry doing the right things to improve member outcomes.

Emma is the Managing Director (MD) of Retirement & Longstanding, where she is responsible for shaping and executing Scottish Widows’ retirement strategy, including individual later life propositions. She is also responsible for Scottish Widows’ legacy propositions closed to new customers. Emma is a new member of the Independent Governance Committee, the Master Trust Strategist Committee, and in February this year, she became the CEO of the ACD Board. 

In addition to her role as MD, Emma sits on the Boards for the Pensions Administration Standards Association, where there is a single purpose: to promote and improve the quality of administration services for UK pension schemes. 

Prior to joining Scottish Widows in June 2015, Emma was a partner at a leading pension consultancy, specialising in helping trustees and companies manage defined benefit pension scheme risk using insurance solutions. Emma has held senior positions at several other insurance companies, with over 25 years of experience in the pensions and retirement industry. 

With a degree in Microbiology and Biochemistry, and a passion for the Health industry, Emma also sits on the Board of Trustees for the Centre for Health and the Public Interest. 

Fiona is currently Group Head of Pensions & Benefits at Rolls-Royce Plc. Her role is a hands on one in the UK, with fiduciary and strategic responsibilities outside the UK. Fiona is also global lead on Financial Wellbeing strategies. Fiona has previously held in house Pensions and Reward lead roles at Thomas Cook Plc and Electricity North West.

Prior to her in-house roles, Fiona spent 14 years at the Big 4, in consultancy roles. Fiona’s passion is financial wellbeing, improving general numeracy skills and better supporting people in making effective short and long term financial decisions.

Philip has worked in financial services for over 30 years, with most of his experience, focused on pensions and retirement income products.

He is the Director of Policy & External Affairs at NEST, and has previously worked as an independent consultant, Head of Policy at Liverpool Victoria (LV=), a Senior Policy Associate on high level projects at the Financial Services Authority, and the Director of Policy & External Affairs at People’s Pension. In 2016, he was winner of The Public Affairs Awards ‘Corporate Campaign of the Year’.

Philip has been an active member of a number of industry trade bodies over the years including: the Association of British Insurers, Investment and Life Assurance Group, and the Pension Income Choices Association. He is currently a member of the Pensions & Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA)’s Policy Board and the PLSA Master Trust Committee.

Dominic Byrne, CAIA, is the Head of DC Strategy for EMEA at BlackRock. This includes pooled and custom portfolios that span target risk, diversified growth, factors, multi-alternatives, and lifecycle investment processes. 

In his role, Dominic is responsible for business development, investment strategy and product and solution evolution across the region. He serves as the lead client facing resource for EMEA distribution teams, and engages with external stakeholders who drive Defined Contribution decision making, including benefits for consultants, trustees, master trust investment committees, and a range of platforms and providers of retirement solutions across Europe. He is also a member of the LifePath EMEA Investment Committee.

Dominic has spent over 15 years of his career in product and investment strategy roles, where he was responsible for developing solutions and products, and positioning these products both internally and externally. 

Prior to joining BlackRock in 2007, Dominic spent three years at American Express Bank, most recently as an investment specialist with the Global Wealth Management Group. 

Dominic earned a BA degree from the University of Durham in 2003.

Andy joined Capital Cranfield Trustees in 2017. Before joining Capital Cranfield, Andy acted as adviser to trustees and employers at Watson Wyatt, Hewitt Bacon & Woodrow and latterly as a partner at LCP.

In 2017, he was appointed as Chair of Trustees to the Smart Pension Master Trust followed by The Lewis Workplace Pension Trust, followed by BOC RSP, The Yorkshire & Clydesdale Bank DC Scheme and Mizuho International DB Scheme. He also acts as co-Trustee for HSBC’s master trust and the PMI DB scheme.

He was elected to the DC Council of the PLSA between 2013 and 2018 and now chairs the Pension Quality Mark Standards Committee and the Small Pots Coordination Group as well as sitting on the DC Asset Security Working Group and PASA’s DC Governance Group.

Jason is a highly experienced executive, having worked for three of the UK’s largest pension funds (British Airways, USS and West Midlands Pension Fund), and two Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) Pools.

Most recently, Jason was the Chief Investment Officer (CIO) of the London CIV, the investment pool for 32 London boroughs.

Jason’s experience includes establishing, leading and developing financial organisations in both the private and public sectors. He has proven success in the selection and stewardship of investments, and building teams, as well as in developing systems and controls for regulatory control. 

He has demonstrated a pragmatic approach to adding value, improving social and climate outcomes for organisations through impact investing, sustainability, change and people management.

Matthew is responsible for developing Railpen’s pension solutions, ensuring that they meet the ongoing and long-term needs of the Rail Industry. This includes solutions linked to DB journey planning, such as low-dependency funding and buyouts, as well as the development of new DC propositions. 

Most recently, Matthew has been leading Railpen’s research into new collective pension schemes and has been working with the Department of Work and Pensions, The Pensions Regulator and other industry leaders to push forward the development of new pension models in the UK. This work is focused on delivering better pensions to the next generations of retirees. 

Matthew is a Chartered Accountant and a fellow of the ICAEW. He began his career at Deloitte, before taking up senior finance roles at FTSE listed companies. He has worked at Railp[en for around 10 years, with roles spanning across Finance, Corporate Strategy and Fiduciary Management.

Ian is a highly experienced pensions investment executive. Most recently, he has been the Chief Investment Officer at Lloyds Banking Group Pensions, overseeing some £40 billion of assets across both DB and DC sections. He joined Lloyds from Aviva, where he carried out a similar role. Prior to that, he was the CIO of the Pension Protection Fund. Ian is also a member of the actuarial profession’s Finance and Investment Board, while also being Chairman of EPFIF’s Pension Fund Investment Advisory Committee.

Kavi Myladoor is Just Group’s Retail Retirement Income Director, overseeing its Individually Underwritten Annuity and Secure Lifetime Income propositions. 

She joined Just in April 2023 from Royal London, where she successfully established a later life strategy and ran its D2C and intermediated later life propositions. 

With a background in risk management, proposition strategy and change delivery, Kavi’s focus is to create and change strategy on Just’s growth ambitions, whilst ensuring that its customers get value from money on existing propositions. She is passionate about her purpose, which is to identify innovative ways to make later life propositions and financial advice more accessible to consumers in the UK. 

Since 2012, Julie has been Director of Pensions at Walgreens Boots Alliance, with responsibility for the company’s pension and retirement policy. Her role includes monitoring market and regulatory requirements and supporting the business in ensuring appropriate funding mechanisms and governance arrangements are in place. In the UK, such arrangements include a large closed DB pension scheme and a large contract-based DC scheme, with accompanying AE obligations. 

Prior to joining WBA, Julie held similar roles in the UK with a number of multinational employers, some of which included a broader remit to include other benefit and reward elements as well as direct involvement in working with trustees and managing both DB and DC trust-based pension schemes. 

Keillian Tai is a Principal Investment Consultant at TPR, within the Market Oversight Directorate. 

Keillian joined TPR in 2023, after 8 years in the private sector advising pension schemes on investment strategy, manager selection and ongoing investment oversight. This included advising DC schemes on their decumulation strategy, and investment approaches. 

His experience spans across multi-million pound DB, single employer trust-based DC, contract-based DC and DC master trusts. 

At TPR, Keillian continues to leverage his breadth of experience and provides investment advice across trust-based DB and DC arrangements on matters ranging from ongoing supervision and interventions to areas related to pension policy.

Georgina is Head of Multi-Asset Strategies (MAS) UK Team and Fund Manager within Invesco’s Henley based investment centre. 

Georgina joined Invesco in June 2013 as a Product Director, became a Research Director in 2016, then went on to become a Fund Manager in 2018. She became Head of the Multi-Asset Strategies (MAS) UK Team in January 2023. 

Georgina started her career with HSBC in 2001 as an Equity Strategist. She went on to join the Equity Strategy Team at Goldman Sachs in 2004, where she wrote global equity and asset allocation research. She gained asset management experience at Legal & General Investment Management, contributing to the overall asset allocation outlook for the firm and multi asset funds. 

Before joining Invesco, Georgina was Head of Equity Strategy EMEA at StateStreet Global Markets, producing and presenting on asset allocation and equity research. 

Georgina holds a BSc (Hons) in Economics from the University of Bath.

Janette is one of the founding directors of Ignition House. She has more than twenty years research experience and brings a broad range of research and consultancy skills and experience from her previous roles. Janette is responsible for new business development and is Head of the Financial Services and Public Sector Practices. She started her career as an economist at the Department of Work and Pensions, where she spent five years advising ministers and policy makers. This gave her a solid grounding in research skills and an understanding of the public sector.

She moved to be Chief Economist at the Association of British Insurers to build detailed knowledge of the insurance sector. From there, she led a team of thirty analysts covering all aspects of Financial Services as Head of UK Financial Services Research at McKinsey and Company. She was part of a pan-European team, which gave an international flavour to her research skill set. She also worked in a small team for a year to develop and implement McKinsey’s knowledge management strategy.

As Director of the Financial and Public Sector Practice at IQ Research, she built a solid practice of bespoke and syndicated work for financial services companies, economics consultancies, regulators, and trade associations. Janette is a well-known industry expert on the life and pensions sector, and often writes articles for the trade press.

Rob is Head of Long-Term Savings Policy at the Association of British Insurers. Since joining in January 2012 he has led the ABI’s work on customers’ retirement choices, responding to pension freedoms, and policy and governance around pensions dashboards.

He now oversees long-term savings policy areas from automatic enrolment to social care, and from investment platforms to Defined Benefit pensions. He previously worked at the Money Advice Service, the FSA and in policy and public affairs roles in the voluntary and private sectors.