The Changing DB Endgame

Mark is a Trustee and former Chief Investment Officer of the Nationwide Pension Fund, where he had responsibility for the performance and implementation of the asset allocation strategies agreed with the fund investment advisors.

Previously, he led the establishment of Nationwide’s Covered Bond programme and its Silverstone RMBS Master Trust funding vehicle. In addition, Mark has securitised UK Student Loans and a synthetic corporate bond structure along with structured transaction and investment in various ABS instruments. Past experience also includes leading the origination and structuring of social housing, PFI and commercial real estate debt transactions.

Chris is a former Pensions Minister, who now serves as Chair of the Financial Inclusion Commission, of the Lending Standards Board, of the Equity Release Council Standards Board and of The Money Charity. He is an Independent Director of the Current Account Switch Service (Pay.UK) and of Cape Claims Services, and is a trustee of GambleAware and the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute.

Chris is a member of the Treasury FinTech Delivery Panel. He has been Chief Executive of two national charities and chair or trustee of many others and was formerly Director of Financial Capability and Head of Consumer Affairs of the Financial Services Authority.

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.

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.

John joined as Chief Executive Officer and an Executive Director of Railpen, in June 2019, having previously served for 12 years as a Director of the Railways Pension Scheme Trustee Company, and Chair for the last five years. John is also an Independent Trustee of the Nestle UK pension fund.

 John is a Chartered Accountant by qualification, and was previously Group Head of Pensions at National Grid. Prior to that John held senior financial, commercial and pension positions at a number of large companies, including Pricewaterhouse Coopers, South Western Electricity, Shell, HBOS and First Group.

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. 

Sophia joined XPS Pensions Group in June 2020 to lead their DC business, helping clients deliver top class DC services to their members. Prior to that, she led Aon’s DC Consulting business. Sophia has over 24 years’ experience in the UK pensions industry and advises corporates and trustees on a range of DC pension solutions, developing and delivering DC strategies that optimise scheme design, ensuring effective governance and improving member outcomes. She is a well-known industry and media commentator on DC market developments and feels passionately that we must tackle short-term financial resilience as well as deliver better long-term post-retirement products, if we’re going to help today’s workforce to retire with the security and lifestyle they want; she is regularly quoted in the press and presents on DC issues at industry events.

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.