Maximising Investment Performance
& Social Impact

In addition to his role at M&G, Mark is a Member of the Independent Governance Committee at Zurich Insurance; Executive Chairman of the UBS (UK) Pension & Life Assurance Scheme Investment Committee; and a Member of the Investment & Funding and DC Committees at Lloyds Banking Group Pensions. He was previously the Chief Investment Officer of HSBC Bank Pension Trust (UK) Limited, who he joined in 2011.

Prior to this, he held a number of senior investment roles at Prudential/M&G. These included UK Equity Fund Manager, Head of Equity Research, Director of Collective Investments, and Investment & Strategy Director for Prudential Europe. 

Shamez is Head of Community Housing and Portfolio Manager at Man Global Private Markets (‘Man GPM’) and is a member of Man Group’s Responsible Investment Committee.

Prior to joining Man GPM in January 2019, Shamez spent 12 years at Cheyne Capital, where he was a partner and portfolio manager of the UK’s first institutional affordable housing strategy. He previously co-ran the firm’s real estate debt business. He has also worked at Credit Suisse, where he was responsible for the mortgage loan trading platform, and at Barclays where he was a senior structurer.

Shamez holds Master’s degrees from Yale University and McGill University.

Andrew is the Head of Defined Contribution Investment and Governance Policy at the Department for Work and Pensions. He leads for the Department on the topical issues of illiquid investments, DC market consolidation and wider value for money policy for occupational DC savers.

Andrew has worked for the Department for Work and Pensions for 3 years, previously working in its Climate Change and Responsible Investment team.

Jamie is a director of the Impact Investing Institute, an independent, non-profit UK organisation that aims to accelerate the growth and improve the effectiveness of the impact investing market. The Institute is supported by the UK’s Government Inclusive Economy Unit, the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, the City of London Corporation, and a number of financial services organisations in the UK.

Jamie was head of UBS Wealth Management in the UK from 2013-2017. Jamie joined UBS after nineteen years at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, latterly as Chief Executive of its European operations. He joined J.P. Morgan in New York in 1993 and moved to London in 1996. He started his financial services career at Wellington Management Company, an independent asset management partnership in Boston.

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.

Mike runs a responsible investment advisory firm, Ario Advisory. With a background in investment management, governance, pensions and insurance, much of his work is concerned with the financial risks of climate change. He works across the investment sector with asset owners, investment managers, policymakers, regulators, investment consultants and NGOs.

Among his roles, he represents IFoA (actuaries) on the Sustainable Finance Advisory Council at the Oxford Smith School and sits on the WHEB Asset Management independent Advisory Committee. He has recently left the Brunel (LGPS) board, where he was a NED (chairing Audit&Risk, more recently Remco), and he was Specialist Adviser to the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee for their 2018 Green Finance inquiry.

Megan is a lawyer in ClientEarth’s Climate Programme, where her work focuses on developing legal strategies to drive the integration of risks associated with climate change into the decisions of institutional investors and advice given by their advisers.

She was recently seconded to the Department for Work and Pensions, where she developed proposals for pension schemes to report on their alignment with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, and the Government’s Sustainability Disclosure Requirements regime.

Before joining ClientEarth, Megan worked at international law firm Hogan Lovells, where she specialised in commercial litigation, acting for a wide range of financial institutions and corporates on complex disputes. Megan is qualified as a solicitor in England and Wales and holds a postgraduate Legal Practice Course and Graduate Diploma in Law from BPP Law School and an undergraduate degree in Archaeology and Anthropology from the University of Cambridge.

Jo joined the Local Government Association in January 2021 as Senior Pensions Secretary, and also acts as Deputy Secretary to the Local Government Pension Scheme Advisory Board.

Before joining the LGA, Jo worked as a senior policy adviser on public service pensions at HM Treasury for 4 years.

Prior to joining HM Treasury, Jo worked for the Department of Health as a policy manager on the NHS Pension Scheme for just over 3 years.

Andrew has worked in the sustainable finance sector since 1998, including designing and managing sustainable listed equity funds and as CIO and co-founder of one of the first investment management companies dedicated to running sustainable listed equity strategies. 

Andrew founded Jura Capital in 2015, to accelerate the flow of impact capital from institutional investors to high-impact investment opportunities solving environmental and social challenges. This has included building a civil-society/investor coalition to IPO a high-impact investment trust to invest in specialist and hard-to-access impact investment opportunities across the private equity, private credit, infrastructure, real estate, and natural resource sectors.

Laurie has spent a lifetime in pensions, investment and retirement related areas. He is a non-executive director of NOW Pensions Limited, a member of the Independent Governance Committee of Zurich UK, and chairs B Different, a financial services research agency. He is a Commissioner of the Financial Inclusion Commission, and a member of advisory boards of Lincoln Pensions and Fairer Finance.

He has been a trustee of the Quest School for autistic children for 15 years and is a member of the ‘Employ Autism’ Development Board. established by Ambitious About Autism.

A founder director of NEST, of the Pensions Regulator and of the Money Advice Service, Laurie chaired Marine and General Mutual Assurance and the ABI’s pensions and savings committee. During his executive career he was corporate development director of AEGON UK and deputy chief executive of National Provident Institution. He was appointed CBE for services to pensions reform in 2006. Laurie is a fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institute and of the Pensions Management Institute.

Debbie is the Deputy Head of the Clwyd Pension Fund, a £2.4bn Local Government Pension Scheme and a member of the Wales Pension Partnership (WPP).  

She represents The Clwyd Fund on both Private Markets and Responsible Investment working groups within the WPP and represents the WPP on the Responsible Investment Cross Pool Group and also the Scheme Advisory Board Responsible Investment Advisory Group. 

The Clwyd Fund has investments with many Private Market managers and Debbie is a member on several of those investments Advisory Boards. 

Debbie has also recently been appointed as a Non-Executive Director for Pensions For Purpose. 

In her spare time, Debbie enjoys taking her dogs and grandchildren away camping and caravanning.

After graduating in 1976, Glyn started with CT Bowrings working on the administration of their staff pension schemes. He then worked in pension consultancy for a few years before joining the trade union Nalgo in 1987. After merger in 1993, he became Head of Pensions for the new union UNISON. Glyn has been at the forefront of all the regulatory changes for the LGPS and NHSPS advising members and supporting negotiations. He has also worked on all the other pension schemes that UNISON members belong to, in the energy, water, higher education and voluntary sectors.

He led negotiations to allow contractors to be able to gain admitted body status in the LGPS for outsourced members in 2000. He has supported members through the pension disputes in 2007 and 2011, and works continuously on protecting good pension provision for members and increasing employer contributions to DC arrangements, where this is not possible.

James joined Foresight in 2007 and currently works as a Partner in the London office. He has over 15 years’ experience. James is responsible for originating, negotiating and managing growth and buyout investments in a variety of sectors, as well as supporting the wider team.

Prior to Foresight, James worked at Deloitte as a Strategy Consultant where he advised businesses in the healthcare and technology sectors. He has also been a professional athlete, rowing for Great Britain and winning a silver medal at the 2003 Rowing World Championships.

James holds an MA in Natural Sciences and Management Studies from Cambridge University as well as the CIMA Advanced Diploma in Management Accounting.

Danny is Cushon’s Head of Workplace Savings. Danny leads Cushon’s pension strategy and intermediary relations team.

Prior to joining Cushon, Danny has worked as a DC consultant at KPMG, Willis Towers Watson and Capita advising some of the UK’s largest companies on pension and financial wellbeing strategies.

Jaspal is Director of Real Asset Research at Redington. In this role, he is responsible for manager research across real estate and infrastructure strategies and has over 20 years of alternatives investment experience.

Jaspal joined Redington in August 2019 from Riverside Capital, a Commercial Real Estate fund manager, where he was Head of Research. He was responsible for developing the firm’s investment strategies and was involved in over £500m of transactions covering all sectors across the UK.

Russell was appointed Chair of the Trustee Board of the HSBC Bank (UK) Pension Fund in 2017 and has been recently been appointed Deputy Chair and Chair of the Investment Committee of USS, the UK’s largest private sector pensions scheme.

Russell retired as Group Chief Accounting Officer at HSBC in 2016, having joined HSBC in 1993, reporting directly to the Group CFO. He was appointed a Group General Manager in 2003.

Russell was a co-chair of the FSB’s Enhanced Disclosure Task Force and is a Special Advisor to the Financial Stability Board’s Climate-related Financial Disclosures Task Force, chaired by Michael Bloomberg.

He is a Senior Associate at the Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership and an Honorary Professor in Durham University Business School. He chairs the IIGCC Investor Practices Programme.

Liz leads the PwC pensions sustainability offering. She is a pensions lawyer by background and sits on the Investment subcommittee of the Association of Pension Lawyers.

Working alongside sustainability, actuarial and covenant colleagues, Liz advises pension scheme trustees, employers and providers on pensions ESG issues including strategy, governance and stewardship and reporting.

Tom is a Trustee Director at 20-20 Trustees, joining from Gowling WLG (where he was a partner in the firm’s Finance & Restructuring Practice). His schemes range from assets values over £1bn down to £25m with sponsors across a number of sectors including retail, construction and not-for-profit.

Much of Tom’s work at 20-20 Trustees to date has centred around options for well-funded DB schemes either in the PPF or with sponsors on the weaker end of the covenant spectrum.

Tom is adept at dealing with fast paced and complex assignments and doing so through a strong ethos of team working and collaboration.

Away from work, Tom enjoys keeping fit through running, swimming and the occasional game of five a-side football. He also has a love of all things equestrian (although mainly now vicariously through his 9-year old daughter) but above all else (except for maybe his family), Arsenal Football Club.

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.

Quietroom are here to make pensions more meaningful to more people.

We’re writers and strategists, supported by designers, developers and filmmakers. We’re on a mission to make pensions more meaningful to more people. Thanks to our work, people are better informed and better off. That’s exciting.

Pensions affect everybody’s future. But they’re hard to understand and even harder to love. They’re invisible and intangible – until you need them.            

That’s a problem for pension savers, because we can only make choices that leave us better off in the long-term if we understand those choices and what they mean for us. It’s a problem for pension providers, because we can’t reach the people whose lives we’re trying to improve if we talk in a way that makes them switch off. And it’s a problem for society too. We’ll only tackle big issues like the ageing population, the savings gap and the transition to a low-carbon economy if everyone feels confident asking questions, challenging assumptions and contributing ideas.

That’s why we approach pensions communication in the way we do. We want to encourage as many people as possible to join the conversation – so everyone can make better decisions about their future.