The Cost-of-Living Crisis

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.

Alasdair joined WTW in 1999 and is now Head of Investment Strategy. This role involves chairing the Investment Strategy Group, which determines the house investment strategy views for UK DB and DC funds, and also chairs the global Investment Assumptions Committee. Alasdair also sits on the Investment Committee for the “best ideas” diversified growth fund, the Towers Watson Partner Fund, and has done since its inception in 2004. 

He provides strategic and risk management advice to a small number of large pension schemes, often managed by internal teams. Alasdair studied mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge, and is a qualified actuary. 

David has spent his 30+ year career working in pensions and investment. The early years were spent in consulting, during which he qualified as an actuary before joining what is now Willis Towers Watson’s investment practice to advise UK and European clients on investment strategy. He then spent six years as Chief Investment Officer for the Pensions Trust, before joining Lloyds Banking Group (Pensions Investment Team) as Head of Investment Strategy. 

In that role, David was responsible for all aspects of investment strategy including asset allocation, de-risking ‘triggers’, longevity hedging, rebalancing policy and responsible investment policy. He became Chief Investment Officer in February 2022. 

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.

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.

Andy has an established track record of driving DC strategies to meet the requirements of the UK’s largest employers. Prior to his current role of Master Trust Strategic Development Director at Aegon UK Investing, Andy was at Standard Life Group for over 25 years working within the Group’s DC Corporate business and the Asset Management arm as an Investment Director.

Latterly, he was Head of Market Strategy at Atlas Master Trust. He is a regular pension trade press contributor and presenter at pension and investment conferences in the UK and overseas and former chair of the DC Investment Forum.

Susan has over 38 years of experience in the investment industry, principally on the institutional side, with experience in asset management, investment consulting to pension funds including manager research, broad industry research and advice to financial and asset management firms. Susan founded Douse Associates in 2006, to invest her own capital alongside a carefully selected and diversified range of skilled boutique managers and to represent them as a dedicated marketing organisation. 

Susan’s background includes time as Global Product Manager and Head of Consultant Relations at Schroders in 2004 and as a co-founder of Grail Partners in 2005. 

Prior to this, Susan was a Partner at Watson Wyatt from 1993-2004, where she ran global research programmes looking at investment trends and innovative solutions. She began her international career with SEI in London, establishing their international manager research effort in 1986. Susan began her career at Allan Gray Investment Counsel in Cape Town from 1982 to 1986, prior to moving to the UK. 

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.

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.

Russell joined M&G Investments in 2019 to head the Global Insurance Solutions team. The team brings together expertise from across the firm to meet the complex requirements of insurance clients. 

Immediately prior to joining M&G, Russell worked at Legal & General, where he spent four years in the retirement division executing large bulk annuity transactions and developing new products. He worked closely with the internal manager on cash-flow matching strategies, holistic portfolio management, and incorporating illiquid assets into portfolios. 

He has a broad background in insurance and pension consulting, investing private capital, portfolio restructuring, corporate banking and quantitative finance. Russell holds a Doctorate from Queen’s University Belfast in Theoretical Physics. 

Alexandra is Director for Partner Engagement & Consultancy at St. James’ Place. She is responsible for the distribution of the investment and private client proposition into SJP’s 4,500 strong Partnership, and is a spokesperson and senior sponsor for financial wellbeing at the firm.

She has been with SJP for 12 years, having started her career as a tax lawyer. 

Toby Nangle is an Independent Economic and Financial Markets Commentator. He spent 25 years in the asset management industry, most recently as Global Head of Asset Allocation at Columbia Threadneedle, where he led an award-winning asset allocation investment team of 26 professionals, based across four time-zones, managing c$160bn AuM for a range of institutional and retail clients. 

As Head of Client Solutions, Nikesh Patel is responsible overall for the key client-facing groups providing fiduciary management in the UK, in account management, implementation and investment strategy. Nikesh has been with Kempen since 2016, and was Head of Investment Strategy in the UK, responsible for designing and developing the strategic and tactical asset allocation strategies for our UK clients, including research of innovative asset classes.

Prior to joining Kempen, Nikesh was a senior corporate-side investment consultant at PwC, where he advised FTSE100 and FTSE350 companies on investment and funding strategies to manage their defined benefit pension funds. Prior to this, Nikesh managed several of BlackRock’s largest and most sophisticated UK pension funds. Nikesh began his career within Mercer’s UK investment consulting business, where he advised a portfolio of defined benefit and defined contribution pension schemes, insurance companies and sovereign wealth funds on the full spectrum of investment issues.

Nikesh is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries as well as a Chartered Enterprise Risk Actuary. He was recognised as the Investment Manager of the Year 2021 by Professional Pensions and was recognised by Financial News as a Rising Star of Asset Management in Europe in 2019. He holds a degree from LSE and a qualification in private markets investing from Oxford University’s Said Business School. In addition, Nikesh is a trustee of the Church of England Pensions Board and a trustee and chair of the investment committee for Smart Pension, a leading DC Master Trust. 

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. 

Back in 2003, my business partner, Vincent Franklin and I were working in a marketing agency, selling stuff that people wanted, like beach holidays and fancy trainers. But then we read about the ‘pensions time bomb’. We were fascinated. How had this happened and why wasn’t it being talked about in a way that was helpful to ordinary people?

We’d stumbled on our mission – to cajole the pensions industry into making long-term savings more meaningful to more people. To challenge the way the industry saw their customers – people who’d never get their heads around the complexities of pensions.

We’re still some way off where we need to be when it comes to helping people make better decisions about how they’re going to live after they stop working. But old barriers are falling and things are beginning to come together; digital first, the application of behavioural science, the binning of jargon, emotional connection, encouraging a two-way dialogue, apps that connect pension investment with the money in your wallet, providers with a consumer brand mentality and the realisation that pension money isn’t in a vault in Switzerland but is invested in the real world people care about.

Henry is the founder of both AgeWage and the Pension PlayPen, designed to map the pensions genome and ensure everyone gets data driven information on value for money. He has worked most of his career in pensions, most recently as a Director of First Actuarial, and notably at Eagle Star and Zurich Assurance.

He is a well known blogger on all pensions-related issues at henrytapper.com.

In addition to his role at M&G, Mark is a Member of the Independence 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. 

Dawn is an Independent Advisor and Non-Executive, with expertise in Responsible Investment, Sustainable Finance and Environmental, Social and Governance risks. Her portfolio of independent and advisory roles includes renewable energy, social housing, pension investments and Independent Chair of the Gwent Police Joint Audit Committee.

She was the former Chief Executive of the LGPS pool £30 billion investment management company, Brunel Pension Partnership Ltd, with a 40 years+ career in finance services & investment industry.

She is an advocate of diversity and healthy workplaces. Dawn is experienced in the public and private sector and is an advocate for better futures for all.

Carol is Director of Reward & Employment at Natwest Group. She leads the teams responsible for Reward, Pensions, Benefits, core HR employment policies, Employment Law, Industrial Relations, Business Acquisitions and Disposals and HR regulatory work.  Within this sits the flexible benefits programme for over 60,000 colleagues and DB and DC pension arrangements for over 300,000 members (over £50bn liabilities) worldwide.

She is a member of the Pension and Lifetime Savings Association’s Board, and a governor of the Pensions Policy Institute. Carol’s career spans over 20 years across in house and consulting roles and includes a decade as an investment consultant. She has served as independent trustee on a number of boards, and is a trustee of the bank’s UK DC scheme. Carol is a CFA charterholder and has particular interest in financial wellbeing, effective engagement and governance.

Carol is also a member of the Nucleus Financial Investment Committee.

Aegon are one of the largest providers of workplace pensions in the UK, supporting over 10,000 employer schemes and managing the savings of over 920,000 members*.  

From contract-based to trust-based defined contribution (DC) schemes, investment-only services to master trust arrangements. 

We aim to provide a highly comprehensive range of workplace solutions. 

*As at July 2021