The Pensions Asset Allocation Summit

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. 

Shalin joined the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) in 2023, where he serves as Chief Actuary and interim Chief Financial Officer. 

At PPF, he brings extensive pensions, insurance and investment experience, having previously worked at DWS Investments since 2018, and other companies across the sector for many years. He originally started his career in South Africa in life insurance pricing and reserving and then transitioned into liability valuations for defined benefit pension funds. 

In addition, he brings significant LDI, derivative and credit portfolio management experience and has advised some of the UK’s largest pension funds on their LDI strategies both as a consultant with Mercer and portfolio manager with Legal & General Investment Management.

Shalin is a member of the Advisory panel at the Financial Reporting Council. He recently served as a member of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries’ Finance and Investment Board and as an advisory member for the task force to boost socio-economic diversity at senior levels in both the financial and professional services sectors.

Shalin is a Fellow of the Faculty of Actuaries and holds an Honours Degree in Statistics and Actuarial Science from the University of Cape Town.

Marian is the Global Head of Risk & Sustainability at GFG Alliance. 

Prior to joining GFG, she was a Managing Director at Redington and before that led Deloitte’s Trustee Advisory team in London. 

Her experience covers pension risk management, sustainability, trusteeship, scheme actuarial work, corporate advisory and investment consulting.

Nicolas Firzli is founder of the World Pensions® Council, the retirement & savings industry group, co-chair of the G7 Pensions Roundtable held on the sidelines of the G7 Summit, founding-member of the Advisory Council for the Global Infrastructure Facility (GIF), a World Bank and G20–led global initiative, and executive director of the Singapore Economic Forum (SEF).

He has co-developed notions such as ‘SDG–Driven Investment’, ‘Pension Superpowers’, the ‘Age of Geoeconomics’, ‘Employee Capitalism’, and chaired the Pensions and Asset Owners Roundtable at the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference (Paris COP21 Summit/Paris Agreement).

Nicolas is a graduate of Canada’s McGill University (Statistics & Financial Economics), an alumnus of the HEC Paris School of Management (MBA Corporate Strategy & Marketing) and the University of Paris Law School (LL.M. Corporate Law) and has conducted research at the University of Louvain (UCL) Doctoral School of Economics and Management in Waals Brabant (Belgium).

He is a regular contributor to BBC News (Asia), Asharq News with Bloomberg, the Arabian Gulf financial news network, RTÉ, Ireland’s National Television and Radio Broadcaster, and Cairo TV (Qahera News).

He is also active in ecumenical, intercultural dialogue, nonalignment, & the promotion of peaceful, inclusive sustainable development endeavours in Britain, the European Union (EU) and the Greater MENA–APAC continuum.

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.

Neil leads the £6bn+ Surrey Pension Fund, with near 130,000 members and over 500 employers. Surrey is one of the 11 LGPS partner funds that make up the Border to Coast asset pool. 

Neil believes excellence in service delivery is best achieved through an integrated pension service with equal emphasis on all elements of the business, and a laser focus on the customer. 

The Surrey Fund has received pension industry acknowledgement for its outstanding approach to risk management, governance, responsible investing and most recently, administration.

Neil is a member of the PLSA Policy Board, and its Local Authority Committee. He is also the Independent Chair of the Local Pension Board for the London Borough of Hounslow, and an Independent Advisor to the Local Pension Board of the South Yorkshire Pension Authority. 

He is the father of twin boys who are both off doing far more interesting things than he ever did at university. In his spare time, he supports Queens Park Rangers and three putts.

Charlotte Moore is an award-winning journalist and communications consultant, who has written about investments and pensions for 18 years.

She writes for a number of well-respected trade magazines. She examines how institutions like pension schemes and insurers allocate capital. 

Investing to protect the planet and improve society is one of her areas of expertise and she holds regular salons, where panellists are invited to debate different sustainable institutional investment topics. She is often asked to moderate panel topics at external conferences.

Toby Nangle is Contributing Editor for the Financial Times.

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. 

Sofia is a Director of the UBS Pension Trustee Company. Sofia is also an Executive Director at UBS Asset Management, where she works closely with portfolio managers and institutional investors to achieve their investment goals across a broad spectrum of asset classes ranging from passive equities and fixed income to active and alternative investments.

Before joining UBS, Sofia was the Managing Director for the LifeRisks business at RMS, the leading global catastrophe risk modelling firm. At RMS, Sofia led a team of actuaries and consultants helping global insurers manage their longevity and mortality risks.

Sofia graduated with a Master in Finance and Banking from Strasbourg Business School and a Master in Management Research from the University of Strasbourg. Sofia holds the Investment Management Certificate delivered by the UK CFA society.

Amlan is a partner in the Investment Team with the remit of using his Global Macro Research and past client franchise to help support LCP’s international and sovereign clients.

In his previous 25 years, he has served a wide range of global institutional clients (pension funds, insurance companies, SWFs, asset managers, central banks, government treasuries, hedge funds and private equity firms).

He is an experienced Global Macro-Finance Researcher specialising in Global Macroeconomics & Demographics. His book Demographics Unravelled published in January 2022 was mentioned by the FT as one of the best new books in Economics.

He is a Research Associate at LSE’s Research Centres – the Financial Markets Group and Systemic Risk Centre, as well as a Singapore FinTech Festival Ambassador and an elected Honorary Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.

Previously, he was Head of Global Macro Research and Senior MD at State Street Global Advisors and Chief Retirement Strategist, MD and Head of Global Demographics & Pensions Research at Credit Suisse Investment Bank.

As a global EM strategist, he developed global risk & allocation models as an expert on Financial Architecture during the Asian & Russian crises.

He spent a decade in academia with a distinguished teaching career in the US and UK. He was a UK ESRC Research Fellow, Ponders Fellow, a Boston University Doctoral Scholar and a Government of India National Scholar.

He has a PhD and MA in Financial Economics from the University of Iowa, an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and an undergraduate Economics with an Honours degree from St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi.

Bobby is a Senior Pensions leader, who has over 25 years of experience advising both trustees and employers of Occupational Defined Benefit (DB) and Defined Contribution (DC) schemes.

Bobby is a qualified Actuary and a council member of AIMSE. He is a past Chair of the Association of Consulting Actuaries Investment Sub-Committee and has also served on the Finance and Investment Board of the Institute of Actuaries. 

He is a past winner of the MallowStreet Most Influential Investment Advisor Award, and has also twice won the industry Battle of the Bands, as a Bass player. 

Bobby is also a regular speaker on pensions issues at various conferences, and has participated as a judge for a number of industry awards. He has held leadership roles in areas including ESG, professional standards and governance, asset liability modelling and liability driven investment.