Next Steps Towards Net Zero for Pensions

Julius spent his executive career working with DC pensions in both the insurance and asset management industries. In his subsequent non-executive career, Julius has held a number of independent pension and investment governance roles. He was one of the founding trustee directors of NEST Corporation and chaired both its investment and risk committees.

James has a background in international climate finance and infrastructure finance as well as many years’ experience in leadership roles in membership organisations. Most recently, James supported global megacities to overcome the substantial barriers to financing climate action as Director of the City Finance Programme at the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group and Head of the C40 Cities Finance Facility – a project preparation facility he developed, now supporting cities across the world to structure nearly a billion dollars of sustainable infrastructure transactions.

Bruno is a Solutions Specialist for AXA IM in London, focused on designing tailored fixed income mandates for institutional clients. With a particular specialism in climate-transition investing, Bruno plays a pivotal role in working with pension schemes and their advisors in developing and designing investment solutions to meet their long-term sustainable financial goals.

Bruno started his career at Aon Hewitt as an Investment Consultant in 2011, before moving across to the Fiduciary Management team as a portfolio manager in 2013. There, he worked for five years creating and managing fund-of-funds for Defined Benefit pension schemes. Bruno then worked at Wells Fargo Asset Management as an Investment Specialist, before joining AXA IM in 2020. 

Bruno holds a BSc in Industrial Economics from the University of Warwick and is a CFA Charterholder.

Phil is Head of Sales at SparkChange. He was previously Head of ETF and Indexed Fund Business, EMEA at MSCI, with a particular focus on growth strategies including ESG.

Prior to that, he spent 15 years at JP Morgan, latterly as their Head of UK Business Management devising their UK strategy and management communications. He is an expert in ESG Investing, with deep experience of how to integrate ESG factors into the investment process of both active and indexed solutions.

Phil is a CFA Charterholder, and received his BA in History from the University of Birmingham (1996).

Ted joined BeZero in October 2021 to manage the Carbon Removal technologies side of the business. Before joining BeZero, he ran the climate research at the thinktank Onward. 

He regularly writes in the national media on topics of climate and carbon markets, including The Times, The Telegraph, CityAM, Yorkshire Post, ConservativeHome, Reaction and BusinessGreen. He has also spoken on Channel 4 News, Times Radio and Talk Radio. 

Before that, he worked on energy policy in the Central Government team at Instinctif Partners. 

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.

Chris was one of the inaugural Trustees at Nest, a 9 million member DC scheme, and returned to its Board in 2018, where he chairs the Investment Committee. Chris is also Chair of the Border to Coast Pensions Partnership, a pooling vehicle set up by twelve LGPS pension funds with assets of over £40 billion. In addition, he is corporate Chair at the Pension SuperFund, an initiative to consolidate private sector DB pension schemes.

Chris is a Board member for the Toronto-based International Centre for Pensions Management, and for the UK’s Investor Forum, a conduit for strategic dialogue between companies and investors, and an outcome of the Kay Review, on which Chris served.

Chris is an Actuary, a Past Chair of the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association and an Honorary Fellow of the CFA Society of the UK. He and his wife Pip have four mostly grown-up sons and in his spare time, Chris runs marathons slowly.

Marian is Global Head of Pensions 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.

David has worked in DWP since 2003, and in workplace pensions policy since 2014. In recent years, he has delivered regulations on the charge cap; cost, charge and investment disclosure; the introduction of tailored risk warnings in personal pensions with Guaranteed Annuity Rates; accelerating and removing barriers to DC consolidation; clarifying and strengthening trustees’ duties around ESG; and climate change risk in the Pension Schemes Act 2021. He currently leads on DWP’s work to embed climate governance and TCFD into pension scheme decision making, and its wider work on stewardship and responsible investment.

George joined the South Yorkshire Pensions Authority as Fund Director in February 2018 and as Head of Paid Service is responsible for the management of all aspects of the Authority’s activity.

Previously, he was Managing Director of LPP’s pension administration business, having led the Lancashire County Pension Fund prior to the transfer of its staff to LPP as part of the creation of the joint venture with the London Pension Fund Authority. A fellow of CIPFA, George’s previous career in local government finance involved roles as Deputy County Treasurer at Lancashire County Council, Director of Resources at Rossendale BC and Director of Finance at Chorley BC preceded by roles at Northamptonshire CC and Oxfordshire CC, where he did his CIPFA training.

Caroline is a Senior Writer at Quietroom, a team of writers and strategists. Since joining in 2015, she’s helped asset managers communicate with investment consultants, helped fiduciary managers tell their story to trustees, and helped trustee boards talk to their members – in both the calm and the storm. 

Caroline’s an ambassador for the Insuring Women’s Futures programme, a CFA UK Certificate in ESG holder, and regular public speaker on the power of pensions. 

She also spent half of last year working at Make My Money Matter, a campaign calling for the trillions of pounds invested in our UK pensions to build a better world.

Jeff has over 30 years’ experience in public sector pensions and in 2011, he took on the role of Head of Pensions at the Local Government Association, where he is responsible for policy development for the Local Government and Teachers schemes, advises on the Firefighters scheme and leads for LGA on European pensions issues.

David co-founded Renewity after 12 years as a placement agent, latterly with Haven Green, which he founded in 2018 after 10 years at First Avenue. There, he co-headed international distribution, led European sales, and covered global consultant and key institutional relationships. David began his career with 10 years as an investment consultant at Mercer, where he qualified as an actuary. A five-year founders stint in internet services followed, during which time he created and listed an early social content company.

On returning to investment advisory, David became global head of manager research at Aon Consulting, before a period advising S&P on institutional manager research and sponsor covenant services. David set up Valiance, a boutique pensions de-risking and capital advisory firm in 2006.

Mel leads on stewardship in DWP’s Climate Change and Responsible Investment team and is a member of the secretariat for the Occupational Pensions Stewardship Council. 

Before joining DWP, she was the climate change and stewardship policy specialist at The Pensions Regulator, where she led development of TPR’s climate change strategy.

Jennifer is the Head of Stewardship at Newton. She is responsible for embedding stewardship activities into the firm’s investment process.

Prior to joining Newton, Jennifer was a member of BlackRock’s stewardship team, leading on ESG research, engagement and voting across the industrials and consumer sectors in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, as well as being responsible for integrating stewardship and sustainability considerations into the investment process.

Earlier in her career, Jennifer worked at BMO Nesbitt Burns in Canada managing assets for high net-worth individuals. Jennifer earned a Master of Science in Diplomacy and International Strategy from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a Bachelor in Business Administration from the University of Toronto.

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.

Tanguy is a manager in the COP26 Private Finance Hub. He was a member of the Portfolio Alignment Team and co-author of the TCFD-commissioned Portfolio Alignment Report.

Previously, he worked at the Bank of England as a policy advisor for the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS).

Karen has worked in the finance sector for over 30 years. As well as being Founder of Pensions for Purpose, she is Deputy Chair of the Strategic Investment Board for the Ministry of Justice and a non-executive director and Chair of the Board of Resonance Ltd, a social impact investment company. She sits on the Advisory Council of the Impact Investing Institute.

Karen also provides independent investment advice to the London Boroughs of Islington, Camden and Hounslow through MJ Hudson. She was the Chief Executive/Managing Director of Allenbridge Epic Investment Advisers from 2010 to 2013. Prior to that, she had ten years’ experience as a fund manager and director for County NatWest and BZW Investment Management (now BlackRock).

Dr Vian is Head of Sustainability at FNZ and Founder of science-based nature insights platform NatureAlpha, collaborating with academics at Cambridge and Oxford. She is part of the team driving the development of innovative technology solutions to catalyse the shift to more sustainable capital allocations, and ultimately a more sustainable world.

Prior to this, she spent over a decade at global asset manager Investec. As part of a number of governmental and international sustainability advisory groups, she was a Member of the Taskforce for Nature Related Disclosures Technical Experts Group, and the Business Advisory groups of the Convention on Biodiversity.

Georgia is the Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Tumelo, a platform designed to engage members with the companies in their pension and to collect preferences on shareholder issues that members care about. Georgia studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge; has experience from across the sustainable investment sector including equity investment analysis at Jupiter, clean tech venture capital at IP Group and Business & Bio-diversity projects at Fauna and Flora International. She now runs a Bristol-based, financial technology start-up, with a mission to help all investors contribute to and benefit from a more sustainable investment system.

Tom is a Senior Manager in the Aviva Investors Sustainable Finance Centre for Excellence. His work focuses on market reform, sharing expertise and best practice on sustainable finance through the Aviva Investors ESG Academy.

Tom supports Aviva Investors’ work regarding sustainable finance with a particular focus on market and regulatory reform, including contributing to the work of the COP26 High Level Climate Champions, the EU High-Level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance, the UK Green Market Taskforce, the UN-convened Net Zero Asset Owners’ Alliance, and the UN Global Investors for Sustainable Development. 

Tom has also worked with policymakers on key reforms, including the EU Sustainable Finance Action Plan, the DWP reform of pension trustees’ fiduciary duty, and the IOSCO Sustainable Finance Network. He is a member of the reference group for the UN PRI/UNEP Legal Framework for Impact project and is a qualified solicitor, holding an MA (Oxon) in Jurisprudence from the Queen’s College Oxford. He has worked at Aviva Investors for 6 years, and previously worked at Allen & Overy LLP, the Department of the Treasury Solicitor, Beachcroft LLP and the University of Law.

Rebecca is an ESG research analyst at the Church Commissioners for England, the £9.2bn endowment fund of the Church of England. Rebecca works on engagement, particularly in identifying the issues that companies face.

Prior to her time at the Church Commissioners, she specialised on Natural Capital.

Willemijn joined Ortec Finance, a company specializing in building software to support complex financial decision making, in 2018. Together with Lisa Eichler, she drives the integration of climate and ESG into forward looking scenario based strategic modeling tools for climate-related risk management, TCFD disclosure and alignment.

Before joining Ortec Finance, she was a member of the RI-team at MN and worked at the Dutch Treasury and the Dutch Foreign Office in various capacities related to international finance and sustainability including being the lead Dutch climate finance negotiator within the Dutch UNFCCC negotiation team. Willemijn is an economist by training with degrees from the University of Utrecht and London School of Economics and has 15+ years of experience in the sustainability and finance space.

James is Chief Sustainability Officer at Phoenix Group, the UK’s largest long-term savings and retirement group with 14 million policy holders and over £300b assets under administration. James has over 18 years’ experience in climate change and sustainability. Joining Lloyds Banking Group in 2018 as Group Head of Sustainability, he developed a sustainability strategy focused on supporting and financing the transition to a sustainable, low-carbon economy, his efforts raising the bank to second in ShareAction’s climate change rankings for the top 20 European banks.

Prior to this, James was Managing Director at the Carbon Trust, where he worked for 15 years with business and governments around the world on climate change and sustainability related issues, as well as leading their UK business units focused on government policy, market developments and innovation. James previously worked for McKinsey & Company. He has a PhD from the University of Cambridge in Nanotechnology and a first-class undergraduate degree from the University of Oxford, in Metallurgy and the Science of Materials.

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.

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.