The Accelerating DB Endgame

Sally is an actuary with extensive experience in innovation, risk management and responsible investment across investment management and pensions. She was CEO of the BP Pension Scheme in 2007-14 after twenty years with Aon Hewitt working as a consultant and in investment research.

Her non-executive portfolio has included roles as trustee and investment committee chair at the Nuclear Liabilities Fund, NEST Corporation and the Lloyds Bank pension schemes. Sally’s non-executive portfolio currently includes Chair at Impax Asset Management Group plc, non-executive director at insurers Royal London, Pension Insurance Corporation and Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance, and at Local Pensions Partnership (LPP) Limited, where she chairs its regulated investment company.  

Sally is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries and has served the actuarial profession on its Council and professional committees. In the City of London, Sally is a Liveryman with both the Wheelwrights’ and the Actuaries’ Companies, having held office as the first lady Master of the Worshipful Company of Actuaries in 2016-17.

Sally’s passion for maths education is evident in her work as a member of the Royal Society’s Advisory Committee on Mathematics Education (ACME) and as Chair of the Strategic Advisory Board for the Centre for Mathematical Cognition at Loughborough University. Sally is an Honorary Group Captain in 601 Squadron of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force, introducing diverse ideas to the way that the Senior Leadership Team of the RAF think and work. 

Baroness Bowles is a Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords, and a non-executive director of the London Stock Exchange Plc. and Valloop Holdings Limited (a social impact Fintech). 

A physicist and mathematician, she professionally qualified as a patent attorney, establishing her own firm in 1981 and building a partnership which became internationally renowned in the field of electronics, computer architecture and semiconductor fabrication.

In 2005, she became a member of the European Parliament, and a member of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, which she then chaired from 2009 – 2014. In that role, she chaired the Parliament Council Commission negotiations on all the post financial crisis legislature reforms and was named as the most influential Briton on European policy.

Retiring in 2014, she was appointed to the House of Lords in 2015, where she mainly focuses on business and financial services legislation and is a member of the Industry and Regulators Committee, and the Fraud Review Committee. She chaired the inquiry into employee ownership for the EOA, which published The Ownership Dividend.

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.

Lara joined Hymans Robertson as a partner in the Risk Transfer team in October this year, having previously been Head of Origination and Operations in Scottish Widows’ buy-in business.

She has 15 years of experience in the pensions and insurance industry, and has led a number of complex de-risking transactions, including £15bn of transactions between the Lloyds pension scheme and Scottish Widows (part of the Lloyds Banking Group).

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.

David was appointed Executive Director of Regulatory Policy, Analysis and Advice in 2018, having previously been a senior partner in KPMG’s Pension Practice. He is responsible for the development of policy for TPR and has oversight of TPR’s professional advisers including lawyers, actuaries, investment advisers and business analysts.  

He is co-chair of TPR’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee, and a member of the cross Government Portfolio Committee overseeing the introduction of the Pensions Dashboard. He is the responsible Executive for climate change and ESG within TPR, and a member of the Regulators’ Stewardship Group, a member of the Working Group on Productive Finance and member of the Climate Financial Risk Forum. He is a member of the Joint Forum for Actuarial Regulation and chairs the Pensions Working Group.

David is a former Chairman of the Association of Consulting Actuaries and Director of the Association of Consulting Actuaries Limited, a former Council member of the International Actuarial Association, and inaugural Chairman of the Joint Industry Forum for Workplace Pensions. He was also a Council member of the Society of Pension Consultants and is a former Chairman of the Actuaries Club.

David is also Chair of the Genomics Development Board for Sarcoma UK, and an advisory Board member of the Association for Business Psychologists and the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Essex University.  He is a Governor of the Pensions Policy Institute.

Fiona started her career in Welfare Rights advice, including work for CPAG, the child poverty action group, helping claimants understand and challenge legislation, and decisions of the department she now works for.

However over the past 20 years, she has worked in The Pensions Regulator, across a variety of roles leading operational teams, managing change and in most recent years, as Head of Policy, introducing initiatives such as DB codes, Master Trust authorisation and taking account of climate change risks in pension scheme funding.

In July 2021, Fiona joined the DWP as Deputy Director of the Defined Benefit Policy team. Her role is demanding and cross cutting, where she supports the Directorate to deliver DB policy and work closely across the wider network of stakeholders and external organisations, supports the Minister for Pensions to deliver changes to policy regulations, including new rules for scheme funding, new powers for the regulator and support for PPF to deliver appropriate protection for members.

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.

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. 

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.

Simon is Head of Fiduciary Management Solutions and leads the evolution and growth of the firm’s fiduciary management offering for UK pension schemes. 

Based in London, he works with prospective clients to design custom solutions, bringing together our fiduciary strategy, investment and client teams.

Simon is a qualified actuary and has 18 years’ experience serving UK defined benefit and defined contribution pension schemes. 

Kerrin founded and leads Cardano’s UK team and has overall responsibility for the UK business and for Sustainability for the Cardano Group.

Kerrin is widely accepted as one of the UK’s investment thought leaders, playing an influential role in pioneering many concepts that are in mainstream use today, such as liability driven investing, fiduciary management and diversifying assets. 

Before setting up Cardano in the UK, Kerrin spent 15 years as an investment adviser at Aon Hewitt. Kerrin graduated from the University of Manchester with a degree in Economics, and qualified as an actuary in 1995. 

Adam is the founder and former Chief Executive Officer of Clara-Pensions; and has been one of the driving forces in the creation of the DB consolidation or ‘superfund’ market. From 2017 to 2022, Adam led Clara from an idea to become the first (and currently only) superfund to complete the Pension Regulator’s assessment process. Adam was inspired to found Clara by his wife, for whom Clara is named.

Adam is motivated by clarity, teamwork and a strong desire to effect change. Adam believes that placing members and savers first is the key to delivering new solutions for UK pension schemes.

Adam has worked in financial services for over 25 years. He began his career in Equity Capital Markets at Goldman Sachs, where he advised European and global clients on the structuring and execution of equity and equity-linked financing. After spending a year in the insurance industry, he returned to the capital markets and was founding partner at Black Ant Investment Management – a global value investor, investing across the capital structure. Adam was a portfolio manager for 11 years on both the Black Ant Value and Credit funds.

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.

Margaret is a senior consultant in Punter Southall Pension Solutions. She has more than 20 years of experience in the pensions industry advising clients on pension strategies. She has a track record of growing financial service firms, both as an independent consultant and as an executive leader.

Margaret supports the team in the design and implementation of the business development strategy of Stoneport from time to time whilst attempting to relieve the existing PSPS actuarial team of any tasks she can help. She will advise and guide Stoneport’s clients through the consolidation process.