This week's pension industry movers and shakers
Fawcett made OBE
Mark Fawcett, CEO of Nest Invest, has been awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) as part of the King’s Birthday Honours, for services to pension saving.
Fawcett said: “I’ve been involved in investments for over 35 years, but my work leading Nest’s investment is the first time I feel I’ve been making a valuable contribution to society. We’re helping give UK workers access to investments previously out of reach to them, disrupting the pension saving industry so it’s not just focused on the wealthiest individuals.”
Just Group appoints Dan Ryan to demographic risk role
Dan Ryan is Just Group’s new director of demographic risk. Ryan is a medical demographer, who has had a career in the insurance industry and speaks on future longevity trends, behavioural science and unlocking data science for individuals.
As well as roles at Willis Towers Watson and Swiss Re, he was a founding member of the COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group, and advised insurers, pensions schemes and governments on epidemiology, vaccination, demographic risk and social behaviours.
Paul Fulcher, group capital management and investment executive at Just Group said: “Dan’s strategic insight on demographic trends, emerging risks and product development will bring a valuable perspective to our business as we execute our ambitious growth agenda.”
Hymans promotes Church to head of core transactions
Hymans Robertson has promoted Iain Church to the newly created role of head of core transactions, within the consultancy’s risk transfer team. He will be leading Hymans’ drive to support smaller schemes as they reach buy-out affordability.
Church said: “This comes at a crucial time, as increased insurer busyness and focus on a large number of multi-billion pound transactions makes it harder than ever for smaller schemes to get engagement from insurers. In this market, handle-turn broking is unlikely to deliver the best results. Instead, we’ll help these schemes pursue a tailored and nimble broking approach, which generates value by playing to each schemes’ individual strengths.”
Clara appoints chief financial and operating officer
Clara Pensions has appointed Richard Zugic as chief financial and operating officer. Zugic is a trustee of the Abbey Life defined benefit pension scheme, and joins Clara from Phoenix Group where he was the interim chief financial Officer of Phoenix Re, and previously the Group Chief Actuary.
Vidett makes four new hires
Professional trustee firm Vidett has hired four client directors and trustee consultants.
Karen Wells joins Vidett as a client director in London. Previously, she was a pensions manager at BMW Pension Services Ltd and also worked as a principal at Mercer for 15 years, where she advised companies and trustees in governance and scheme management.
In Manchester, Caroline Eastwood joins as client director. Caroline was a senior pensions manager at Nationwide Building Society, and before that Skipton Building Society, where she supported both trustees and sponsors in outsourcing the administration of their £8bn DB scheme. Before moving in-house, she was a member of the Mercer Governance Trustee Services team.
Claire Broadhurst joins as a senior trustee consultant in Birmingham. Claire was previously a pensions specialist at Taylor Wimpey, carrying out the pension scheme governance and secretarial responsibilities for the scheme.
Rich Ingham joins as a senior trustee consultant in London from Mercer where he was a pension consultant. He was scheme secretary of JLT’s in-house pension scheme and assisted the scheme merger following Mercer’s acquisition.
Naomi L'Estrange, Co-Chief Executive at Vidett, said: “Vidett was formed in February, so this is an exciting time to join and help us drive growth, strategy and business. All our new recruits bring exceptional industry expertise and extensive knowledge from working on prominent pension schemes and our clients will find this invaluable. We wish them every success as they embark on their new roles."
