Speakers L-P

John Lawson

Head of Pensions Policy
Standard Life

John re-joined Standard Life in 2001 after eight years with Bank of Scotland and nine previous years with Standard Life. His current role includes dealing with UK, European and Asian governments on policy issues, both on behalf of Standard Life and as a representative of the UK insurance industry. He has wide experience of the pensions industry, having worked in administration, regulatory compliance, sales, product development and strategy roles.

John is a frequent commentator on pension issues in the UK trade and national press and writes widely under his own name in a number of UK trade publications. John is Chair of the Tax Incentivised Savings Association’s Retirement Council, a member of the Department for Work and Pensions’ Better Regulation Stakeholder group, and a member of the Association of British Insurers’ Pensions and Savings Strategy Committee. He is a Fellow of the Personal Finance Society and an Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute.

Graham Mannion

Managing Director
PensionDCisions

Graham started PensionDCisions in August 2005, to provide independent benchmarking of investment and saving behaviour for DC pension schemes. Previously, he was a Director at UBS Wealth Management in London where he originated and managed £300 million in client assets. He was in the 2005 UBS Circle of Excellence. Prior to UBS Graham was an Associate with McKinsey & Company in London, focusing on financial services. He started his career in Asia Pacific as an International Manager with HSBC plc.

David Mote

David Mote
Communications Director
Ferrier Pearce

Educated in business studies and management, David has focused his career in marketing and both internal and external communications. His extensive knowledge and experience as Internal Communications Manager at the Woolwich Building Society, work within the PR and marketing communication sectors and his understanding of environmental sustainability led him to his position at Ferrier Pearce. David is an accomplished presenter and regularly speaks on the subjects of internal, external and sustainable communications at business conferences.

Carol Perry

Director
ITS

Carol was appointed as a Director of Independent Trustee Services Limited in July 2006 and brings to the role significant industry experience

She has worked in the pensions industry for over thirty years, starting her career as a student actuary with Legal and General, her career has ranged from consultant to in house pensions manager and she has been involved in everything from SIPPs and SSASs to large occupational schemes before taking on arguably the most talked about pension scheme in the UK as the Head of Pensions at the House of Commons. Carol has been a pension trustee since 1986.

A Fellow of the Pensions Management Institute Carol was involved in the PMI Education Service for many years and is a strong advocate of improving standards by expanding knowledge.

Alan Pickering

Chairman
BESTrustees and The Life Academy

Alan assumed the chairmanship of BESTrustees in February 2009. He is also a non-executive director of the Pensions Regulator and is chairman of the Plumbing Industry Pension Scheme and of the financial literacy charity, Life Academy.

He joined Watson Wyatt in June 1992 having spent the previous twenty years with the EETPU where he gained considerable experience in many aspects of employee relations, pensions and personal finance. He left Watson Wyatt on 31 January 2009.

He was a member of the Occupational Pensions Board from April 1991 until April 1997 serving as its Deputy Chairman during 1993.

He was Chairman of the National Association of Pensions Funds between May 1999 and May 2001.

From 2001 - 2004 he served as Chairman of the European Federation for Retirement Provision (EFRP).

On 26 September 2001, he was asked by Alistair Darling, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to lead a review into the possible simplification of the rules governing the operation of all forms of private pension provision. His report "A Simpler Way to Better Pensions" was published on 11 July 2002.

Alan will also be chairing one of the panel sessions during the conference.

Roy Platten

Pensions Manager
Volkswagen Group UK

Roy has worked for the Volkswagen Group for over 30 years. Although an accountant by trade, he has gained valuable experience during that time in a range of roles.

For the last three years Roy has been Pensions Manager for all the Volkswagen Group companies and have been involved in several major projects that have re-shaped the design of pension schemes in the Company. The scheme was recognised as Small Scheme of the Year in 2007 and for its strong Scheme Governance in 2008.

Roy was also proud to be elected as a Member Nominated Pension Trustee nine years ago.

Roy will also be chairing one of the conference panel sessions.

Andrew Masraf

Partner
Pinset Mason

Andrew is a Partner in Pinset Mason’s Corporate Group, with particular responsibility for the construction sector. He is also a member of Pinsent Masons' national Private Equity committee, which specialises in acting for institutional investors and management teams on the financing of start-ups, management buy-outs and buy-ins, secondary buy-outs and disposals.
Andrew undertakes a wide range of corporate and commercial work, including acquisitions and disposals, joint ventures and business and corporate reorganisations. Clients include ADP Dental Co, Bfinance, AmTrust International Insurance, Open International Limited, Primera Travel Group and the management teams of Biffa, Cory Environmental, Everest Limited, Tilney Investment Management and Be Un Limited. Andrew is the relationship partner for Kier Group and is a member of the Pinsent Masons' teams for Galliford Try, Laing O'Rourke and Wates.

Crispin Lace

Senior Consultant
Mercer

Crispin is a senior consultant within Mercer's investment consulting business, where he is responsible for providing investment advice to a portfolio of institutional clients. He also sits on a number of internal groups with specific responsibilities both for developing Mercer's intellectual capital around strategic asset allocation and for creating a decision making framework that enables our global investment consultants to advise clients on allocating capital to new investment opportunities.

Crispin has over 21 years of experience in investment consulting having started his career with the Wyatt Company in 1987 and subsequently transferring to Watson Wyatt when the two companies merged. He was responsible for Watson Wyatt's investment consulting businesses in Scandinavia and subsequently Germany before returning to the UK in 2006. On his return he was head of Watson Wyatt's investment consulting business to DC schemes with a particular focus on the provision of advice on integrated funding strategies, the analysis and development of investment manager combinations to optimise investment efficiency and the selection and ongoing review of investment managers.

Crispin graduated from Durham University with a degree in Applied Physics and Electronic Engineering.

George Magnus

Senior Economic Adviser

Career history

2005- : Senior Economic Adviser
1998-04: Chief Economist, UBS
1995-97: Chief International Economist, UBS
1987-95: Group Chief Economist, SG Warburg
1985-87: Head of International Economics, Chase Securities, London
1977-85: Senior Economist, Bank of America, London and San Francisco

George Magnus is the Senior Economic Adviser at UBS Investment Bank. Previously he had served as the Chief Economist with effect from the merger of UBS and Swiss Bank Corporation (SBC). Having chaired the Investment Committee of the Trustee Board of UBS’ UK pension and life assurance fund for several years, he continues to serve on the Committee.

Mr. Magnus' previous positions included that of Chief International Economist at UBS before the merger with SBC, Head of Fixed Income Research and then Chief Economist at S.G. Warburg (1987-95), Chief International Economist at Chase Securities (1985-87, previously Laurie Milbank), Senior Financial Economist and then Head of Economics (EMEA region) at Bank of America (1977-85), European Economist at Lloyds bank International (1974-77) and Economics Writer at the Central Office of Information (1972-74).

Mr. Magnus received an MSc Econ from the School of Oriental and African Studies and taught economics at both the University of Westminster and the University of Illinois, where he was engaged in research on employment creation issues in less developed countries at the Institute of Labour and Industrial Relations.

Mr. Magnus’ role is to investigate and analyse global economic topics and engage with clients and the media. He has been working on several thematic issues, including demographic change, the economic causes and consequences of globalization, the creation and deployment of petrodollars and sovereign wealth funds, the implications of a the re-emergence of a new Silk Road in Asia and the credit cycle in the global economy.

In 2007, Mr. Magnus predicted in March that the US sub prime mortgage finance crisis would become a Minsky Moment – or a full-blown credit crunch, named after the US economist Hyman Minsky – and he has written a series of illuminating research papers as to the nature and implications of this event.

Fiona McDonagh

Technical Manager
Marks and Spencer

Fiona’s experience cuts across both DB and DC Schemes. For the last year she has been part of the Corporate Pensions team at Marks & Spencer with responsibility for technical, communications and governance for the DB and DC Scheme. She is also Secretary to the DC Committee.

Her past experience includes 29 years at rpmi (previously known as Railway Pensions Management) covering a number of roles from administration, technical and policy, with the latter years spent in Client Services and Business Development.

Fiona became an Associate of the Institute in 1998 and a Fellow in September 2004. She has played an active role in PMI as an external verifier for QPA and Education Secretary to the North East Regional Committee for a number of years.

Philip Mendelsohn

Managing Consultant and Trustee
The Atkins Pension Plan

Philip has been a Trustee of The Atkins Pension Plan since 2002. Since 2004 he has chaired the Defined Contribution Investment Committee. He has a strong interest in governance in the DC arena, in particular relating to how Trustees deal with the fact that the vast majority of members choose the Default Option. In his opinion unless Trustees, in collaboration with sponsors, deal with this issue in the short term there could be major problems in the future.

Philip is a member Nominated Trustee and his day job is as a Transport Planner, where a major interest is the measurement and management of traffic congestion - he is not sure which is the bigger problem traffic congestion or pensions?

Jonathan Mindell

UK Business Leader, Outsourcing
Mercer

Jonathan joined Mercer Limited as UK Business Leader, Outsourcing in November 2007 and is a member of the UK Executive team.

Jonathan moved to Mercer from RCI, the world’s largest holiday exchange and travel business, part of the hospitality group Wyndham Worldwide, where he was Group Managing Director for Europe. Previous to RCI Jonathan has enjoyed a career across a number of consumer and financial service sector businesses, including Citibank where he was Sales & Marketing Director for the UK Consumer Bank; Airtours where he was managing director for Distribution; and BUPA where he was Head of Member Services.

Jonathan has a BSc in Geography & Economics from the London School of Economics and an MBA from London Business School.

Kevin O'Boyle

Head of Pensions
BT

Kevin has held senior management positions at a number of large multinationals including SmithKline Beecham, GEC, RSA and currently BT plc. A MA (Hons) economics graduate from Edinburgh University. He has run a trustee company, an investment management firm and a US benefit consultancy business during his career. At BT he is responsible for in excess of 150 groupwide pension arrangements.

Kevin has been at the heart of change of some of the most complex pension and benefit arrangements possible.

A regular speaker at conferences both in the UK and overseas on a variety of topics including pensions and medical plans, share plans, benefit design, administration and investment matters.

Gavin Orpin

Head of Trustee Investment
Lane Clark & Peacock

Gavin leads Lane Clark & Peacock’s specialist practice area that provides pension scheme trustees with investment advice.

Gavin has 16 years industry experience and a strong track record in providing investment and risk management advice to pension schemes utilising innovative strategies including interest rate swaps, equity derivatives and liability driven solutions. Prior to joining LCP 3 years ago, Gavin worked for a major investment bank advising companies on pension risk management. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries.

Colin O'Shea

Head of Commodities
Hermes Fund Managers

Colin joined the firm in April 2008. He is responsible for managing the Hermes suite of commodity funds and for driving the business forward into the third party asset management space. He also works with the tactical asset allocation team on commodity exposures and has implemented a commodity hedge fund manager program for BTPS.

Prior to Hermes Colin worked as an Investment Manager with Railpen Investments (investment manager to the £20bn Railways Pension Scheme) and joined the firm in 2005. He was involved in setting the strategic asset allocation for the Scheme and for structuring the pooled funds of the company. This involved investigation and research into alternative asset classes and one of the main tasks was the recommendation for a commodity programme for the Scheme. Prior to joining Railpen Colin worked at Mellon as an Investment Consultant. He began his career at HSBC Actuaries & Consultants Ltd where he worked in pension’s consultancy.

Colin is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries. He studied Actuarial Mathematics & Statistics at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh and graduated with 1st Class Honours. Colin is also a Trustee Director of the Hermes Group Pension Scheme.