Speakers T-Z

Matthew Taylor

Chief Executive
The RSA

Matthew Taylor became Chief Executive of the RSA in November 2006. Prior to this appointment, he was Chief Adviser on Political Strategy to the Prime Minister.

Matthew was appointed to the Labour Party in 1994 to establish Labour’s rebuttal operation. His activities before the Labour Party included being a county councillor, a parliamentary candidate, a university research fellow and the director of a unit monitoring policy in the health service. Until December 1998, Matthew was Assistant General Secretary for the Labour Party. During the 1997 General Election he was Labour’s Director of Policy and a member of the Party’s central election strategy team. He was the Director of the Institute for Public Policy Research between 1999 and 2003, Britain’s leading centre left think tank.

Matthew is a frequent media commentator on policy and political issues, and has written for publications including The Guardian, The Observer, New Statesman and Prospect'

Steve Wallace

Director
Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst Association

Steve Wallace joined the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Association in June 2008 and is responsible for building awareness of the CAIA designation and program to potential CAIA members in all financial sectors throughout Europe, Middle East, Africa, Australia & New Zealand.

Prior to joining the CAIA Association, Steve managed client relations for several UK firms - most recently with an emerging market equity hedge fund as well as ING Wholesale Banking and Societé Generale Corporate & Investment Bank. In addition, Steve spent seven years working in the Private Wealth Management sector in Australia, primarily in investment strategy for high net worth individuals at firms, including the Private Bank division of National Australia Bank and AXA Australia.

Emma Watkins

Head of Relationship Management
MetLife

Emma is responsible for developing and securing new business within the bulk annuity market through the development and management of ongoing relationships and enhancing MetLife Assurance’s profile within the industry. Emma has over 10 years experience in the pensions arena, where she has held positions with ACE Europe as trustee liability insurance product manager and prior to that with Hazell Carr Pensions Consulting and Prudential, where she had operational and client management responsibilities for multi-disciplined operational, defined benefit administration and pension technical areas.
Emma holds the PMI Retirement Provision Diploma and is an Ordinary Member of the Institute (MPMI).

Chris Watling

CEO
Longview Economics

Chris has worked in and commented on financial markets for over 15 years. Initially he worked in London’s financial district for Cazenove and then Cheuvreux. In 2003 he set up his own consultancy, Longview Economics.

Longview Economics specializes in global macroeconomics, medium term asset allocation and short term trading. Chris Watling is currently CEO and Chief Market Strategist and is regularly quoted in the financial press.

Clive Wellsteed

Partner & Head of Buyout
Lane Clark & Peacock

Clive is a scheme actuary and leads Lane Clark & Peacock’s rapidly-growing Buyout practice. Having been at LCP for over ten years, he has worked on several high-profile and market-defining UK pension buyout transactions. Clive is the co-author of LCP's authoritative annual Pension Buyouts report. He comments regularly in the press and has been quoted on the front page of the Financial Times.

Natalie WinterFrost

Chairman
SPC Investment Committee

Natalie is a client director in Aberdeen's UK business development team. Natalie started her career in actuarial roles with London Life and Sedgwick Noble Lowndes and then gained 10 years investment experience working in the investment consultancies of PricewaterhouseCoopers and Aon, prior to joining Aberdeen in 2007.

Natalie graduated with a BSc in Mathematics and Economics from Bristol University, is a qualified actuary and a CFA Charterholder. She is a member of Council of the Society of Pension Consultants and Chair of their Investment Committee. She also sits on the Membership Committee of the CFA UK and the Business Committee of the City Women's Network. An active industry participant, Natalie has co-authored a number of papers on pension scheme funding and investment.

Ian Woodall

Interim Chief Investment Officer
Westminster City Council

Ian is a Director and Founder of Lonkal Consulting Limited, based in London the Firm’s consultancy services primarily relate to the operational efficiency and effectiveness of investment implementation. He is also currently the Interim Chief Investment Officer for the City of Westminster.
Prior to founding Lonkal, Ian has worked in a number of city consulting roles and has worked on financial services contracts for a major London Local Authority. He has a wide range of experience in the UK pensions and cash management market.
Ian graduated from the University of Adelaide (Australia) with a Bachelor of Arts degree and also holds an Honours Degree from the same university.

David Yeandle

Deputy Director Of Employment Policy
EEF

David has been the Head of Employment Policy of EEF, the manufacturers’ organisation which has a membership of some 6,000 manufacturing, engineering and technology-based businesses in the UK, since October 1999 having joined EEF as its Head of Employment Affairs in February 1995.

His main responsibilities are the development and representation of EEF's policies on employment, employee relations and pensions issues to the UK Government and European Union and advising EEF member companies and EEF’s regional Associations on the practical implications of these policies.

He was educated at Bristol Grammar School and Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he obtained a degree in economics, and is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and a Fellow of the RSA. He is a member of the Executive Council of the Involvement and Participation Association (IPA), a Director of the Pensions Policy Institute (PPI), a member of the National Employer Advisory Board for the Reserves of the Armed Forces and a member of the Advisory Committee of the Industrial Relations Research Unit at Warwick Business School.

Having started his career at the Eastern Electricity Board in 1974, David joined Pirelli Cables in 1976 and undertook a number of personnel roles before being appointed Employee Relations Manger, with responsibility for all trade union negotiations, in 1986 and then Corporate Personnel Manager in 1989.

In September 1997, he was appointed a member of the independent Pension Provision Group (PPG) by the Secretary of State for Social Security (now Work and Pensions) to provide an independent analysis of the current state of pension provision in the UK and likely future trends. The PPG’s Report, "We all need pensions - the prospects for pension provision", was published in June 1998 and lead to the establishment of the PPI.

In June 2008, David was awarded an OBE for services to engineering and manufacturing employers in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.

Greg Thorley

National Employee Communications Manager
Standard Life

Greg has worked in the Life and Pensions industry for 24 years with several major providers. He joined Standard Life in 2002 to define and implement the employee communications operation and currently heads up Standard Life's National Employee Communications Team. Working in conjunction with large employers and their consultants, in 2008 the team delivered over 200 bespoke communication programmes across the UK.

Greg has spent time in the US with a major provider and also with Standard Life's Canadian operation, in order to integrate behavioural finance techniques into the company's UK offering and he is playing a leading role in the development of the Communication and Education initiative that forms an important part of Standard Life's corporate benefits proposition

Paul Thornton

Chairman
Gazelle Corporate Finance

Paul is Chairman of the Pensions Advisory team at Gazelle Corporate Finance Limited, providing advice on the employer covenant, annuity buy-outs and related issues to pension trustees, sponsoring employers and private investors.

He is also strategic adviser to a specialist firm, PensionDCisions, which provides an investment performance benchmarking service to sponsors and members of DC pension plans, a Non-Executive Director of BGI Pensions Management Limited, and a member of the independent With Profits Committee of Prudential Assurance.

In May 2007 he provided an independent Report to the Minister for Pensions Reform on a Review of nine Government sponsored Pensions Institutions

Paul was with Watson Wyatt until 2006, where he held a number of senior management roles, including serving on the Watson Wyatt Worldwide Board of Directors and being the Senior Partner of Watson Wyatt LLP, and he was Scheme Actuary to a number of FTSE 100 pension schemes, including the BT Pension Scheme.

Paul is a Past President of the Institute of Actuaries and is President-Elect of the International Actuarial Association. He holds an Honours degree in Mathematics from Oxford University

Richard Veal

Head of Communications
Watson Wyatt

Richard is a senior consultant with Watson Wyatt. He leads the Watson Wyatt UK Communications Team of 30 in-house communications specialists who cover a broad range of employee benefits, change and HR communications consulting and implementation.

Richard has worked in HR and benefits for 14 years and has been witness to considerable developments in the way benefits engagement and communication is viewed by the market. His particular areas of interest and expertise are in total reward, flexible benefits and pensions engagement. His team's philosophy is to pull together strategies that make the entirety of the employer's reward much more than the sum of its parts: delivering approaches that relate to the 'real lives' of the audience, targeted at creating deeper awareness and behaviour change.

Henri Vuong

Property Research Analyst
PRUPIM

Henri graduated from University College London with a First Class Honours Degree in Statistics, Computing, Operational Research and Economics and a Masters Degree in Statistics. She joined PRUPIM’s property research team in October 2007, and is responsible for the research and analysis of the UK High Street Retail, Shopping Centre and Residential markets, along with the European commercial property markets. Henri is also actively involved in topic-based research, such as Islamic Real Estate Investment. Prior to joining PRUPIM, she worked as research analyst at Estates Gazettes Interactive. She is a member of the Society of Location Analysis, the Chinese Property Professionals Society and the Society of Property Researchers, where she sits on the society's committee. As committee member, Henri is highly involved in organising educational seminars, assisting in the analysis of the annual SPR salary survey and has co-written an article on Modelling and Forecasting for IPE Real Estate.

Carole Ward

Partner
Barnett Waddingham

Carole started her pensions career with Eagle Star in Cheltenham in 1988 and joined Barnett Waddingham in January 1996. From January 1999 to November 2001 Carole worked in the Leeds office where she established and managed a new administration team.

Carole is a Fellow of the Pensions Management Institute and is also qualified as an Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute and as a Member of the Personal Finance Society at Diploma level. She is Treasurer for the PMI Midlands Region Committee and is a D33 qualified Assessor and D34 qualified Internal Verifier for the Qualifications in Pensions Administration.

She has extensive knowledge of both pensions administration technical matters and also other related financial areas which can impact on pensions.As well as being involved with the management of the administration team, Carole has direct responsibility for a portfolio of significant corporate clients.

Kevin Wesbroom

UK Lead, Global Risk Services
Hewitt Associates

Kevin retains boundless energy and enthusiasm for dealing with clients' pension related problems, despite spending over 30 years served in the pensions industry. He is always for looking for new fields and new areas where actuarial and investment skills can be bought to bare, and this has led to his current role as the UK Lead for Global Risk Services. This role involves bringing together both sides of pension fund balance sheets and helping clients develop their overall objectives in a risk controlled framework. Kevin’s style is characterised by the energy that he brings to every client project, focussing this in a way that put the clients in control of the decisions they have to make. He likes tackling complex issues as well as explaining matters at all levels. His biggest buzz is seeing clients understanding the issues they face and offering them practical, innovative ways of dealing with those issues.

As the UK Lead for Global Risk Services, Kevin is charged with developing this area of expertise for the firm, working with both the Actuarial Department and Investment Department. He has a limited client portfolio enabling him to take on high profile strategic references. He is a lifelong Hewitt employee having joined what was then Bacon & Woodrow from Oxford University and soon after qualifying as an Actuary. He spent time developing the Defined Contribution unit in the firm, broader employee benefits offering, and spearheading the growth of the employer-led consulting in recent years. He has a First Class degree in Mathematics and is a Qualified Actuary.

Kirsten Whitfield

Associate
Wragge & Co

Kirsten, a senior associate with Wragge & Co, has specialised in Data Protection and Freedom of Information compliance since 1999.
Before joining Wragge & Co, she spent 3 years with the IT service provider Serco Solutions Limited (formerly ITNET) in both a data protection compliance role and negotiating large IT outsourcing contracts.

Since joining Wragge & Co in 2005, Kirsten has assisted both public and private sector clients with data protection compliance assessments and strategies. She also advises clients who have suffered serious personal data security breaches and provides data security breach training. Kirsten wrote the PLC Public Sector Practice technical guidance note on Personal Data Security Breach.

Hamish Wilson

Senior Partner
HamishWilson & Co LLP

Hamish is Senior Partner and enjoys all aspects of developing the business as well as servicing many of the firm’s clients, some as scheme actuary.

Before launching the firm in 2002, Hamish was a partner at one of the leading consulting actuarial firms for many years.

Recent client engagements have included helping sponsors and trustees (of differing schemes) navigate funding negotiations, assisting clients in rationalising their pension arrangements and de-risking including introducing and developing liability led investment strategies involving swap overlays.

Hamish is also involved in the wider aspects of the industry and is a regular speaker at conferences.

Justin Wray

Business Leader, Economic Downturn Programme
The Pensions Regulator

Justin was until recently the head of the Pensions Administration and Governance practice of the Pensions Regulator, working in particular on scheme wind ups and standards of administration. He is now heavily invovled in co-ordinating our work on the economic downturn.

In previous roles in the Regulator he has worked on its medium term strategy, its European Union interests, and on three of its codes of practice.

Before joining the Regulator in March 2004 he worked for HM Treasury on the regulation of financial services. He was a member of the team which took the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 through Parliament. He led the two year review of the Act.

His other jobs have included running the UK's aid programme to Russia and UK government interests in the IMF and developing country debt.