Future of Pensions Summit 2024

Debi O'Donovan

Co-founder & Director, REBA

Debi co-founded REBA in 2015 and is Director of REBA. Debi enjoys sharing insights, data and information about employee benefits and pay via articles, research, guides and videos. She believes it helps so many employees receive better reward packages than they would if REBA didn’t distribute this knowledge. REBA has a great community with a wide variety of people working in reward and benefits coming together through REBA events, both large and small.

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Claire Barnes

Client Director, Vidett

Claire is an actuary and pensions governance expert. She works on outsourced and consultancy services from pension scheme management, governance and secretarial, to end game planning, board effectiveness and risk management. She spent the first 15 years of her career at Barnett Waddingham after joining as a graduate actuary. Having qualified as an actuary, she undertook a secondment working with an in-house administration team for one of the UK’s largest pension schemes. With new skills and experience, she moved to the Senior Pension Management team where she was a key driver of the team’s growth.

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Rita Butler-Jones

Head of DC, Legal & General

Rita is Head of DC at Legal & General, responsible for our DC strategy and business growth. She has a wealth of DC experience with a broad spectrum of product, client, and sales experience. Rita has been at LGIM since 2015, prior to this she held senior sales roles, including Head of DC at Threadneedle Investment, Business Development Director at Friends Life, and DC Sales Consultant at Mercer. She is also a scheme strategist for Legal & General’s Mastertrust and in 2021 Rita was voted Pensions Woman of the Year at the Professional Pensions Women in Pensions Awards. 

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Stella Chaplin

Director, Pensions & Benefits, Total Reward UK & Europe, Atkins Global

Stella has 35 years’ experience in UK pensions and slightly shorter in benefits, employee wellbeing, payroll and share plans and is a Chartered Governance associate.  During her career she has worked for the BOC Group (now Linde), Centrica, DP World, TT electronics and now with SNC-Lavalin in a variety of pensions, benefits and project roles.  

As Chair of the UK&E Health and Wellbeing Committee at Atkins, the team have been delighted to see the recognition of various wellbeing initiatives that support the workforce. Stella is an active supporter in her spare time of Christians against Poverty and has a keen interest in financial wellbeing. 

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Patrick Coyne

Policy Business Lead, The Pensions Regulator

Patrick is a Policy Business Lead at The Pensions Regulator. He leads the teams responsible for (mostly) defined contribution pensions policy including automatic enrolment, value for money, saver decision-making, scams, transfers and decumulation. Patrick joined the regulator in 2019 working in strategy and communications roles developing TPR’s pledge to combat pension scams, scams strategy and update to the joint strategy with the FCA.

Before joining the regulator, Patrick was a career civil servant having worked in a number of departments including as Head of Communications at the Law Commission of England and Wales.

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Emma Douglas

Chair of the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) and MD – Workplace, Aviva

Emma Douglas joined Aviva in 2021 as Managing Director of Workplace Savings business, with the accountability to deliver the best possible outcome for over 4 million customers/members and their £95bn of assets as they save for and access savings in later life. Emma is also the Chair of the Pensions & Lifetime Savings Association; having previously chaired the PLSA’s Policy Board since 2018. 

Before joining Aviva, Emma was Head of DC at Legal & General Investment Management, where she was primarily responsible for developing LGIM's DC business and Investment Strategy.  She joined LGIM in 2014 from Mercer where she held the position of Partner and Head of Mercer Workplace Savings. Previous roles in Emma’s career include the Head of DC Sales at BlackRock and Head of DC Pensions at Threadneedle Investments. 

All told, Emma has more than 20 years of experience in the investment management industry. She graduated from Trinity College, Oxford, and holds an MBA from Manchester Business School via a Women in Management Scholarship from the Guardian.

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Caroline Eastwood

Client Director, Vidett

Caroline has over 25 years’ experience in pensions management, from both in-house and consultancy positions. She was the Senior Pensions Manager at two leading building societies, where she supported their trustees and sponsors in outsourcing administration of their £8bn defined benefit scheme. Before moving in-house, she was a member of the Mercer Governance Trustee Services team, providing outsourced pensions management, secretarial and governance advisory services. She was also named Pensions Manager of the Year at the 2019 Women in Pensions Awards. 

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Hannah English

Head of DC Corporate Consulting, Hymans Robertson

Hannah is head of our DC Corporate Consulting services. She has extensive experience defined contribution pension schemes and is responsible for the day-to-day management of numerous high profile corporate clients. She has a passion for delivering improved outcomes for members. She specialises in pension scheme design and benefits management; and change and implementation.

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Kathryn Fleming

Partner , Hymans Robertson

Kathryn is a Partner in the DC consulting team at Hymans Robertson LLP. She specialises in advising employers and trustees on effective, objective driven, pension strategy. Having spent 20 years in the industry, she has an in depth understanding of providers, engagement and governance. She leads the strategic thought leadership for the Retirement proposition for the DC Consulting market.  Kathryn is also a Council Member for the Pensions Policy Institute and Co-Chair for a workstream of the Pensions Equity Group.

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Matthew Gregson

Executive Director, Howden Employee Benefits & Wellbeing

Today, Matthew oversees all aspects of Howden’s proposition for Corporate clients. He has over 20 years’ experience in employee benefits, including a large portion of his career helping shape the flexible benefits market in the UK. Matthew has personally helped many large and complex employers introduce transformational change to their pension and benefits programmes, working with providers and partners in industry to innovate and maximise the value they bring to clients.

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Emma Hadley

Head of Pensions, Howden Employee Benefits & Wellbeing

Emma is responsible for both the Howden and Aston Lark Pensions team.  She has over 30 years’ experience within Employee Benefits with a particular specialism in pensions.  Emma has assisted a range of industries on how to comply with Workplace Pensions legislation ranging from Retail to Investment Banking and understands the different challenges that apply to different sectors. 

She is passionate about delivering value for employers, ensuring they receive cost-effective solutions without compromising their workforce’s quality of pension schemes. With her wealth of experience and dedication, Emma is a driving force in optimizing pension programs for businesses and employees alike. She is committed to implementing bespoke and targeted employee engagement strategies, striving for positive outcomes for all.

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Alex Hadonou

Senior Consultant, Aon

Alex has 10 years’ experience having joined Aon in 2013 working in Aon’s corporate consulting team - helping corporates optimize their pension strategy covering both DB and DC pensions. Alex has worked with a number of clients from various backgrounds, ranging from large financial institutions with multi-billion-pound DB schemes to firms in the charity sector. Alex is also a member of Aon’s Gender Pension Gap specialist team, working to develop Aon’s thinking and capabilities in this space, as Aon continues to support clients as they look to tackle this issue.

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Rachel Haggarty

DC Consultant, Hymans Robertson

Rachel Haggarty is a DC Consultant at Hymans Robertson with over 10 years’ experience in pensions, advising corporate clients on pension strategy, good governance, effective communications and engagement and at-retirement support.

Rachel leads Hymans Robertson’s DC Corporate Plan Effectiveness proposition which covers services to Governance Committees of contract-based Plan's and Plan's in Master Trust, and is also part of Hymans Robertson’s specialist DC Provider Research team. Rachel is passionate about improving member outcomes and financial wellbeing and ensuring members have the right support to make informed choices about their options in the lead up to and at retirement.

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Chris Inman

CFA, CAIA and CFA UK Certificate in ESG Investing, Aon

Chris is a Partner and Head of Aon's DC investment advisory service as well as being a member of the DC Investment Committee. As part of this role, he is responsible for ensuring that the investment consulting services provided to DC pension plans in the UK evolve to meet their changing needs and are tailored to the unique requirements of their members. Chris brings a truly global perspective, having spent his formative years in the investment industry providing investment advice and managing assets of DC pension plans in Australia and South East Asia. Since then, he has worked to achieve the investment objectives and financial goals of a variety of investors across the Middle East, North America and Europe.

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Alexandra Kitching

Pensions and employee benefits professional,

Alexandra has been working in the pensions and benefits industry for around 15 years. Her passion lies in pensions and financial wellbeing, ensuring that employees are empowered to make informed decisions about their financial present and future, and that appropriate pensions and employee benefits are available to them as enablers.

Alexadra is the founder of GAALEX Solutions, where she helps companies with their pensions and benefits challenges – whether it is to cover a short-term staff shortage or to help with pensions and benefits projects, review or strategy. Most recently Alexandra held the role of the Pensions and Benefits Manager at Vodafone Group, prior to which she worked in a pensions and group risk consulting role at Deloitte and as Pension Quality Mark Manager at the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association. Alexandra holds BSc in Business Psychology and Diploma in Regulated Financial Planning from the Chartered Insurance Institute (DipPFS).

Alexandra has recently become a Freeman of the Company of HR Professionals and is a Trustee of its Charitable Trust. In her spare time Alexandra enjoys keeping fit, good food, motorcycling and travelling.

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Emma Moore

Associate Partner, Aon

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Ray O’Sullivan

Director, Benefits EMEA & LATAM, Adobe

Ray O’Sullivan leads the Adobe Benefits team in EMEA & LATAM and has held this position since 2020. Ray and his team design and deliver inclusive, competitive, and value driven benefits that enable peace of mind and productivity, with a strong focus on the strategic balance between experience, scale, financial stewardship and providing a positive employee experience. Ray is a strong proponent of a highly functioning team and places great importance on the growth and development of his team members.

Prior to Adobe, Ray spent 12 years at The Walt Disney Company firstly managing Benefits in UK & Ireland and subsequently the wider EMEA region.

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Katherine Patel

Head of DC Responsible Investment, Aon

Kath is a Senior Consultant in Aon’s Defined Contribution (DC) Consulting Team and Head of DC Responsible Investment. She takes a leading role in creating and delivering responsible investment advice as part of Aon’s Responsible Investment Team and advises some of Aon’s largest DB and DC clients regarding their responsible investment journey. She also works closely with several DC schemes, advising them on all areas of DC, including investment strategy and design, communications and scheme governance.

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Tony Pugh

Head of DC Solutions - EMEA, Aon

Tony has 30+ years’ experience working in both the DC consulting and DC solution delivery business.  

Having spent 25 years advising global & UK clients on their DC, DB and employee benefit issues, Tony has led Aon’s DC solutions including the MasterTrust & GPP solutions since 2017. Tony also leads Aon’s global DC community, leveraging best DC practices around the globe and developing thought leadership.

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Sir Stephen Timms MP

Chair, Work and Pensions Committee

The Rt Hon Sir Stephen Timms is the Member of Parliament for East Ham. He is also the Labour Party's Faith Envoy. He was the Shadow Minister for Employment from 2010 until September 2015 and previously sat on the Exiting the European Union Select Committee. He currently chairs the Work and Pensions Select Committee and is also the Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy to Switzerland and Lichtenstein. 

Stephen became an MP in 1994 and held a number of ministerial posts under the previous Labour Government including Chief Secretary to the Treasury and Financial Secretary to the Treasury. Before entering Parliament, Stephen worked in the telecommunications industry for fifteen years, first for Logica and then for Ovum. He managed Ovum's telecommunications reports business until his election in 1994.  

Stephen is also a member of the Ramblers Association and the former Chair of Christians on the Left. 

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Steve Watson

Director of Policy & Research, Cushon

Steve is Cushon’s Director of Policy & Research. He has spent over 30 years of his career advising organisations on all aspects of pensions and workplace savings both in the UK and internationally.

A strategic leader and practitioner with over 25 years employee benefits experience gained in the UK and internationally. As a Flexible Benefits and DC Pensions specialist, he has successfully transitioned a transactional sales proposition to an embedded value model which became market leading.

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Sir Steve Webb

Partner and former Pensions Minister , LCP

Steve Webb was Minister of State for Pensions between 2010 and 2015.   During that time he implemented major reforms to the state pension system, oversaw the successful introduction of automatic enrolment and played a key role in the new pension freedoms implemented in April 2015.  He was awarded a knighthood in the New Year’s honours in 2017. 

Following his time in Parliament he worked for Royal London for four years before joining LCP as a partner in 2020, where he has campaigned successfully to secure £1.5 billion in backpayments for over 230,000 people who had been underpaid state pensions.  More recently he has been working on supporting trustees to prepare for the implementation of pension dashboards, and is working on how to secure the best possible post-retirement outcomes for DC pension savers.  

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