Future of Pensions Summit 2026

Debi O'Donovan

Co-founder & Director, REBA

Debi is the Co-founder  &  Director at REBA.

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Antonia Balaam

DC Clients & Head of Master Trust, Aegon

Antonia is a qualified Actuary with 29 years pensions experience. Her background is in consultancy, working initially as an Actuary to large defined benefit schemes at Aon and Willis Towers Watson, before switching to focus on DC schemes 14 years ago.
As part of the senior leadership team at Aegon, Antonia is responsible for the DC clients and relationship teams across Aegon’s workplace business, as well as personally managing a select portfolio of Aegon’s largest clients.
More recently Antonia was appointed as Head of Master Trust, bringing together Aegon, the Master Trust trustees and employers in delivering the innovation and collaboration needed to drive excellent member outcomes.

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Mark Bennett

Managing Director, LifeSight

Mark is a Managing Director within the LifeSight team and a DC specialist with close to two decades of experience spanning scheme design, investment propositions, governance frameworks, and member outcomes. Before joining WTW LifeSight in 2018, he spent 12 years at L&G, gaining deep experience across the full DC value chain and building strong relationships with consultants and corporate clients.

In his role at WTW, Mark leads LifeSight’s work with prospective clients, supporting them through procurement, due diligence, and the wider decision making process. He plays a central role in helping organisations understand how LifeSight can support their long term DC objectives. Mark also manages key intermediary relationships, ensuring LifeSight remains responsive to market developments and employer needs.

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David Bouchard

Account Director, Aegon

David is an Account Director at Aegon UK, with over a decade of experience in the pensions and employee benefits industry. Specialising in pension governance, defined contribution strategy, and client development.
David has built his career across leading consultancies and major providers, giving him a well-rounded and practical understanding of how governance operates from multiple perspectives. Before joining Aegon, he held consulting roles at Mercer, Punter Southall Aspire, and Capita, advising trustees and employers on scheme design, regulatory requirements, and governance best practice.
At Aegon, David focuses on new business development through intermediary relationships, working closely with consultants and advisers to deliver solutions that meet evolving client needs. This position allows him to combine his governance expertise with a strong understanding of market dynamics, helping shape propositions that are both commercially competitive and aligned with good member outcomes.

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Jacob Bowman

Director, Isio

Jacob Bowman FIA is a Director at Isio and a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries. He specialises in DC investment consulting, advising pension schemes on investment strategy, governance and ESG integration. Jacob has over 10 years’ experience helping pension providers and trustees deliver better outcomes for members.

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Paul Eagles

Head of CDC, TPT Retirement Solutions

Paul joined TPT Retirement Solutions as Head of Professional Services in June 2023 and was appointed Head of CDC in September 2025.

Prior to joining TPT, Paul accumulated more than 20 years of leadership experience across leading DC Master Trust providers, including LGIM, Aegon and BlackRock. Since joining TPT, Paul has played a key role in shaping the organisation’s CDC proposition, leading the assessment of market opportunities, defining the requirements for implementation and securing approval and funding for the launch of a new CDC product. As Head of CDC, Paul is responsible for driving TPT’s CDC strategy and overseeing the successful delivery of this innovative retirement solution, which is planned to launch next year.

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Hannah English

Head of DC Corporate Consulting, Hymans Robertson

Hannah is head of DC Corporate Consulting services. She has extensive experience defined contribution pension schemes and is responsible for the management and advising on the strategic direction of numerous high profile corporate clients. In particular, Hannah specialises in DC pension scheme design, change and implementation.   

Hannah joined Hymans Robertson in September 2013, qualified as an actuary in 2018. This has enabled her to consider joined up DB and DC pension strategies. 

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Maisie Flower

Financial Wellbeing Specialist, Hargreaves Lansdown

Maisie has been working with corporate clients at HL since 2020, spending 12 months in the Client Support team before moving to specialise in pensions in 2021. For the last two years, Maisie has been delivering financial education sessions to the full breadth of HL Workplace members. Maisie is passionate about engaging younger employees with their personal finances, specifically addressing the challenges of saving for their first property and helping develop their confidence with money management decisions.

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Alyshia Harrington-Clark

Commercial Master Trusts Lead, The Pensions Regulator

Alyshia Harrington-Clark is Segment Lead for Commercial Master Trusts at The Pensions Regulator, a role she recently took on in Summer 2025. This involves leading a multidisciplinary team of specialists, who primarily focus on supervising insurer and consultant-backed Master Trusts. Her team also has specifical responsibilities for Pension Schemes Act implementation work, for example on value for money and scale. 

Before joining TPR, Alyshia worked for Pensions UK, across strategic and DC policy roles, leading on a broad variety of matters on behalf of the industry, notably decumulation, automatic enrolment, lifetime savings and adequacy policy. Before that she worked at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), in roles focused on institutional investment, asset management, market abuse and, latterly, competition. She also has some international regulatory experience, having been seconded to the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) working on MiFID II and financial innovation. 

She has held Chartered MSCI status since 2016.

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Caroline Harwood

National Head of Employment Tax, BDO

Caroline leads the Employment Tax Team in London and has over 30 years’ experience specialising in all aspects of employment taxes. This includes the off-payroll working rules (IR35), employment status for tax, termination/settlement payments, employment tax implications of agile working arrangements, management team advice on transactions, employee benefit reviews etc.

Caroline writes articles on employment tax and incentives issues and present widely at both industry and client events. Her clients range from fast growing entrepreneurial businesses to multinationals, FTSE100 and household names.

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James Hawkins

Senior Manager, Isio

James continues to lead Isio’s research into the DC Decumulation market. He joined Isio in 2019 and has worked with DC clients for 10+ years. During his time at Isio he has worked with a range of DC clients, including leading some of the largest “DC change” projects in the market, ongoing advisory for Trustees, and investment advisory for Master Trusts. In 2023 James took responsibility to lead Isio’s research project into Decumulation.

Over the last 3 years he has worked with an independent academic from the University of Manchester, leading experts from around the world, managed a project with an external firm to undertake “on the ground” user research (e.g. interviews, focus groups, surveys), and engaged with Regulators in the UK and Australia regarding the challenges presented by Default Decumulation. James will join us to present a view on the lessons to be learned from overseas DC markets, including the Americas and Australia.

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Jill Henderson

Head of Workplace Strategic Relationships, Scottish Widows

Jill celebrates 28yrs at Scottish Widows this year, having spent most of this time in and around Workplace Pensions.

Jill is the Head of Workplace Strategic Relationships, building relationships with Financial advisers, consultancies and workplace clients.

Previous roles include interim Head of Workplace Relationships, and Partnership Director.

Jill has a long-standing passion for financial equality, is Co-Chair of the Sottish Widows Women In Retirement workstream.

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Susan Hope

Business Development Director, Scottish Widows

Susan Hope is a Business Development Director at Scottish Widows, where she leads the Workplace Adviser BD team, working with employers and advisers to achieve better retirement outcomes for employees in the UK.

As a Chartered Financial Planner, with over 30 years’ experience in pensions and financial services, Susan is a recognised voice on the UK gender pension gap and broader inequalities in retirement. She is part of the team behind Scottish Widows Women and Retirement research, now in its 21st year.

She is focused on turning insight into practical actions that employers and schemes can implement. Susan combines technical expertise with lived experience bringing a grounded real-world perspective to the challenges many savers face, particularly around career breaks, caregiving and financial confidence. She is a regular speaker across industry events and media. Susan is known for her direct, engaging style and her ability to connect strategy with what changes member behaviour

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Fraser Kerr

Head of ii Advice, interactive investor

Fraser Kerr is Head of ii Advice and a member of the leadership team at interactive investor. A qualified financial planner and experienced financial services leader, he has built his career helping clients achieve better financial outcomes while leading the growth and development of modern financial advice businesses. He is passionate about expanding access to financial planning and improving financial wellbeing through high-quality advice.

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Milan Makhecha

Senior Managing Director and Head of Sales, LifeSight

Milan Makhecha is a Senior Managing Director and Head of Sales for LifeSight, with 25 years’ experience in the pensions industry. He leads new business for LifeSight, WTW’s defined contribution master trust, with responsibility for distribution strategy, developing prospect and intermediary relationships, and driving the growth for LifeSight across the UK market.

Since joining WTW in January 2019, Milan has played a central role in establishing LifeSight as a leading master trust provider, leading numerous successful competitive tenders and building strong relationships across the intermediary community. He has supported some of the UK’s largest employers through provider selection and transition to LifeSight.

Prior to WTW, Milan was at Aon, where he was closely involved in the development and launch of Aon’s DC pension solutions, including their master trust. He is also a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.

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Stewart Patterson

LifeSight Innovation Managing Director, LifeSight

Stew is a qualified actuary and experienced pensions professional. He is responsible for leading the discovery and design of some of the most significant areas of innovation and future developments for LifeSight, WTW’s £30bn DC master trust. LifeSight's ambitious target is securing better pension outcomes for people all over the country, and a lot of Stew’s focus is currently around decumulation solutions, support for members making retirement decisions and overall member engagement.

Stew has previously had a variety of roles in WTW, including scheme actuary appointments to a number of DB schemes as well as leading a specialist derisking team, before joining the LifeSight team where he is now the proposition lead.

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Craig Rickman

Personal Finance Editor, interactive investor

Craig became personal finance editor at interactive investor in July 2023. He has written about personal finance and wealth management for almost a decade, including four years at the Financial Times Group. Prior to this, Craig spent eight years working as a regulated financial adviser, holding the CII Level 4 Diploma in Financial Planning. Craig’s expert views on the retirement landscape are regularly featured in the national media, including publications such as The Times, The Telegraph, and The Financial Times and he frequently guests on interactive investor’s On the Money podcast.

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Adam Tudor

Head of Distribution, TPT Retirement Solutions

Adam joined TPT Retirement Solutions in February 2024.

Adam has over 25 years’ experience in financial services and the pension industry. Prior to joining TPT, Adam worked for the Smart Master Trust leading their business development initiative. Adam began his career at HSBC, working across many areas of the business. His passion is working with advisers and employers, helping them to deliver their pension strategy and retirement outcome for their employees.  Adam is responsible for the development of TPT’s sales strategy.

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Richard Turner

Senior Corporate Distribution Manager, Hargreaves Lansdown

Richard has been working with corporate clients at Hargreaves Lansdown since 2006. He enjoys helping employers put plans in place to make it easy for employees to save and invest for a better future. Previously, Richard worked as a financial adviser to high-net-worth clients with various providers. 

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Geoff White

British author and investigative journalist

As one of the world’s leading journalists covering organised crime and tech, Geoff White has spent decades investigating the shadowy forces of fraudsters, hackers and money launderers. His work’s been featured by BBC News, Audible, Sky News, The Sunday Times and many more.

His latest book, Rinsed, reveals technology’s impact on the underground industry of money laundering and was published by Penguin Random House in June 2024 (“Riveting” – The Financial Times).

His last book, The Lazarus Heist was published by Penguin Random House in June 2022. It sprang from the hit 20-part BBC podcast series of the same name, which Geoff co-hosted and which immediately ranked number one in the UK Apple chart and within the top 7 in the US.

Geoff’s first book, Crime Dot Com was published in August 2020 by Reaktion Books and was one of Wired magazine’s “Most Fascinating Books Read in 2020”.

He has written and presented two major podcast series for Audible. The Dark Web exposed the shadow internet created by the US military and now home to hackers, crooks and freedom fighters. It has been a top ten hit on the platform since its launch in 2017. Artificial Intelligence: Friend or Foe? revealed the origins of AI, and showed how the technology is seeping into everyday life.

Geoff’s own podcast series Cybercrime Investigations takes listeners inside the world of an investigative journalist, detailing the twists and turns as the story unfolds.

He was also the co-creator of The Secret Life of Your Mobile Phone, a live, interactive phone hacking stage performance which showed how the global technology industry is harvesting the data leaking from your handset. The show was a sell–out hit at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2017, and has been performed at music festivals, political conferences and for corporate clients.

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Sarah White

Director of Reward and Pensions, The Crown Estate

Sarah White is Director of Reward and Pensions at The Crown Estate. With a career spanning pensions consultancy and senior in-house roles, she brings deep technical expertise alongside a strong commercial perspective.

She is particularly focused on how employers can work more effectively with trustee boards and advisers to drive better outcomes for members. Sarah has a track record of fostering collaborative, high-performing governance arrangements, and is passionate about the role independent trustees can play in bringing fresh insight, strengthening decision-making and unlocking greater value from pension schemes.

She is dedicated to connecting pensions  to the total reward offering, ensuring that pensions offered  are relevant, engaging and impactful for today’s workforce.

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