AMNT Autumn Conference 2019

RESPONSIBLE INVESTMENT & INCREASED RESPONSIBILITIES FOR TRUSTEES. MNTs CONTINUE TO SHOW THE WAY!

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"Thanks for having me along. Great keynote from Guy Opperman MP."


The AMNT Autumn Conference of 2019 was a superb series of educational presentations and lively breakout groups exploring the most topical issues facing the pensions industry. Thank you to everyone who attended and contributed to our event, we hope you enjoyed your day.

Agenda

Click on each speaker name for more details.

09:00 - Arrival, registration- tea/coffee

Nicholas Brinton

Nicholas Brinton

Senior Consultant, AON

Nick is a Senior Consultant within the Retirement and Investment practice of Aon, and is responsible for the symbiotic relationships Aon have with Trustees and Employers.  The primary objective of Nick’s role is to ensure Aon are fully engaged with the sector, thus ensuring existing business is managed correctly, and new business opportunities are distributed to the right teams.

Previously to joining Aon UK in December 2013 Nick was based in Singapore for 4 years with Aon APAC.  Before this Nick was a VP at Barclays Wealth where he ran a discretionary investment management group of Private Bankers. Nick has been in the Investment industry, retail and institutional for 19 years and holds the Diploma of Financial Advice CII qualification, and the Investment Management Certificate.

AMNT Autumn Conference – 13th September hosted by Columbia Threadneedle Investments 14

David Weeks

Co-Chair, AMNT

David Weeks was elected as Co-Chair of the Association of Member Nominated Trustees (AMNT) in 2016. His service on the executive committee runs from 2014. He is a director of the defined benefit pension scheme for a leading PLC in infrastructure services. The Pensions Management Institute presented him with their 2019 award for “Outstanding contribution to the pensions industry”. “Engaged Investor” included him in their “Top 50 people in pensions 2017”.

David Weeks is active in the affairs of the World Pensions Council, for whom he has made presentations to, and acted as rapporteur at, international conferences. Journals that have published contributions from him recently include “Financial Times”, “Revue Analyse Financiere”, “Portfolio Institutional”, “Professional Pensions” and “Pensions Expert”. He has been a judge for major UK pension awards.

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Guy Opperman

Guy Opperman MP

Minister for Pensions and Financial Inclusion.

Guy Opperman was appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Work and Pensions on 14 June 2017.

He served as a Government Whip (Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury) from 17 July 2016 to 14 June 2017. He was elected Conservative MP for Hexham in May 2010.

Guy previously served as Private Parliamentary Secretary to Mark Harper, the then Immigration Minister. He served as an Assistant Government Whip from May 2015 until July 2016.

Guy was called to the bar in 1989. He spent 20 years as a barrister and was also Director of his family’s engineering business until 2009.

Guy was educated at Harrow School, he went on to read law at the University of Buckingham. He also gained a first class diploma from the University of Lille.

Guy is an amateur jockey and rode his first win in 1985.

The minister’s responsibilities include:

  • pensioner benefits, including new State Pension, Winter Fuel Payments and Pension Credit
  • State Pension age review
  • financial inclusion and guidance, including the Single Financial Guidance Body, Credit Union Expansion Project and Post Office Card Accounts
  • private and occupational pensions, including regulatory powers, Automatic Enrolment and the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST)
  • oversight of arms-length bodies, including the Pensions Regulator, Pension Protection Fund, Financial Assistance Scheme and Pensions Ombudsman

Angus Peters

Angus Peters

Editor, Pensions Expert

Angus Peters is  editor at Pensions Expert, covering all aspects of the workplace pensions market. He joined the title as a reporter in June 2016, having previously worked as a reporter at The Sun Online. His work has also been featured in other FT publications including FTfm and MandateWire.

Tapan Datta

Tapan Datta

Head of Global Asset Allocation, AON

Tapan is Head of the Global Asset Allocation Team at Aon.  This team of ten professionals is responsible for the firm’s long-term capital market assumptions and medium-term views.  These views are extensively used in both investment advisory and discretionary services offered by the firm globally.   Tapan is a big contributor to the firm’s thought leadership output in the public domain on a range of topics that impact today’s institutional investment environment and a regular commentator on CNBC, Bloomberg and IPE.  He is a member of Aon’s UK and US investment committees.  He has been with Aon since 2007.  His previous investment experience was at Schroders where he spent 9 years as Director of Investment Strategy for international equities and at American Express Bank as Deputy Chief Economist.  He has a Ph.D. in Economics from Cambridge University, England.

11:10 - Break for tea, coffee and networking

Jennifer O'Neill

Jennifer O'Neill

Responsible Investment Specialist, Aon

Jennifer is a key member of Aon’s Responsible Investment team, where she has responsibility for client education and strategic delivery along with thought leadership. As a member of Aon’s UK investment consulting practice, she has responsibility for providing strategic advice to a number of UK pension schemes ranging from £20m to £8bn. Jennifer was shortlisted as a “Rising Star” of the investment world in 2017 by the UK’s Chartered Institute of Securities & Investment, of which she is a Chartered Member, and in 2018 by Professional Pensions.  Prior to joining Aon in 2017, Jennifer previously spent 4 years as a fund manager at Quilter Cheviot (part of Old Mutual Group, the FTSE 100 fund manager), where she was responsible for portfolio construction and management of long-only bespoke portfolios for pension funds, charities, and endowment funds. Prior to beginning her investment career with Morgan Stanley, where she spent two years as a hedge fund and private equity analyst, she graduated with a Master’s degree in European Politics from the University of Glasgow, where she focussed on the macroeconomy of the European Union throughout the global financial crisis.

Simeon Willis

Simeon Willis

Partner & Chief Investment Officer, XPS Pensions Group

Simeon leads our thinking on journey planning and asset allocation, along with being responsible for research across the investment team. Simeon is an experienced investment specialist with 17 years’ experience, advising trustee and corporate clients on a full range of investment related matters, with a particular emphasis towards strategy and risk management. Simeon is frequently quoted in the press on matters relating to investment opportunities and topical debate.

Sammy COoper-Smith

Sammy Cooper-Smith

Head of Business Development, Rothesay Life

Sammy has played a lead role in transactions with the pension funds of Uniq, MNOPF, the Civil Aviation Authority amongst others as well as the reinsurance of the Prudential, Zurich Assurance and Scottish Equitable annuity portfolios. Sammy started his career at Prudential later joining the buy-out start up Paternoster which was acquired by Rothesay Life in 2011.

Danielle Klinger

Danielle Klinger

Senior Associate in the Pensions Department, Baker Mckenzie

Danielle is a Senior Associate in the Pensions Department. She joined Baker McKenzie as a trainee in 2010 and qualified into the Pensions Department in 2012. Danielle advises trustees and employers on all aspects of pensions law including advising on scheme closures, multi-jurisdictional corporate transactions, scheme mergers, amending schemes and dealing with members' queries. Danielle regularly provides external pensions training to clients across multiple industries and coordinates internal legal updates. She is a member of the Association of Pension Lawyers.

Danielle routinely assists international clients on the pension aspects associated with acquisitions and divestitures. She also advises on the operation of multi-jurisdictional pension arrangements, from a social security, labour law, exchange control and reporting perspective.

Caspar McConville

Caspar McConville

Senior Associate in the Pensions Department, Baker Mckenzie

Caspar is a Senior Associate in the Pensions Department and has practiced pensions law since qualifying in 2009. Caspar advises both pension scheme trustees and sponsoring employers in a variety of industries on the legal issues arising in relation to occupational pension schemes.  These can range from individual member queries and complaints to regulatory considerations, issues relating to compliance with laws, and advising on transactions. He is also a member of the Association of Pension Lawyers.

Caspar has a particular focus on issues relating to pension scheme investments, including reviewing contracts for standalone investments of many types, reviewing insurance contract-based "platform" arrangements and considering terms of discretionary investment management agreements.  He also has significant experience of asset-backed funding arrangements, flexible apportionment arrangements and parent company guarantees (including Pension Protection Fund standard form guarantees).

 

13:00 - Lunch and networking

Shani Mckenzie

Shani Mckenzie

Consulting Actuary, Hymans Robertson

Shani is an Actuary with over 10 years’ experience at Hymans Robertson advising her Trustee and Corporate clients on strategic long-term planning and keeping her clients on track for achieving their goals through regular reviews of their funding and investment plans.  She also leads the firm’s relationship with two industry organisations, taking thought pieces to these organisations and in particular has worked closely with the AMNT to support their events and publications, considering the current pension scheme challenges and identifying how best to support the Association’s membership.

Stephen WIllard

Stephen Willard

Director, SJW

Stephen is a highly experienced strategist, speaker and communicator.
He advises Trustees, Pensions Managers and third party advisers on how to modernise their approach to member communications, helping them to incorporate both current content trends and digital best practice.
Stephen has helped many brands to deliver their central strategic purpose – advising on topics such as DB closure, auto enrolment, scheme transfers, millennial engagement, freedoms, GMPs, Trivial Commutation and digital transformation. He also consults at corporate commercial level, executing strategies for firms operating within financial services.

Christine Kerr

Christine Kerr

Associate and Senior Pension Management Consultant, Barnett Waddingham

Christine is one of the dedicated governance and secretarial specialists within our national Pensions Management team. She focusses on secretarial and governance services, supporting special projects and management support for in house teams. Christine is a Fellow of the Pensions Management Institute and a member of their Advisory Council and committees. She joined Barnett Waddingham in August 2018 having previously worked for a large multinational consultancy where she headed up the outsourced governance team of a £4bn scheme with 35,000 members.

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Chris Sier

Chairman ClearGlass, HM Treasury Fintech Envoy

Dr Christopher Sier Chaired the UK Financial Conduct Authority's panel investigating costs, fees and transparency in institutional investment, wrote the LGPS cost transparency standard and has worked with the World Bank, EIOPA, the Committee on Workers Capital and institutional investors around the world on the same subject. He is also Fintech Envoy for England for the UK Treasury and Chairman of Fintech North, the innovation community for the North of England. Combining these two worlds he is Chairman of ClearGlass, a technology platform that sits between asset managers and pension funds and operates a near-zero price model for the collection and analysis of pension fund cost data. In addition, Chris is Visiting Professor of Financial Technology at the University of Leeds and in the distant past he was a police officer in Edinburgh

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Mel Duffield

Chair of the Cost Transparency Initiative

Mel is the Pensions Strategy Executive for the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), the pension scheme for academics and related roles in the Higher Education Sector. Mel currently has responsibility for strategy and insight, member experience, policy and proposition development, stakeholder engagement and member communications across the hybrid scheme, with c400,000 members and £68bn in assets across DB and DC.

Mel began her career in the civil service working as an economist in DWP, HM Treasury and the Department for Education prior to roles at the PLSA and the PPI. Mel sits on the PLSA policy board, is a PPI Governor, and has been the chair of the pensions industry’s Cost Transparency Initiative (CTI) since its launch in November 2018. Mel has also been a serving magistrate since 2015.

15:15 - Coffee

Stephen Lewis

Stephen Lewis

Law Commissioner

Mr Lewis was appointed as Law Commissioner for commercial and common law on 1 January 2015. He is an experienced city solicitor. For the last 10 years he has been a consultant at Clyde and Co, working within the firm’s international insurance and reinsurance group. He joined Clyde and Co after almost 20 years as a partner at leading “magic circle” practice Clifford Chance.

Mr Lewis has over 30 years’ experience working in litigation and dispute resolution and since 1983 has been primarily focusing on insurance and reinsurance. He has been a member of the Committee of the British Insurance Law Association since 1995 and was Chairman from 2010-12.

Your committee 1

Leanne Clements

Campaign Manager for Red Line Voting

Leanne Clements joined the AMNT as Campaign Manager for Red Line Voting in March 2017. Leanne is responsible for supporting the adoption and implementation of Red Line Voting policies, by working with AMNT and its members, fund managers, policy makers as well as other important actors in the investment chain.  Prior to this role, Leanne led the responsible investment strategies at three different UK pension schemes.  Prior to that, she worked at a corporate governance and shareholder advisory consultancy, most notably conducting voting policy generation and executing voting instructions for UK pension schemes.  Prior to her career in the UK, she worked in her native Canada as an environmental consultant for an engineering firm conducting contaminated site investigations for financial clients.

AMNT Autumn Conference – 13th September hosted by Columbia Threadneedle Investments 14

David Weeks

Co-Chair AMNT

David Weeks was elected as Co-Chair of the Association of Member Nominated Trustees (AMNT) in 2016. His service on the executive committee runs from 2014. He is a director of the defined benefit pension scheme for a leading PLC in infrastructure services. The Pensions Management Institute presented him with their 2019 award for “Outstanding contribution to the pensions industry”. “Engaged Investor” included him in their “Top 50 people in pensions 2017”.

David Weeks is active in the affairs of the World Pensions Council, for whom he has made presentations to, and acted as rapporteur at, international conferences. Journals that have published contributions from him recently include “Financial Times”, “Revue Analyse Financiere”, “Portfolio Institutional”, “Professional Pensions” and “Pensions Expert”. He has been a judge for major UK pension awards.

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Jennifer O'Neill

Jennifer O'Neill

Responsible Investment Specialist, Aon

Jennifer is a key member of Aon’s Responsible Investment team, where she has responsibility for client education and solution delivery along with thought leadership. As a member of Aon’s UK investment consulting practice, she has responsibility for providing strategic advice to a number of UK pension ranging from £20m to £8bn. Jennifer was shortlisted as a “Rising Star” of the investment world in 2017 by the UK’s Chartered Institute of Securities & Investment, of which she is a Chartered Member.

Prior to joining Aon in 2017, Jennifer previously spent 4 years as a fund manager at Quilter Cheviot (part of Old Mutual Group, the FTSE 100 fund manager), where she was responsible for portfolio construction and management of long-only bespoke portfolios for pension funds, charities, and endowment funds. Prior to beginning her investment career with Morgan Stanley, where she spent two years as a hedge fund and private equity analyst, she graduated with a Master’s degree in European Politics from the University of Glasgow, where she focussed on the macroeconomy of the European Union throughout the global financial crisis.

Ben Yeoh

Ben Yeoh

Senior Portfolio Manager, RBC Global Asset Management

Ben is a senior Portfolio Manager of Global Equities. Ben also sits as Chair of RLAM's (Royal London Asset Management) Responsible Investment Advisory committee, advising a leading sustainable UK investment trust.

Ben continues to have a specialist interest in global Healthcare investing. He also has a deep interest in stewardship, governance and assessing extra-financial factors in the analysis of companies and markets. Ben is a public speaker on Responsible Investment and ESG (Environment Social Governance) topics.

Ben has a MA in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University. He also studied at Harvard University (Herchel Smith scholarship). Ben is a CFA charterholder.

Maggie Rodgers

Maggie Rodger

Church of England Pension Scheme

Maggie Rodger worked in administrative and financial roles for the National Church Institutions of the Church of England for many years and as FD of a hospice until “retirement” four years ago. She has been an MNT since 2012, serving for 5 years with TPT and currently with the Church of England Pensions Board where she is Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee. Maggie has been a member of AMNT for 5 years.

Ben Yeoh

Ben Yeoh

Senior Portfolio Manager, RBC Global Asset Management

Ben is a senior Portfolio Manager of Global Equities for Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) Global Asset Management. He also sits as Chair of a Responsible Investment Advisory committee, advising a leading sustainable UK investment trust.

Ben sits on the Investor Advisory Group to the UK’s Financial Reporting Council and on the Management Commentary Advisory group to the IASB’s IFRS (International Accounting Standards Board’s International Financial Reporting Standards).

Ben won the Thomson Extel (2003) award for best integrated SRI research across all sectors.
Ben studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge University, before gaining a scholarship to study at Harvard University.
Ben helped co-author the training manual for the forthcoming CFA UK’s Certificate in ESG Investing (2019).  Ben is a published and award-winning playwright (personal blog ThenDoBetter) and chairs a theatre company charity, Coney. His current show, Thinking Bigly is about climate, policy and investment.

A special thank you to AON for hosting our event

And thank you to our sponsors for their continued support:

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