Aliza Ayaz is a pioneering sustainability strategist and social entrepreneur, known for bridging environmental policy with business transformation, design innovation, and global youth advocacy. At just 22, she was appointed the youngest Health and Climate Advisor to the UK Parliament, shaping inclusive sustainability strategies for national recovery and youth mobilisation during the COVID-19 era. As founder of the Climate Action Society (CAS), Aliza built one of the world’s largest student-led environmental movements—spanning 100+ institutions, with partnerships across public health, education, and innovation sectors. CAS campaigns have reached over a quarter of a million students and earned features in BBC World News, Forbes, and The Telegraph. She is also one of the managing directors of ARAAD Atelier, a global fashion and jewellery brand spotlighting artisans from climate-impacted communities across South Asia and the Middle East, including designing pieces herself. Aliza teaches sustainability and environmental leadership at leading UK institutions, including Eton College and Dulwich College, and she regularly contributes to panels and workshops at international cultural forums such as the Cannes Film Festival and Berlin Film Festival, where she has spoken on sustainability in the creative industries. In the private sector, Aliza has led sustainability-focused transformation programmes for multinational firms across finance, insurance, and technology—delivering strategic advice on ESG integration, cost transparency, digital risk, and ethical innovation. Her work is often trusted at C-suite level to shape frameworks that embed climate resilience into core operations. Named a Forbes 30 Under 30 honouree, Aliza has served as a speaker and judge at the UN Youth Climate Summit, World Health Organization, London Design Biennale, and PMI’s Pinnacle Awards. Her impact is defined by a rare ability to weave storytelling, strategy, and systems change—amplifying underrepresented voices while designing scalable climate solutions for a rapidly evolving world.
Having enjoyed an illustrious career spanning senior leadership roles inside international consulting firms/administrators, global asset managers and insurance-based pension providers, Andy is widely considered something of an authority in the field of pensions and retirement savings strategy. In his last strategic engagement, Andy led a project supporting Godman Sachs Asset Management in setting it’s EMEA DC & Retirement strategy. In his last permanent role, as Global Head of DC for Aviva Investors, he steered the £45bn DC franchise within the asset management arm of this market leading insurer, driving remarkable growth of nearly £10bn in under three years. As an active governor of the PPI (Pensions Policy Institute), Andy served as a founding sponsor to the influential UK Pensions Framework Project. This initiative enjoys robust support within governmental circles, with discussions underway to integrate the resulting PPI framework into a possible forthcoming pension commission. Andy has also recently worked directly with DWP on lifetime provider initiative, and actively serves on the policy board of the Pensions Management Institute. Andy very successfully led a distribution team of over 90 people at the £22bn market-leading pension provider business at Zurich, prior to its disposal under a complex M&A to Lloyds Banking Group (Scottish Widows) in 2017/2018. His career has also included significant periods in consulting, his last 10 years in employment as a consultant spent with Mercer, Deloitte & KPMG.
As CEO and an Executive Director of Pensions for Purpose, Charlotte oversees the running of the business, develops the growth and innovation strategy and looks for opportunities to build partnerships to achieve our vision. She has been involved with every part of Pensions for Purpose’s service offering and business operations, as well as completing the first B Corp impact assessment in 2023. Charlotte now co-leads the training and Business Briefing service for asset owners and their advisers. Charlotte is a member of the Sounding Board for the Social Value Portal, the Advisory Board for the Sororum, the pensions expert group for the Global Steering Group for Impact Investing and a member of the Pensions Equity Group. These roles demonstrate Charlotte’s commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion, as well as systems change. She has over 15 years of experience in asset management, starting in fund analysis and progressing through to institutional business development, having worked for some well-known institutions, including Jupiter, Pictet and Cambridge Associates. Through these positions, Charlotte has built a knowledge and passion for sustainable investing. She has demonstrated this in co-authoring a paper with the Society for Pension Professionals on social impact investing in 2017 and speaking on topics such as fee and service transparency at PLSA and Transparency Taskforce events. She played a leading part in developing the Impact Investing Institute's Impact Investing Principles for Pensions. Outside of work, Charlotte is a mother to two children, a fitness and running enthusiast, a volunteer with Redstart (a charity educating children on savings and investments) and is always looking for ways to improve her own social and environmental impact.
Ex army officer and city lawyer. Serial entrepreneur. Currently managing director of national charity Scientists Warning Europe. Buckinghamshire Councillor, member LGA Environment Economy Housing and transport board, Bucks LGPS Committee member, only politician in UK elected on the single policy of Climate Action Now.
Luke is part of the Pension Executive and Management Services (PEMS) senior leadership team and is an experienced governance specialist with a strong consulting and administration background. He has 13+ years industry experience and is excellent at building long-term relationships with his clients. Luke is part of Barnett Waddingham’s General Code Steering Group. Within this group he is looking at best practice, the Effective System of Governance (ESOG), Own Risk Assessment (ORA), and how the new Code provides an excellent opportunity to not just ensure compliance but to ensure that value is being added for the long-term benefit to schemes. Luke works closely with clients to ensure services are tailored to suit their specific needs. He has a keen interest in business development activity. He was appointed to the Pensions Management Institute (PMI) Risk and Assurance Committee in September 2023.
Pat has a passion for workplace culture and the environment. She brings over 38 years’ experience in financial services, with her last few years in the role of Country Managing Director for two custodian banks, specialising in servicing pensions schemes and developing data solutions to support sustainable governance e.g. ESG screening. Throughout her banking career she developed and mentored high performing teams, creating positive and collaborative workplace cultures with diversity of thought that drive innovative and successful businesses in challenging environments. She has also held trustee positions for both DB and DC schemes. She co-founded Everyone Matters in 2023, an independent, free membership organisation dedicated to transforming workplace culture in financial services. Our ambition is to drive positive change by fostering diverse thinking, human sustainability, connected to a healthy planet. Everyone Matters will do this through education and inspiring people to better understand the benefits and power of diversity of thought and human sustainability so we can better address environmental sustainability.
Paul Lee is the outgoing Head of Stewardship and Sustainable Investment Strategy at Redington, supporting the firm's asset owner clients in holding their fund managers to account, particularly on their delivery of stewardship. He has worked for almost 25 years as an investor specialising in engagement and stewardship, at Hermes and Aberdeen among other places. Paul is a member of the UK Endorsement Board, which is responsible for approving IFRS accounting standards for application in the UK, and is the UKEB's chair designate. He is also a member of the UK Sustainability Disclosure Technical Advisory Committee, which provides advice to the Secretary of State on the adoption of ISSB reporting standards in the UK. Paul writes a well-regarded blog on fairness.
Stuart was appointed by the UK Pension Minister in late 2024 as an independent Board Director of the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST), the UK Government’s workplace MasterTrust pension scheme, with £50 billion of assets and 14 million members. Stuart sits on NEST’s Nominations & Remuneration and Customer committees. Since 2010, Stuart worked for almost 15 years at HSBC in various roles: as a Board Director and member of the Management Committee of HSBC Global Asset Management Ltd, the c. 3,000 person, c.USD750bn asset manager of the HSBC Group; as the Chief Executive Officer and Board Director of the HSBC Global Asset Management (UK) Ltd the c.400 person, c.USD200bn UK subsidiary; Managing Director responsible for the global oversight of sovereign wealth funds, public pension plans, central banks, development banks and supranationals. Previous roles included: Global Head of Strategy & Chief of Staff; CEO of International Markets; and Head of UK Institutional. Stuart was also the accountable executive for the firm’s global Diversity Equity & Inclusion programme, including 16 workstreams with over 300 volunteers across 14 countries. Stuart was the executive sponsor for the Mental Health & Wellness workstream. Prior to that he worked at Insight Investment for 5 years and started his investment management career at Threadneedle Asset Management in 1998. In addition to his executive roles, Stuart has also spent 10 years (from 2014-2024) as a non-executive Trustee Director of the c.£30 billion HSBC Bank Pension Trust (UK) Ltd (HSBC UK Bank’s DB & DC Pension schemes), including being Chair of the Trust’s Investment Committee for 4 years. Stuart graduated with a BSc honours degree in Chemistry and European Studies (German) from the University of Sussex and the University of Freiburg. He holds: an MBA from London Business School (1997-1999); the CFA Investment Management Certificate; the CFA ESG in Investing Certificate; and the PMI Award in Pension Trusteeship. Stuart is also on the: Advisory Board of Asset Owner Diversity Charter (representing USD2 trillion of pension scheme assets); the Advisory Council of the UK’s Diversity Project and Executive sponsor its Mental Health workstream. Stuart is also a member of the UK Investment Association’s Advisory Council and their Trade & Investment sub-committee. Stuart is married with two daughters. Stuart is also a keen advocate of removing the stigma of metal health in the workplace and society and along with his four brothers raised over £50,000 for mental health charities competing in Marathon des Sables in 2016 (6 marathons in 6 days in the Sahara Desert) which was captured in a charity documentary ‘Brothers in the Sand’, featured on Amazon Prime.
For over 25 years, David has championed positive member and scheme outcomes through the strategic application of technology and data. As a business founder, senior executive, and advisor to regulators and industry bodies, he has helped shape both innovation and policy in the pensions sector. From the early stages of the internet to today's rapidly developing AI landscape, David has consistently identified and applied emerging technologies as a force for innovation in the pensions industry.
Duncan formerly a partner of Hogan Lovells is a non-executive director at Guiide (the online holistic retirement tool) and a trustee director of Sarcoma UK (the bone and soft tissue cancer charity). A Fellow of the PMI, Duncan also chairs the pensions sub committee at Yateley Industries for the Disabled.
Lisa started her career in the creative industries working for design and advertising agencies on print and TV production. She then moved into recruitment as a specialist head-hunter for art directors and writers before joining a boutique recruitment consultancy recruiting for their marketing and corporate divisions working with financial services, professional services, advertising and design agencies, charities, professional associations, tech and publishing companies across all levels of seniority and roles. Within the Leadership & Governance Team at TPP Lisa works with a variety of charities, membership bodies and non-profit organisations to help source senior Board hires such as CEOs, Executives, Non-Executives and Trustees.
I am a dedicated senior reward professional with over 30 years’ experience with particular specialisms within the international employee benefits and pensions arena. I have nearly 20 years' experience working within the in-house group reward departments of FTSE 100 companies spanning the energy (including oil and gas), defence, manufacturing, IT and retail sectors, including as a senior member of group/global reward and HR teams. Prior to this I held senior roles within employee benefits consultancies and actuarial practices. I am a Fellow of the Pensions Management Institute (FPMI) and hold the Diploma in International Employee Benefits (Dip.IEB). I actively contribute to professional bodies/associations including the CBI's Pensions Panel, act as mentor for the PMI's Mentoring and Engagement Programme, as a PMI Fellowship Network Ambassador and senior examiner for the Diploma in International Employee Benefits examination syllabus. I am also a prior member of the PLSA DB Council.
Robert has worked in the pensions industry for over 30 years, primarily in pensions management and pensions administration. He has strong feelings about always considering the members of pension schemes, as that is why schemes have been set up. He believes that everything we should be doing should be linked to member understanding and best outcomes for members. Robert has recently moved away from direct pensions administration and will be taking up a senior role with The Tracing Group. With so many people having been lost along the way and not aware of all their benefits both within the pensions market and the wider financial services markets, he is looking to help reconnect those people entitled to these benefits.
A proud EPMI, Simon is recognised as a go-to commentator on pensions regulation and the scheme funding process, He has advised governments and regularly helps industry contacts, clients and the press by providing insight, articles and quotes on pension regulation and the impact on schemes and corporate sponsors. A strong background in the industry over nearly 20 years, including The Pensions Regulator (Head of Government Relations) and Deloitte (Head of National Strategy), has given Simon a unique insight into the pensions industry with an overview on policy, external relations and building businesses.
Sukhjit, works for First Bus as a Pensions Manager. He is very experienced in managing both DB and DC pension schemes. In 2020, he was a Finalist in the Professional Pensions Rising Star Awards, for the 'Pensions Manager of the year' Award category. He also won awards in 2021 and in 2023 in relation to the PMI Mentoring and Development programme. He was a Lead Judge for the 2024 PMI Pinnacle Awards.
Darren is co-founder of Untamed Consulting and co-host of the V-FM pensions podcast. He is a self-confessed pensions and financial services geek, with a passion for creating a better, simpler, more engaging industry that delivers better outcomes for its customers. Prior to setting up Untamed, Darren was founder of Shula PR and Policy and, before that, Director of Policy at Smart Pension, where he was active in the industry lobbying for change in pensions and financial services for the benefit of members and customers. Darren joined Smart in September 2018, having previously undertaken policy-related roles at the The People's Pension, the National Association of Pension Funds (now Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association) and HM Treasury – where he headed up the pensions team between 2007 and 2010 and was closely involved in the design and implementation of the UK’s flagship auto-enrolment programme. Darren is active within industry bodies through contributing to research, thought leadership and policy development work, and is a regular commentator in the media. He also sits on the PMI policy and external affairs committee, and the PASA DC working group. Darren has a BSc(Econ) in Economics from Leicester University and an MSc in Economics and Econometrics from Southampton University. Outside of work, Darren’s interests include football (both ‘soccer’ and American Football), cricket and listening to live music. Darren is also attempting (with the emphasis on attempting….) to learn the piano.
Dominic Croft is the Chairman of the Examination Committee which oversees the PMI’s Certificate in Pensions Calculations (CPC) qualification; a role he has fulfilled for more than 10 years. Dominic has been heavily involved with the PMI in many capacities and in 2013 he won the award for the ‘Outstanding Contribution to the PMI’. Dominic was one the PMI’s inaugural group of Fellowship Network Ambassadors.
Before joining the CIPP Jason was MD of Calendar Consulting Ltd, and prior to that COO of Capita’s HR Division. Jason has supported the international growth of payroll services businesses such as NorthgateArinso, and LogicaCMG where he worked in global delivery. Jason has always worked in payroll – beginning his working career in the construction sector. Jason is also a 'Be The Business Mentor', which is a central government initiative to support the SME sector, and designed to help improve productivity. He has recently supported an MD of a marketing business, an MD of a talent acquisition business and a CTO working for a sports data analysis business. Mentoring is incredibly rewarding and Jason finds it a positive challenge to support individuals from all different business backgrounds. Outside of work, Jason is a L2 England Union Rugby Coach, and trains under 16’s. He started that development as his son is a hooker for his school and club. Jason also has a UK powerboat licence and the International equivalent, as he owns a sports cruiser and has her berthed in the Mediterranean.
Joe moved from the content team to the relationship side of Quietroom. You’ll find him across the industry connecting people and ideas. Since Joe joined Quietroom in 2017, he’s worked on communications strategy for pension schemes, investment firms, insurers and other financial institutions, big and small. He’s often on stage at industry events discussing how to make complicated or difficult messages more meaningful to more people.
Mel was appointed Chief Pensions Strategy Officer at USS in October 2024. She leads the functions focused on pension strategy and engagement – including Strategy and Insight, Proposition, Member and Employer communications, Stakeholder Support, Sector Engagement and Pensions Policy. Before joining USS in 2015, Mel was Deputy Director at the Pensions Policy Institute (PPI), an independent research charity focusing on pensions and retirement savings issues, and prior to that Head of Research and Strategic Policy at PLSA. Mel started her professional career in the UK civil service, working as a senior economic advisor at HM Treasury, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education. Mel is also a Governor and Board Director for the Pensions Policy Institute, a Board Director for the International Centre for Pensions Management, and a serving magistrate in Hertfordshire.
As Chief Executive Officer, Patrick is the driving force behind The People’s Pension and moving People’s Partnership from an organisation focused solely on the construction sector to a mainstream pension provider. Patrick is passionate about People’s Partnership and what the organisation is trying to achieve with The People’s Pension, and has been instrumental in shaping its ethos and beliefs. Patrick is happy to talk about a range of issues covering pensions, including the development and success of The People’s Pension and the challenges and opportunities that leading a not-for-profit financial services company can bring.
A leading industry influencer as Vice President of the PMI Advisory Council and NED on the PMI board, chair of the devopment committee, member of the policy and public affairs committee and former Chair of the PASA DC Governance Working Group. A senior pensions professional with extensive experience in the UK and Ireland pensions industry in both in-house and consultancy environments. An experienced communicator, with strong technical, commercial and project management skills. A strategic thinker who develops pragmatic solutions to deliver value for money services and the right solution for both company and members. Possesses skills and knowledge to be an effective manager, leader, motivator and team player, enabling others to achieve both as individuals and as a team.
Chris joined BESTrustees in April 2021, having had a lengthy career in pension scheme management, most recently as Head of Pensions & Benefits at Heathrow Airports, which included management of the legacy British Airport Authority legacy pension arrangements. He has held senior management roles for occupational pension schemes since the early 1980s whilst working at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office and as managed several pension schemes through significant periods of change. He currently chairs the Trustee Board of three DB and one DC schemes and is a Sole Trustee for three other arrangements. Chris is both a fellow of the PMI and a fully accredited professional trustee by the Association of Professional Pension Trustees. Chris continues his involvement with the PMI since stepping down from the Advisory Council in 2023 having completed his second consecutive five-year term. This includes being Chief Judge for the Pinnacle Awards and a Trustee Director of the Institute’s pension scheme. He has also been a member of the Advisory Council of the Association of Investment Managers Sales Executives (AIMSE Europe) since 2007 and a judge for many other pension and investment industry awards.
