Five high profile people have been elected to the National Association of Pension Funds’ (NAPF) two main policy-making councils.
Frank Johnson and Jonathan Hunt have been elected as new members of the Defined Benefit (DB) Council, while Anne Hunt, Andy Cheseldine and Carol Young will serve on the Defined Contribution (DC) Council.
Mr Johnson is Managing Director of Investments at RPMI and boasts wide-ranging investment and pensions experience, gained over nearly a decade in senior roles with RPMI. He is responsible for advising the Rail Trustee and employers on investment governance. Mr Hunt is Director of Corporate Finance & Investment and Tri-borough Director for Treasury and Pensions for the City of Westminster, responsible for bringing together the Tri-borough team to improve resilience and provide a more streamlined relationship between all parties.
Ms Hunt is Pensions Manager at Warburtons, where she has responsibility for corporate pension strategy and supporting three Trustee Boards in the operation and management of the schemes’ investments. Mr Cheseldine has been Partner at Lane Cark & Peacock since 2010 and has over 30 years’ experience in employee benefits. His recent client work has focused on auto-enrolment, investment options, transition management, the implications of behavioural economics and wider alternatives for wealth creation. Ms Young is Head of Pensions and Human Resources at Heineken UK Limited. She leads the team at Heineken responsible for all aspects of UK pensions, including contract-based DC arrangements. Ms Young also Chairs the Company’s governance committee.
Joanne Segars, Chief Executive, NAPF, said:
“I am delighted that our vigorously contested elections resulted in such strong appointments and congratulate all five new council members. Our new joiners bring a wealth of pensions and investment experience that will be of huge benefit as we continue to work for good quality workplace pension provision.”
The UK’s leading pensions body received 13 nominations for two vacant positions on the DB Council and 23 nominations for three vacant positions on the DC Council. The overwhelming response meant that the NAPF held a ballot that closed on 17th September.
This latest news follows the announcement that Robert Brown of Towers Watson has been elected Chair of the DB Council and Lesley Williams of Whitbread Chair of the DC Council.
All new council members take up their new positions at the NAPF Annual General Meeting on 18 October 2013.
Last year, the NAPF decided to revamp its two main policy-making councils by replacing the Retirement Policy Council and Investment Policy Council with DB Council and DC Council respectively, to better reflect the pensions industry and create a clearer focus on defined contribution (DC) pensions in its policy work.
Each council will be made up of 15 members who each have a three-year term of service. They will meet five times a year to debate key issues and help steer NAPF’s representational work to Government. Both councils develop and agree policies on behalf of the NAPF’s 1,300 member pension schemes, which hold around £900bn of assets.
Notes to editor:
Frank Johnson Managing Director, Investments, RPMI has spent the past nine years with RPMI - as Financial Director and Managing Director in charge of administration and, for the past four years, running the investment business. He has acquired considerable experience across core areas under the new DB Council’s remit. In addition, he has extensive experience of pensions and investment governance. His board-level commercial experience is substantial. Mr Johnson is a chartered accountant who has held several finance director posts prior to joining RPMI. He is also a non-executive director of an investment management firm focusing on corporate engagement.
Jonathan Hunt is Director of Corporate Finance & Investment and Tri-borough Director for Treasury and Pensions at Westminster City Council. Before joining Westminster Mr Hunt was in the corporate finance team at Transport for London for seven years and ended up as Deputy Group Treasurer. In this role, Mr Hunt led the capital markets borrowing programme and wrote the legislation enabling TfL to use derivatives. He started his career in the City at two investment banks and joined Westminster in 2010. He is responsible for bringing together the Tri-Borough Pensions & Treasury team (LBHF, RBKC and WCC), covering pension funds totalling approximately £2.3 billion and treasury investments totalling approximately £800 million.
Anne Hunt has a wealth of knowledge in the pensions industry and more than 24 years’ experience managing pension schemes and acting as Scheme Secretary. She joined spell out BDP in 1990 and acted as Assistant Scheme Secretary, with responsibility for the management of the pension schemes, DB scheme closure and implementation of a Stakeholder Scheme. In 2007 Ms Hunt joined Warburtons as Pensions Manager. She is a member of the Pension Steering Group with responsibility for corporate pension strategy and supporting three Trustee Boards in the operation and management of the schemes and investments. She delivered a number of projects, including PensionWise, Auto Enrolment and Member engagement strategy – ‘the journey to retirement’
Andy Cheseldine joined Partner, Lane Cark & Peacock in 2010. He has more than 30 years’ experience in employee benefits. A regular contributor to industry debate on DC, including speaking at conferences, Mr CheseIdine sits on the DWP’s Technical Advisory Group on small pot transfers.
Carol Young has worked on DC from a number of angles, having held DC-focused roles as a head of pensions, as chair of a contract based governance committee, as an independent trustee and as an investment advisor. Carol leads the team at Heineken responsible for all aspects of UK pensions, including its contract-based DC arrangements which she designed and launched in 2011. This has industry-leading levels of member engagement, in terms of both take up and investment decision making. As chair of the governance committee, Ms Young spends much of her time focusing on how to make DC work for the group’s members. Previously, Ms Young spent 10 years as an investment consultant and has served as an independent trustee.
The NAPF is the leading voice of workplace pensions in the UK. We speak for 1,300 pension schemes with some 16 million members and assets of around £900 billion. NAPF members also include over 400 businesses providing essential services to the pensions sector.
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Aimee Savage Richards, Press Officer (interim), 020 7601 1718 or 07825 171 446, [email protected]