Guest Speakers
Emma Douglas Managing Director, Workplace Pensions at Aviva and Chair of the PLSA Board
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 £100bn 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.
David Fairs LCP Partner and former Executive Director of Regulatory Policy at the Pensions Regulator
David Fairs is a Partner at LCP and was the former Executive Director of Regulatory Policy, Analysis and Advice at The Pensions Regulator. During his time at the Regulator he was involved in many high profile policy issues including the development of the new funding code and of course was fully immersed in the challenges arising from the September 2022 Fiscal event, providing evidence on that to the Work and Pensions Select Committee in December last year.
Vincent Franklin Co-founder and Creative Partner, Quietroom
He’s spent more than 20 years helping financial service organisations and government departments use language in a way that connects with the reader, strengthens relationships, and helps people make smarter decisions about the things that matter to them. His clients have included British Steel Pension Scheme, British Airways Retirement Plan, Bupa, DWP, Experian, HMRC, HSBC, Kodak Pension Plan, KPMG, Lloyds Banking Group, Prudential, Royal Mail Pension Scheme, The Cabinet Office, and Unilever. Vincent started his career in the theatre. He’s still a working actor, managing to juggle his time between Quietroom and roles on TV (Bodyguard, Gentleman Jack, The Thick Of It, Cucumber and The Office) and in the theatre (This House at the National Theatre and Mary Stuart at the Almeida). He recently published his first book, Menus That Made History.
Jeremy Goodwin Eversheds Sutherland
Jeremy heads up the Eversheds Sutherland London pensions team and is deputy head of our global pensions team. Jeremy has a wide range of experience over more than 20 years advising companies and trustees in relation to all types of pension plan, both in the UK and internationally. He is currently spending a lot of time helping clients regarding both the treatment of funding surpluses in DB schemes and also ESG-related developments. Jeremy sat as an elected member of Eversheds Sutherland's Global Management board for six years and for the last two years has been the firm's London Senior Office Partner.
Jen Green Eversheds Sutherland
Jen is a Principal Associate in our pensions group. As well as advising trustees and employers of occupational pension schemes, Jen acts for providers of personal pension schemes and commercial arrangements. Jen enjoys guiding trustees through the maze of increasing pensions legislation and finding practical and efficient solutions to complex issues. She has in-depth knowledge of the SIPP market and has advised on a number of M&A transactions involving the sale and purchase of SIPP and SSAS portfolios. Her recent experience includes: advising a provider in respect of value assessments and other common issues across its platform of mastertrust, group SIPP and GPP schemes; conducting a gap analysis of her trustee clients’ governance documents in preparation for the launch of the general code and advising on how the consumer duty applies throughout the pensions distribution chain. Jen is a member of the TISA retirement policy and consumer duty working groups. She is a regular speaker at industry events and is an editor of three tax chapters for Tolley’s Pensions Law. Jen also sits on the Law Society’s LGBTQ+ Subcommittee.
Michael Jones Eversheds Sutherland
Michael is a partner and head of our national DC practice. He specialises in commercial pension schemes and pension scheme consolidation, advising some of the largest and most high-profile schemes in the UK, including DC master trusts, DB master trusts, other consolidation vehicles and several large employer-run schemes. Michael also advises clients on regulatory and legal issues relating to scheme investment, including investment governance, statutory reporting and responsible investment issues. Michael sits on the DC/Investment Sub-Committee of the Association of Pension Lawyers and 100 Group: TCFD group.
Emma King Eversheds Sutherland
Emma is a partner and leads the 13 strong Birmingham pensions group and sits on the national pensions management team. She advises trustees (such as Voca, Wales & West Utilities and Smurfit Kappa) and corporates (such as Siemens, Rolls-Royce and 2 Sisters Food Group). Recent experience includes advising on liability risk reduction for legacy defined benefit pension schemes, scheme design change, consolidating pension arrangements and advising on new developments in relation to freedom and choice in pensions. Emma is ranked in Band One for the Midlands by Chambers and Partners and is described as being "very knowledgeable but also extremely practical in the way she explains legal concepts".
Joanne Segars OBE Chair of several large public and private sector schemes, and former Chief Executive of the PLSA
Joanne has over 30 years of experience working in the pensions sector. She currently chairs, or sits on the board of, a number of pension schemes and investment companies in the UK and internationally. Joanne has a background in public policy, lobbying the government for a fair, affordable and efficient pensions system. She actively campaigns to ensure everyone can retire with a decent retirement income and has been helping to lead NOW: Pensions’ campaign to close the gender pensions gap. She is an accredited member of the Association of Professional Pension Trustees. Joanne chairs the Trustee board of NOW: Pensions.
Sir Steve Webb LCP Partner and former Pensions Minister
Sir Steve Webb was Minister of State for Pensions between 2010 and 2015, the longest-serving holder of the post. 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. Steve was a Liberal Democrat MP from 1997 to 2015. Before this he was professor of social policy at Bath University for two years, having previously worked for nine years as an economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Steve graduated with a first class honours degree in PPE from Oxford University in 1986. 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.
Resources
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