2024 JUDGES

Azka is a Client Director at Vidett where she is appointed as a trustee to a number of schemes. Prior to Vidett, Azka has 15 years of experience working for Mercer, where she was practising as a scheme actuary advising trustees, as well as having several corporate clients.

During her time at Mercer, Azka held various leadership roles and also completed a 9-month secondment with the World Economic Forum in 2022/23 on the topic of living longer lives, better.

Barbara-Ann is an experienced Scheme Actuary, trustee secretary and governance specialist – having worked in the pensions industry for over 20 years.

Alongside her Scheme Actuary duties she oversees the governance services provided by the Barnett Waddingham Actuarial Consulting team, and leads the team that has been working on delivering a pragmatic approach to compliance with the General Code since its draft publication in 2021. This involves working closely with other business areas within the firm, and other industry professionals, to promote best practice, sharing of ideas and the raising of governance standards.

More recently Barbara-Ann has been involved with the firm’s Gender Equality Network, as co-sponsor, which is working to promote and champion awareness of, and engagement in, Gender Equality.

Daniel is a seasoned pensions administration professional with over 25 years of experience. As Client Director at Trafalgar House, he leads the company's client service strategy, ensuring exceptional support and service levels. Daniel has held senior roles in operations, quality assurance, and business development, managing third-party administration operations and pioneering innovative technology solutions to enhance client experiences. Before joining Trafalgar House in 2017, he was Head of Administration Services at another leading pensions administrator, overseeing the delivery of high-quality services to a diverse client base. His expertise and commitment to excellence significantly contribute to Trafalgar House's success.

As a senior marketing professional with over 30 years’ experience working with professional services firms, Georgina leads Sackers’ business development and marketing strategy and manages the BD team. She works with the lawyers at Sackers to nurture existing clients, win new ones and maintain the leading reputation of the firm. This includes running the firm’s highly successful client feedback programme, managing relationships with professional trustees and co-ordinating links with the wider pension world. Georgina is also a trustee of a DB scheme in the professional services sector.

Girish Menezes is Partner and Head of Administration at Isio, a Board Director of PASA and a member of the Pensions Management Institute’s Advisory Council. He has a Masters in Management from the London Business School.

Joanne qualified as a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries in 2000 and has held a Scheme Actuary practising certificate since 2003. She has over thirty years’ pensions experience advising both public sector and private sector organisations. Her experience is deep and wide and includes, for example, protracted funding negotiations, employer debt calculations, scheme merger advice, as well as providing training to trustees on appropriate topics.

She is also responsible for obtaining and maintaining Quantum’s IFoA Quality Assurance Scheme (QAS) accreditation, ensuring high quality actuarial advice is delivered throughout the Firm; this includes the ongoing development of the actuarial teams as well as reinforcing Quantum’s culture and values. As Partner, Joanne is heavily involved in the day to day running of the Firm, with particular focus on Quantum’s people management strategies.

Julian joined the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) as an Executive Director in 2013 and became Chief Executive in 2017.

Prior to this he worked at the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) for almost 16 years. He undertook a variety of roles such as the Managing Director of their commercial company and their Director of Operations. He led on business growth and strategic development across CIPFA's commercial business as well as the delivery of their member services.

Julian worked on school policy at the Department for Education before joining CIPFA.

Kate has over 28 years’ experience in the pensions industry. Kate began her career working on the mis-selling of personal pensions, then in-house in pensions administration before joining Squire Patton Boggs in 2003 and qualifying as a pensions lawyer in 2006. Prior to joining Dalriada, Kate was a Partner in the pensions practice at Gateley, advising trustees and corporates on a wide range of pensions matters.

Kate’s recent experience includes working on buy-ins and buy-outs, corporate restructurings, scheme closures, flexible apportionment arrangements, GMP reconciliation and equalisation and scheme mergers and demergers. The schemes Kate has worked on range in size from £10million to over £4billion.

Kate’s key strengths lie in working collaboratively with all stakeholders, being highly organised and efficient, and consistently demonstrating an ability to drive projects through to completion by fostering cooperative and creative working environments.

Kathryn is a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and a Senior DC consultant at Hymans Robertson. With her pensions career spanning 20 years, she specialises in advising trustees and governance committees on effective pension strategy and improving pension outcomes. She is also a keen advocate for pension equity within the firm and the wider pensions industry, sitting on the industry wide Pension Equity Group. In addition to her client responsibilities, Kathryn leads the strategic thinking for the At-Retirement proposition for the DC Consulting market with particular focus on decumulation solutions, including risk pooling and CDC. Kathryn is also an Executive in the firm’s Partnership Council and she is currently a Trustee and Governor at the Pensions Policy Institute.

Katy joined the PLSA in April 2021 and leads on the PLSA’ government affairs work. Prior to this, she worked in a public affairs role at the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, the professional chartered body for actuaries in the UK. She has also spent a number of years working in Parliament supporting both a MP and a Peer, and also has experience working for Local Government. Katy has a BA (Hons) in politics from the University of East Anglia.

Kim has more than 30 years’ industry experience and is a Fellow of both the PMI and Pensions Advisory Service. She created KGC, one of the few remaining independent governance consultancies, in 2002.

Kim is a strong advocate of leveraging technology to deliver better outcomes for pensions savers. She was a founding director of PASA and has been Chair since 2019. She is a Trustee of Smart Pensions Master Trust and an Accredited Professional Trustee. Kim is a member of the Pension Dashboards Advisory Group and DWP’s Default Consolidator Delivery Group. She has engaged with government departments and regulatory bodies on a number of initiatives to help deliver a more robust pension system. Kim is PMI’s Principal Examiner for Professionalism and Governance and sits on PMI’s Examining Committee.

Kim is a business graduate and holds a Diploma in Business Excellence. Outside of pensions she is a British Dressage judge, as well as competing on her own horses

Lucy is an experienced Trustee Executive with over 7 years’ experience in providing secretarial and governance services to trustee boards. Previously Chair of NextGen’s Research & Insights Committee, Lucy takes a keen interest in participating in the wider pensions industry and particularly women’s issues. Judging the Women in Pensions awards was an opportunity too good to turn down and she has thoroughly enjoyed becoming more familiar with the brilliant work undertaken by women across the pensions landscape.

Manpreet has worked in Professional Independent Trustee firms for over 20 years. She manages a portfolio or clients as Independent Trustee and is Chief People Officer at IGG. She heads IGG’s internal working group focused on driving better results through diversity on the boards where they are appointed. She is Chair of the Association of Professional Pension Trustees (APPT) Diversity and Inclusion sub-committee through which she can positively influence change in the industry. Manpreet is fully accredited as a professional trustee by the APPT.

Matthew is the lead actuary and strategic consultant to a portfolio of clients, typically over £1bn in size and covering DB and DC benefits, drawing on over 30 years of experience in the pensions industry. He combines this with a role on the Aon Retirement executive team with responsibility for thought leadership in UK pensions. He is a regular speaker on pensions at conferences, is a contact for journalists, is in regular dialogue with the DWP and TPR and sits on both the PLSA’s DB Committee and the CBI’s Pension Panel.

With 25 years’ experience across Insurance and Investments Sarah is now responsible for commercially scaling Aviva’s Direct to Consumer Wealth business. For the last two years her key focus has been on transforming Aviva’s direct to consumer business with the purpose to simplify life’s financial decisions so that customers can act with confidence.

Combining years of experience across regulated products, transformation and technology Sarah’s key ambition is to ensure that the 89% of adults that don’t currently seek advice have the tools and support they need, in a way that suits them, to feel confident about their financial future.

Having been part of the slow shift in the industry to a more diverse workforce one of Sarah’s key drivers is the desire to accelerate opportunities for the next generation through coaching, mentoring and the sponsorship of our apprenticeship programme.

Sarah is a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and a practising Scheme Actuary to a range of pension schemes, with over 20 years of experience. She is also Gallagher’s UK Chief Actuary.

Sarah is an excellent communicator. She has spoken at a range of webinars and events, and has written a number of articles for the pensions press. She enjoys taking complex subjects and making them understandable to all.

She is also one of Gallagher’s experts on pension scheme taxation, as well as on scheme funding matters; and has lead on the responses to a number of recent consultations. She is also a member of the ACA’s Pension Schemes Committee.

Judging these awards has been inspiring, and Sarah has very much enjoyed hearing more about the amazing work that so many are doing in the industry.

Suzy works across all subsidiaries of The Law Debenture Corporation p.l.c. with responsibility for managing all aspects of Business Development across the group, including LawDeb’s Pensions business, now under Sankar Mahalingham’s leadership.

Working closely with the CEO, COO and CFO - as well as all business heads - to dynamically support the growth in professional service revenues, Suzy spends most of her time externally, discussing LawDeb's broad offering in independent professional services.

Suzy is positioned to bring a wealth of business development and sales experience, proven out commerciality and a developed network of contacts to her role at LawDeb.

Suzy couples passion and enthusiasm for the businesses she supports and the services she is responsible for promoting at LawDeb, whilst raising the profile of the organisation more generally, with business acumen gained by working with some of the world's top international financial institutions, including Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley and Nomura.

It’s a great pleasure to add Judging to Suzy’s CV: “with congratulations to all who submitted, it was certainly a tough challenge judging!”

Tess is Mercer’s UK Wealth Strategy Leader and a client-facing consultant, advising DB investment and DC clients. She began her career in the industry in 2002 and joined Mercer in 2011, where she has held leadership roles across investments, funding, and DC.

Tess chairs the Association of Consulting Actuaries (ACA) DC Committee and sits on the Diversity Project’s Advisory Council. She chaired the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries’ working party on retirement savings and is a mentor for the Cherie Blair Foundation.

Tess has a Master’s in Biochemistry from the University of Oxford and she is a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries. Outside of work, Tess is a Trustee of a GM4Women 2028, a charity focused on improving equality for women, girls, and the community in the North West.

A former Rising Star award-winner purely on the strength of tweeting nonsense, Tess is now campaigning for the launch of the “Fading and tired, but still shining” Star Awards.