2026 JUDGES

Amanda Burdge was the recipient of the Professional Pensions Women in Pensions ‘Pensions Woman of the Year’ Award in 2024. She is a Partner and Head of Investment at Quantum Advisory, where she oversees the development and delivery of innovative investment solutions and advice. True to Quantum’s values, Amanda puts her clients at the heart of everything she does. She ensures trustees receive effective and relevant advice in a timely way, allowing them to take advantage of any change in market conditions. Amanda is the Vice Chair of Trustees for the Wales Air Ambulance Charity and a founding member of the Steering Committee for the Women in Pensions South West network. She has judged the Professional Pensions Awards and the Women in Pensions Awards for a number of years and is passionate about giving back to the industry.

Charlotte is the UK Lead of the Epic Retirement Institute, an education business designed to help pre-retirees plan for and live a long, happy, healthy, and financially stronger life. She is also the founder of The Rewirement, where she provides 1:1 coaching for people heading into this stage of life. Prior to this, Charlotte was Head of Retirement at NatWest Cushon and a pensions actuary at KPMG (now Isio).

Chris is a Partner in the Client Management function within BW’s Pension Administration team. From his 25 year career, Chris has significant diverse experience across all aspects of administration from day-to-day operations, team management, onboarding, projects and secretarial/governance services. Chris takes great pride in providing opportunities to allow administrators to flourish in their careers enabling BW to provide excellent service to clients.

Daniel is a Director at Trafalgar House and a Non-Executive Board Member of PASA, bringing over 25 years of experience in pensions administration. He works with trustees and sponsors to navigate an increasingly complex DB and DC landscape, with a focus on combining strong governance, practical insight and effective use of technology to drive better member outcomes. Daniel is a recognised industry voice and regular speaker, known for his pragmatic approach and commitment to raising standards across pensions administration.

Estella's practice is uniquely varied; her clients include trustees of multi-billion pound pension schemes, a large DB master trust, high profile charities, offshore pension trustee companies, and senior executives. Her clients and their pension arrangements are truly global, spanning the Channel Islands, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and the US. Estella leads the Stephenson Harwood International Pensions offering. Estella has a strong occupational practice advising employers and trustees on all aspects of work-related pension provision. Clients choose Estella for advice on complex projects, technical queries and knotty issues, and for business as usual support. Estella also advises high net worth individuals on personal pension matters, including tax and estate planning. Occupational clients benefit from Estella's broad understanding of the UK pensions and pensions tax system, and her firsthand experience of dealing with matters from a member perspective. Estella's international clients benefit from her deep understanding of the UK tax treatment of overseas pension schemes and her ability to address the unique challenges faced by clients with cross-border interests. Estella's clients appreciate her ability to communicate highly technical legal concepts in an understandable way, her focus on providing commercial, practical advice, and her friendly, calm and direct approach. She was named as a Next Generation Partner and Recommended Lawyer by the 2026 Legal 500 directory, and ranked as an Up and Coming practitioner by Chambers UK 2026.

Georgina is Director of Business Development at specialist pensions law firm Sackers. She has over 35 years’ experience working with professional services firms, both in-house and as a consultant. At Sackers, she runs the client relationship programme and manages all new business opportunities. She is also responsible for managing strategic relationships with professional trustees and the wider pension world, marketing communications, brand and corporate identity, and media relations.

Girish Menezes is a Partner at Isio and President of the Pensions Management Institute. A leading voice in UK pensions policy for 15+ years, he has driven innovation in member engagement and industry-wide initiatives like the auto-enrolment reform and saver education. A regular media commentator, his insights on Pensions Dashboard and pensions administration excellence have shaped regulatory debates. He holds a Masters in Management from the London Business School.

Helen has worked in the pensions sector for almost 20 years. She is currently Chief Strategy Officer at the PMI, responsible for the delivery of the PMI’s strategic approach as well as its policy, advocacy and communications functions. She was previously head of TPR's regulatory communications and market engagement function where she is responsible for engaging effectively with the market to understand the risks and opportunities facing the sector and delivering engagement and targeted communications to drive better outcomes for the saver. Prior to that she led policy at the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association for 5 years with specific responsibility for the defined benefit pensions team and Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) policy. Helen began her career at the Department of Work and Pensions where she was responsible for taking through key pensions legislation and was latterly head of pensions external engagement.

Katy joined Pensions UK in April 2021 and leads on our 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 over 30 years’ industry experience and is a Fellow of the PMI and The Pensions Advisory Service. She founded KGC in 2002, a governance consultancy built on evidence-led advice and independent thinking, now part of the Independent Governance Group. She is an Accredited Professional Trustee for the Smart Pension Master Trust, where she is an advocate for developing saving solutions and leveraging technology to deliver better outcomes for pension savers. Kim is also President of the Pensions Administration Standards Association (PASA). She is also the PMI’s Principal Examiner for Professionalism & Governance and a strong advocate for raising standards across the industry and recognising the contribution women make across pensions. Kim has worked directly with government departments and regulators to support the development of a more robust UK pensions system.

Having joined Phoenix Group at the end of February 2024, Mike is Retirement and Savings Director across the Phoenix Group business. He is responsible for Thinking Forward which provides insights, debate and the broader platform for thought and direction across Standard Life. As a Consumer Spokesperson connecting topical and future savings and pension issues for both the consumer and press is a top priority with learnings from a global perspective being applied. Mike previously worked with Hymans Robertson as a Partner and Head of firm-wide proposition for 17 years, most recently overseeing the DC Master Trust consolidation for a number of high-profile corporate clients. He also advised on both M&A as well as creating one of the leading UK independent benchmarking tools on the provider market.

Nathalie heads up LCP’s strategic pensions relationships, focussing on LCP’s future clients and key relationships. She works across all of LCP’s service areas helping future LCP clients in finding the right solutions. In order to provide the best advice, she builds a strong relationship with LCP’s clients by understanding their needs and objectives. Nathalie has also set up and now heads the ‘LCP Professional Trustee Engagement Programme’. She works closely with key professional trustees across a large number of firms placing her at the forefront of key discussions and industry developments. Nathalie was invited to TPR’s first board strategy away day in Nov 2023 as an external industry voice. She is the author of Sole Mates, an annual industry survey on Professional Trusteeship as well as Pensions Power Brokers, a publication examining where DB pension assets are held and the crucial role trustees play in managing them. Nathalie has set up LCP’s Professional Trustee selection service and advised a large number of sponsors and Trustees on the right governance arrangements. Nathalie is passionate about diversity, equity & inclusion and is contributing to a number of industry initiatives, such as chair of The Pensions Regulator's Diversity and Inclusion group as well as founding partner of the Female Forum – Pensions Chapter. As a prior governor at her children’s school she has implemented a number of new initiatives within the school to empower children with better communication skills and interview practice for secondary schools. Nathalie has a multi-cultural background, speaks 3 languages and enjoys spending time with her family (two young children, husband and dog) in her spare time.

Priti has over 25 years’ experience in pensions, working with trustees, employers and advisers across DC arrangements, including contract-based, single trust and master trust schemes. She has held senior relationship leadership roles at Legal & General, BlackRock and Aegon, including heading the L&G DC Client Relationship team and overseeing the L&G Master Trust relationship. Priti serves as a trustee across DB, DC and hybrid schemes and currently chairs several schemes. She is member-focused, with a strong interest in communications and proposition development, and sits on the DCIF advisory board and the Pension Equity Group (PEG).

Rosie leads our Bulk Annuity Origination and Execution team, having joined Prudential in 2025. During 2025, Prudential wrote £1.5bn of BPA business and have recently announced their BPA Plus proposition to share investment experience with members during buyout. Rosie has worked in the pensions risk transfer market for over 17 years and is a qualified actuary. Her extensive market experience gives her deep understanding of the perspectives and priorities of trustees, advisors, providers and regulators. Prior to joining M&G, she was Head of Bulk Annuities and a partner at Barnett Waddingham, where she led transactions for the £2bn Old British Steel Pension Scheme and £850m for the Arcadia pension schemes as well as seeing over 80 transactions through during her tenure. Previously Rosie worked for Scottish Widows where she was involved in writing c£4bn of bulk annuity transactions. She has also worked as a PRA regulator, supervising bulk annuity insurers.

Sophia is a partner and Head of DC at XPS Group and is currently [Immediate Past] President of the Society of Pension Professionals, the industry body representing the wide range of providers of advice and services to pension schemes, trustees and employers. She has almost 30 years’ experience in the UK pensions industry and advises corporates and trustees across all areas of their DC schemes including optimising benefit design, developing investment solutions, improving member engagement and ensuring effective scheme governance. She is a well-known industry and media commentator on DC market developments and feels passionately that we must tackle short-term financial resilience as well as deliver better long-term retirement products, if we’re going to help today’s workforce to retire with the security and lifestyle they want.

Tina is an experienced Scheme Actuary and Corporate adviser helping her clients making decisions on all aspects of their pension arrangements in their own unique and varied circumstances. A particular passion is helping develop strategy for clients and supporting them from an overall integrated risk management perspective to improve member outcomes. She collaborates effectively across multiple stakeholders and thinks holistically to get better and quicker solutions for clients whilst maintaining good relationships. Tina is also passionate about people development with a keen focus on enabling people to flourish in their careers. She has held a number of roles within WTW such as Chair of WTW’s Inclusion & Diversity Council for EMEA, led our Emerging Leaders Programme and is currently a member of the GB Retirement Executive Leadership Group. Tina is a keen supporter of the Women in Pensions awards and was thrilled to win the Mentor of the Year Award in 2018.