Speakers

Neil Bowden

Allen & Overy LLP

Neil Bowden is a partner in the Allen & Overy LLP pensions team, part of a global Employment & Benefits group. Allen & Overy is an international legal practice with a highly rated UK pensions team.
Neil has been in the pensions industry since 1997, spending 10 years at Linklaters before joining Allen & Overy in 2007. His practice is a mix of trustee and employer advice on all aspects of pension arrangements. Neil has assisted clients with key strategic changes such as benefit reviews, scheme mergers, contingent funding arrangements and closure of schemes to future accrual as well as guiding them through the changing regulatory environment. He has extensive experience in the pensions buy-out market, including advising Emap on the transfer of its schemes to Paternoster in 2007, and the Thomson Regional Newspapers trustees after the transfer of the scheme to Citigroup in 2007.
Neil has been on the Legislative & Parliamentary Subcommittee of the Association of Pension Lawyers since 2004.

David Collinson

Pension Corporation

David is responsible for new business and pricing at Pension Corporation. He played a lead role on the Delta (£451m) and Thorn (£1.1bn) insurance buy outs. David is a qualified actuary with over 20 years of experience in actuarial consultancy and transaction services. Prior to joining Pension Corporation David was global head of M&A services at Watson Wyatt.

John Fitzpatrick

Pension Corporation

A member of Swiss Re Group’s Executive Board from 1998 to 2006. John served Swiss Re as Chief Financial Officer (1998-2003), Head of Life and Health Business Group (2003—2005) and Head of Financial Services (2005—2006). From 1996 to 1998 John was a Senior Managing Director of private equity backed insurance firms focusing on start-ups of insurance companies, first for Zurich Insurance Group, then for Swiss Re and Credit Suisse. He was the Group Chief Financial Officer from 1990 to 1996 of Kemper Corporation, headquartered in Chicago. He started his career with Kemper Corporation as a financial analyst in 1978 and held several positions in corporate finance until 1990. John was a member of the Board of the Association of British Insurers from 2003 to 2006.

Antony Hayes

Hewitt Associates

Antony Hayes is a member of our Corporate Pensions Consulting practice in London. Antony graduated with a Bachelor of Business Science at the University of Cape Town in 1992 and qualified as a Fellow of the Faculty of Actuaries in 1997. Antony started work in Individual Life Marketing, but has been working in Employee Benefits for the last 12 years. He relocated to the UK in 2005, and joined Hewitt in early 2007.
Antony has consulted to a wide range of clients, extending from the trustees of union provident funds to state owned enterprises and FTSE100 companies. Whilst he has experience in asset consulting and both defined benefit and defined contribution arrangements, his particular focus is on managing pensioner liabilities. He currently heads the Pension Risk Transfer Team and the CPC Mid-market initiative.

Paul Jayson

Barnett Waddingham

Paul is a Partner in our London office and is involved with the provision of the full range of actuarial, consultancy and strategic advice to a wide range of pension schemes.

As well as having a broad range of Trustee clients Paul has particular experience in providing commercial and practical advice to scheme sponsors on the management of pension scheme risk, benefit redesign and other strategic issues.

Paul is a member of the firm’s Business Development Board as well as its Asset Strategy Committee. As a practicing Scheme Actuary and Consultant, he is particularly well placed to understand the needs of clients. He is keen to "break the mould" of pension consulting, speaking to clients in plain English and ensuring that they have all the information needed to make robust and informed decisions.

He qualified as a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries in 1993 having trained as an actuary with a worldwide firm of actuarial and employee benefit consultants. He then spent eight years as a partner in a specialist actuarial and benefits firm before joining Higham Group where he was head of the Actuarial Consulting & Benefits practice. Paul holds a degree in Statistics and Economics from the University of London.

Fiona Matthews

Watson Wyatt Wordwide

Fiona has over 20 years Financial Services Industry experience which includes 10 years as a statutory director for FTSE100 insurance and international reassurance companies.

A qualified actuary, Fiona has extensive commercial, operations and project management expertise gained from managing all aspects of outsourcing relationships, leading new product developments and implementing large M&A deals.

Fiona joined Watson Wyatt in 2008 as Chief Operations Officer for their Settlements Solutions business, which combines Watson Wyatts expertise in pensions, insurance, administration and investment services to deliver a holistic journey plan to achieve settlement or self sufficiency over the medium term for pension funds.

Martyn Phillips

Prudential

As Corporate Deal Principal, Martyn has responsibility for the delivery of buy-in/buy-out/de-risking deals with DB pension schemes in the UK marketplace and leads negotiations on large deals of this nature.

Martyn has over 19 years Financial Services experience. This includes 16 years working for major Employee Benefit Consultancies, of which he spent the last 8 years as a Senior Strategic Benefit Consultant for a Global Advisory business, involving working with employers and trustees to restructure and de-risk DB pension schemes as well as working on M&A and optimising employee benefit packages.

In addition to his role as Corporate Deal Principal, during Martyn’s 3 years at Prudential he has also had strategic responsibility for Prudential’s participation in the Enhanced Transfer Value market place, leading all key activities including working with UK Execs and Employee Benefit Consultants, FSA interaction, PR strategy and strategic development of Prudential’s proposition

Robert Purse

Pension Review Associates

Robert is the Chairman of Pension Review Associates. His background is predominantly in HR, with a strong focus on Communications, Compensation & Benefits and Employee Relations. With his co-Directors, he has recently and successfully completed a major project that involved closing 4 DB Schemes to future accrual and severing the link to final pensionable salary.
He believes that now, more than ever, the success of any change in pension arrangements will depend upon effective communication with the Members, whether they be Actives, Deferreds, or Pensioners. Members are, in his view, rightly suspicious and communications need to be: honest, open, and comprehensive.
Robert was educated at Edinburgh University and Henley Management College. His leisure interests are Carp (Koi) and Harp (Clarsach).

James Riley

Watson Wyatt Worldwide

James is an actuary at Watson Wyatt specialising in providing pensions advice to corporate clients. He is a member of the firm's Corporate Consulting Group and has been with Watson Wyatt for over nine years.

James advises clients on a broad range of issues and his particular areas of expertise are pension scheme funding, risk management (including buy-out) and M&A (particularly transaction due diligence and pension strategy).

Anil Sharma

Prudential

Anil joined Prudential in 2004 working in strategy and product development, before moving to work on large insurer and pension scheme transactions.
Anil also spent 7 years in a variety of roles in London and New York within financial services working for PricewaterhouseCoopers, Andersen and Credit Suisse.
Anil holds an MBA and qualified as a Chartered Accountant with PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Emma Watkins

MetLife Assurance Limited

Emma is responsible for developing and securing new business within the bulk annuity market through the development and management of ongoing relationships and enhancing MetLife Assurance Limited's profile within the industry. Emma has over 10 years experience in the pensions arena, where she has held positions with ACE Europe as trustee liability insurance product manager and prior to that with Hazell Carr Pensions Consulting and Prudential, where she had operational and client management responsibilities for multi-disciplined operational, defined benefit administration and pension technical areas.

Kevin Wesbroom

Hewitt Associates

Kevin Wesbroom, a Principal at Hewitt Associates, is the UK lead for Global Risk Services - a multidisciplinary team combining pension and investment expertise that is designed to help clients understand, quantify and manage the risks they face from offering defined benefit plans around the world.

Kevin is a qualified actuary who has worked at Hewitt for nearly 35 years.