Retirement Policy Council Chairman

Retirement Policy Council Vice Chairman

Lesley Williams is Group Pensions Director at Whitbread, with responsibility for Corporate pensions strategy and to the Trustee Company for the operation of the Pension Fund and its investments. The Whitbread pension fund has a closed DB and open DC section. Lesley has worked in the pensions industry for over 20 years, with previous positions in Gateway Foodmarkets, Abbey National, the Pearl Group and Head of Pensions with the Henderson Group.

She is an Associate of the PMI and has an MBA.

Chairman, Local Groups Liaison Committee
Since November 2005 David has been Group Pensions Manager for Trinity Mirror plc. He is an employer appointed trustee director of 12 schemes within the group and responsible, amongst other things, for monitoring and improving trustee governance arrangements. David is Chairman of the open trust based DC plan (and 6 closed DB schemes) where he is particularly keen to see the development of investment options that can engage with the average member.

Prior to joining Trinity Mirror David was Deputy Pensions Manager for Britvic Soft Drinks where he converted the DC plan to automatic entry and helped prepare the Trustees for the Company’s Stock Exchange floatation. Previously David was Director of Benefits at NAPF for six years. 

David has been a Committee member of the NAPF City & Eastern Local Group since 2007, Secretary since 2008, and Local Groups Liaison Officer since April 2010. He was elected Vice Chairman of the Local Groups Liaison Committee in June 2010, and Chairman in October 2011.

François is currently a Pensions partner at law firm Squire Sanders Hammonds, but will be joining another law firm in May 2012.  He advises both corporate sponsors, and trustee boards, in relation to all aspects of pensions law in the UK.  He specialises in plan restructuring exercises, and developing creative solutions to assist with funding shortfalls. He has acted on a number of asset backed funding projects, designed to remedy defined benefit shortfalls without using cash. François has advised the Confederation of British Industry's pensions panel on matters of pensions law and policy since 2000.

Robert is a Fellow of the Pensions Management Institute and has over 20 years experience across a number of pension related activities including administration, audit, insolvency, consultancy and best practice.

Robert has been with RPMI for two years where he holds the position of Managing Director, Administration. Alongside this role he is also a Non-Executive Director of the Civil Service Pension Scheme Management Board.

Before joining RPMI Robert spent 10 years at a major BPO/TPA business where he held a number of senior management positions. His experience also includes large scale operational management in the public and private sector, including EBC’s, insurance companies, TPA’s and professional firms.

He is a regular contributor of articles, publications and commentary in the pension’s trade and national press and is a speaker on pension issues at many conferences and seminars. Robert has also been a member of a number of Trustee and charity boards in both the public and private sector, and has a keen interest in how retirement provision in the UK impacts upon the member.

Richard is a Client Director and is a trustee to a number of defined benefit and defined contribution pension schemes. His clients include open, closed, paid up and winding up schemes. He acts as a sole trustee as well as amongst lay trustees. He chairs around half of the trustee boards he sits on. Richard also acts as a governor of a number of contract based (including group personal) pension plans ands as a pension scheme secretary. As Managing Director of PTL he has overall management responsibility for all aspects of the company.

Richard has worked in the pensions industry since 1985 for a variety of insurance companies, third party administrators and, for eight years, for himself. Having acted as a pension scheme secretary since 1989, Richard became a freelance independent trustee in 2002. He joined Pitmans Trustees Ltd (PTL) in March 2008.

Lynn is Head of Pensions at Marks and Spencer plc where her role is to head the team providing services to the Trustee Board, a post which she has held since February 2004.

Lynn spent the first 14 years of her career in pensions consultancy before taking on her first in-house role with Securicor plc in 1996. Lynn is currently working with the NAPF’s 2012 group, is a fellow of the Pensions Management Institute and is a member of the Pensions Quality Mark Advisory Panel.

Emma is a Partner at Mercer and UK Leader for Mercer Workplace Savings, a new solution within the DC market that enables employers and trustees to meet the needs of a diverse workforce saving for retirement and other important life events.

She has held previous product development, communication and relationship management roles within the DC industry, including Head of DC Sales at BlackRock, and Head of DC Pensions and Institutional Client Relationships at Threadneedle Asset Management.

Emma has an MA from Trinity College, Oxford and an MBA from Manchester Business School. She is a co-optee on the NAPF Retirement Policy Council and on the Advisory Panel for the FTSE DC Default indices.

Since 2002 Stella has been the Group Pensions Director at Centrica plc. Prior to that she spent 10 years in the consultancy side of the industry before moving in-house when joining BT in 1997. 

Stella has a broad range of experience across all aspects of the pensions world encompassing both DC and DB provision.

Ian Fairweather has worked within Towers Watson’s technical unit, which he now heads, for more than 15 years.  Before that, he worked for insurance companies in a variety of roles, starting in documentation, moving onto managing an administration department, resolving customer care issues and finally working within a Marketing department supporting Independent Financial Advisers.  He therefore has experience of all types of pension arrangement: individual, executive and group.

Ian has a law degree, a diploma in Politics and Government with an emphasis on the European Union, is a Fellow of the Pensions Management Institute and a tutor for its examinations.

Jerry has now resumed his role at C A P Services Limited, operating as a freelance consultant with Pension Schemes and sponsoring employer.

Jerry is acting Chief Operating Officer for NOW: Pensions Limited. This business, supported by ATP the leading Pension provider in Denmark, is being established to provide a new cost effective, member centric pension option for employers to meet their auto-enrollment obligations. He was previously the Group Pensions Director at RSA a role he held for close to six years helping RSA move its pension obligations from being critical liabilities to a risk managed structure that is sustainable for the business and its employees.

Jerry has a passion for ensuring the best pension outcomes are achieved for scheme members while being very aware of Employer cost. In this process a key aspect has been to ensure members appreciate the value of the pension offer as part of the overall total reward strategy.

In his former role, he oversaw the management of the BP and Burmah Castrol Pension Funds - developing policy for, and providing operational and compliance services to, the employing companies and to the Funds’ Trustee Boards. He also had responsibility for the governance-related aspects of BP’s overseas pension arrangements. Now, he provides professional support to the BP Pension Fund Trustee Board and its committees. 

Bruce was an OPRA Board member, 2003-2005; a member of the CBI Pensions Working Group; and has been a trustee board chairman. With 20 years’ prior experience in HR/employee relations, he is also a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

Diana’s pensions career started in 1988 having spent some years as a Police Officer and in Human Resources. She is now Head of Pensions with United Biscuits. Prior to this, Diana was at Nortel Networks for some 3 years and at Amersham for over 10 years where she was also responsible for benefits. Her first pension post was with British Alcan (providing the key interface with the company’s 80 UK sites). 

Diana is an Adviser for the Pension Advisory Service helping others to resolve their issues.  Diana joined the NAPF North London Group Committee in 1993 and has held several Committee roles. Until September 2004 she chaired this Local Group.

Mark Hyde Harrison is Chairman of the NAPF.  He has served on the NAPF Investment Council since 2006 and joined the NAPF Board in 2009.

He lives in Kent with his wife and three daughters.

Immediate Past Chairman

Joy Moore has held the post  of Head of Pensions at RWE npower since January 2002. She has responsibility for developing strategy and policy for the company as well as providing secretariat and compliance services to the trustees. The main pension scheme at RWE npower has assets of £3.8bn and a membership in excess of 37,000.

Joy was Chairman of NAPF Retirement Policy Council 2009 - 2011.

Between 1992 and 2002 Joy was employed by BBC pensions and prior to that, by British Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme.

Jane is the Practice Area Partner in the Pension Group at Hogan Lovells.  She acts for several of the UK's largest pension schemes, including the BT Pension Scheme, the Pilkington Superannuation Scheme and the Centrica pension schemes.  She has over 20 years' experience in pensions law. 

Jane advises employers and trustees on all aspects of pension law.  She enjoys simplifying complex issues and providing her clients with lucid advice, clearly presented.  She has chaired both the SPC and tPAS.