Plenary speakers
Andrew Claringbold is the Chair of the Technical Guidance Group and a member of the Retirement Professional Standards Group at Aon Hewitt. He is a Scheme Actuary but also advises some employers. He has particular expertise in the field of integrated funding and investment advice. Andrew joined Clay & Partners before it became Aon Consulting and then Aon Hewitt.
Carol Jagger is the AXA Professor of Epidemiology of Ageing in the Institute for Ageing and Health, Newcastle University. Her research spans demography and epidemiology with a focus on mental and physical functioning in ageing. She is the leading UK researcher on healthy life expectancy and has provided evidence on this to the government Works and Pensions Committee, the Health Committee and the Scottish Finance Committee. Carol is a Chartered Scientist and a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health.
Clive Pugh is a partner in Burges Salmon which has grown to become one of the largest UK pensions legal teams. Clive advises on all areas of pensions work, with a specialism in Regulatory matters (following 5 years at tPR) including schemes funding, clearance, managed PPF entry and also asset backed special purpose vehicles. Clive worked on the Great Lakes matter involving the issue of FSD proceedings, securing a £95m package in protection of the scheme. Clive’s holidays are mainly in Scandinavia as his wife Nina is Norwegian and he has a favourite Norwegian folk lullaby which the conference might be treated to.
Phil Simmance is a Senior Consultant in the International Consulting Group of Towers Watson, based in London. Phil has over 13 years of experience, having graduated from the University of Kent with a BSc (Hons) in Actuarial Science in 1999 and qualified as a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries in 2006. Phil has worked on a wide variety of benefit projects during his career, including supporting multinational companies to consolidate their pensions accounting results, undertake global benefits audit and benchmarking exercises and manage their internationally mobile employees. In recent years, Phil has taken a particular interest in emerging markets particularly in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
Susan Thorp is Professor of Finance and Superannuation at the University of Technology, Sydney. Susan has spent more than ten years researching long-horizon wealth management, especially consumer financial decision making. She publishes regularly in the international academic and practitioner press in the areas of risk communication, disclosure, annuitisation and retirement income streams.
In 1997, Steve Webb became the Liberal Democrat MP for Northavon. Boundary changes in May 2010 created a new constituency of Thornbury and Yate. At the last election, Steve became the first MP for this new area, which includes most of his former Northavon constituency, and is where he lives with his wife and two children.
Steve was appointed Minister of State for Pensions in May 2010, in the new Coalition Government. Prior to that, Steve was the Liberal Democrat spokesperson on Work and Pensions (1999 to 2005), Health (2005), Environment, Energy, Food and Rural Affairs (2007), Energy and Climate Change (2008), before returning to Work and Pensions in 2009. Steve also chaired the Liberal Democrat Manifesto Group in 2006.
Before being elected, Steve studied Philosophy, Politics & Economics at Hertford College, Oxford. Between 1986 and 1995, Steve worked as an economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies before being appointed Professor of Social Policy at Bath University.
Aside from his parliamentary duties, Steve is actively involved in the Parliamentary Christian Fellowship and cites his hobbies as information technology, music, and being an armchair supporter of West Bromwich Albion.
Neil is the Chief Economist for Hermes Fund Managers. He has over twenty five years experience of providing economic analysis, and has a forward-looking approach to generate investment strategy ideas for the fixed income team.
Neil began his career in 1987 at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), becoming its youngest ever Head of Economic Policy. He went on to hold a number of senior positions in investment banks, including UBS. Prior to joining Hermes in 2009 he was Head of Sovereign Research and Strategy at Mizuho International.
Neil earned an MA in Economics in 1986 from Manchester University, having the previous year completed his BSc (Hons), also in Economics, from University College Swansea.