Lesley Alexander
Pensions Management Institute
- Vice President
Lesley’s career in pensions has spanned nearly forty years and she has held a number of senior pensions management roles with organisations including HSBC, EMI, Motorola and Reed Elsevier. Lesley is a Fellow as well as one of the serving Vice Presidents of the Pensions Management Institute. She is a former independent member of Prudential's Independent Governance Committee and Master Trust Board and former Chair of UKSIF.
Lesley's particular interest is in demonstrating how strong governance and engaging communications contributes to better outcomes for members of workplace pension schemes.
Julian Mainwood
Barnett Waddingham
- Partner
Julian is a Partner within the Pension Administration practice area at Barnett Waddingham. He began his career in the pension administration industry in 1988 having previously worked within both a pensions consultancy and an insurance company before joining Barnett Waddingham in 1999.
Julian is involved in the day to day operation of the practice area and is a member of the Firm’s Pension Administration Board, which is responsible for setting strategy within the pension administration business. He sits on a number of internal committees and is head of the Pension Administration Technical Team.
Andy Greig
Barnett Waddingham
- Partner
Andy began his career in the Financial Services industry in July 1991 before joining Barnett Waddingham's pension administration team in February 2000.
Having already completed the Financial Planning Certificate, he is also a Fellow of the Pensions Management Institute (FPMI) having qualified in 2006. He also sits on a number of internal committees and became a Partner of Barnett Waddingham in 2016.
Andy's expertise is in the pension administration of DB, DC and Hybrid arrangements as well as new scheme implementations for schemes ranging from 500 to 36,000 members. Andy also has excellent knowledge with pooled banking services. His experience and proactive approach provides our clients with a high quality service and in his time as Chair of the PMI Midlands Region Committee he helped drive and deliver education and professional development to pension professionals in the Midlands.
Andy played a key role in setting up our administration teams in Bromsgrove and Bristol and works across both offices to support the growth and development of these teams.
Katie Ivens
Pinsent Masons
- Senior Associate
Katie advises trustees and employer sponsors of occupational pension schemes, as well as insurers and pension scheme providers. As well as day to day pensions advice, Katie has advised on a number of large transactions such as buy-ins, buy-outs, wind-ups and closures to future accrual. She also advised on the first asset backed funding structure to use intellectual property. Katie's particular areas of specialism include trustee training and advising trustees and providers of mastertrusts. She also edits the Pinsent Masons monthly Pensions Ombudsman publications for both occupational pension schemes and pension providers.
Kim Gubler
Director
- KGC Associates
Kim set up KGC in 2002, which is now acknowledged as one of the UK’s leading independent pension and management consultancies. In the last 30 years, Kim has developed a deep knowledge of the pensions industry and its operation. She designed the structured research framework which supports KGC’s client services. She also created KGC’s annual Administration and Actuarial Surveys which are acknowledged as the only source providing independent views on fees and services.
Whilst her experience covers both DB and DC, Kim is an acknowledged DC specialist. She is a Trustee of theCrystal Master Trust, a Fellow of both the Pensions Management Institute (PMI) and Pensions AdvisoryService (TPAS). She is PrincipalExaminer for Professionalism and Governance and on the ExaminingBoard.KimisChair of the Pensions Administration Standards Association (PASA)and an AccreditedProfessionalTrustee.
Kim is a Business graduate and holds a Diploma in Business Excellence, outside of pensions she enjoys competing her horses and is a British Dressage judge.
Steve Ackland
Steve Ackland is CEO at AiM - one of the leading City boutique management consultancies - which specialises in organisational change using digital transformation techniques and new technologies to deliver outstanding results.
Steve is well-known in the industry for his thought leadership, articles and white papers in a number of disciplines – in particular, data quality/governance, risk management, regulatory controls and due diligence. It was Steve’s vision of how data governance and regulatory control could be fused with AI, RPA and blockchain which led to the creation of AiM’s leading PenTech platform dataBelt® - supporting data hygiene, data inventory and data value, as well as understanding and controlling the full pension data lifecycle.
Particular application of the platform is for pension scheme due diligence to ensure their data is dashboard ready, as well as to supporting activities such as buy-ins, buy-outs, transfers and understanding of risk and liabilities.
Karen Bolan
AHC
- Head of Engagement Strategy
Joining AHC in 2003, Karen has responsibility for the delivery of multi-faceted communication projects for some of AHC’s biggest clients. Karen has extensive experience in leading complex scheme change projects for a wide range of AHC clients.
She has over 30 years’ commercial experience in large corporate organisations including 25 years in senior strategic and operational communication roles. Her corporate experience is combined with excellent pensions knowledge and a proven track record in developing engaging communications strategies for clients.
Karen is an accredited member of, and examiner for, the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) and has received several international communication awards. In her spare time Karen is a keen cook and accomplished opera singer.