Azka Ali is a Client Director and Regional Lead for the Midlands at Vidett, where she serves as a professional trustee across DB, DC, and CDC pension schemes. An actuary by training, Azka has extensive experience supporting large schemes and is committed to helping them deliver better outcomes for members.

She previously completed a secondment with the World Economic Forum, contributing to global initiatives on financial resilience and long-term savings. She is passionate about making pensions simpler and more effective for people, and is keen to explore how trustees can support members throughout their retirement journey — including in the evolving space of decumulation.

Specialist areas: CDC scheme governance; member engagement and communications; DC scheme strategy; financial wellbeing; scheme mergers and transitions; risk and governance

Andy Lewis is a partner at specialist pensions law firm Sackers. He works with trustees, employers, providers, and corporates on a wide range of pensions and retirement savings matters. As an experienced general advisory lawyer, he has a particular focus on complex projects, including surplus, covenant, DC solutions, and contentious matters. Andy regularly advises on the pensions aspects of corporate transactions.

He is well known for his expertise in ESG, sustainability and investment duties in pensions. In addition to helping clients navigate this developing area, Andy is a key figure in a cross-industry group working on an amendment to the Pension Schemes Bill to clarify investment fiduciary duties for trustees and frequently speaks and writes about this topic.

He is also active in supporting equality, diversity, and inclusion initiatives within the pensions industry and beyond, with a particular focus on LGBTQ+ themes.

Donna is passionate about improving the experience for members. Companies and members have more pensions, wider savings and benefits options than ever before, due to recent changes in pensions and advances in technology. Donna believes that these changes provide an opportunity to innovate and design new ways to engage people with their retirement savings. She loves listening to client, trustee, adviser and member feedback to ensure that Standard Life delivers experiences that truly meet their needs. All of this is centred on helping members towards better outcomes in retirement.

Having joined Standard Life 25 years ago, Donna is a qualified actuary and has helped to design and deliver Standard Life’s Workplace developments for over 15 years. She is a regular at roundtable discussions, industry working groups and events, and loves to share ideas to help shape the future of retirement savings in the UK.

Frank Cooke is a senior investment strategist and the head of International Solutions for the Global Client Strategy team at Allspring Global Investments. In this capacity, he leads the firm's international investment solutions efforts, leveraging the entire Allspring platform to design bespoke investment strategies for a wide range of investors. He joined Allspring from its predecessor firm, Wells Fargo Asset Management (WFAM). Prior to WFAM, he was a senior investment consultant at Mercer Investment Consulting. Before that, Frank served as an investment consultant at Towers Watson, where he began his investment industry career in 2008. He earned a bachelor’s degree in actuarial science from the University of Cape Town. He has earned the right to use the Chartered Financial Analyst® (CFA®) designation.

Gareth is a managing associate in our Linklaters’ pensions practice based in London. He has a wide range of experience in all aspects of DC pensions law and consolidation. He has advised on a number of DC master trust transfers for trustees and sponsors, including advice on participation requirements, documentation issues and automatic enrolment requirements. He has also advised on several DC governance projects, including assisting schemes in planning for the upcoming Pension Schemes Act changes. Gareth is a member of Linklaters’ DC pensions practice and the European Pension Funds Investment Fund’s DC Forum. He also sits on the investment committee of the Society of Pension Professionals and is regular speaker at DC events.

Girish is a recognised authority in the UK pensions sector, with 15+ years of experience shaping policy, governance, and innovation for schemes, trustees, and employers. A trusted voice in UK pensions media, he has delivered actionable insights on challenges like Pensions Dashboard, auto-enrolment expansion, and aver education.

As President of the Pensions Management Institute (PMI) and a former Director of the Pensions Administration Standards Association (PASA), he has championed operational excellence and innovation in governance, working with policy makers to enhance saver outcomes. He is regularly featured in media for actionable insights on pensions regulation, resourcing challenges, and technology trends. Authored technical articles and thought leadership pieces that influence industry standards. He has a Masters in Management from the London Business School.

Helen advises trustees, employers and providers on all aspects of pensions law. She has a particular interest in new legislation, regulatory and policy development, particularly in relation to defined contribution pensions. Helen has acted for many DC schemes and master trusts over the years and is an expert on their particular design and governance issues. She contributes to various industry initiatives and monitors developments in defined contribution matters closely. Helen is currently Chair of PASA’s working group that is focused on CDC and a founding member of the DC Governance Group which established the PLSA’s template chair’s statement for DC schemes.

Jess leads the Corporate Investment Services (CIS) business within Phoenix Group, one of the UK’s largest long-term savings and retirement businesses. She is responsible for the strategic direction of CIS and its clients, including creating and delivering bespoke investment solutions for the trustees of DC and DB own trust schemes and multi-employer Master Trusts.

She joined Phoenix in 2015 from AXA Wealth and prior to this held a number of relationship and business development roles across the asset management and insurance sectors. She is the current PMI Pinnacle Awards Leader of the Year.

Jelena is the Head of LifeSight GB, with overall day-to-day responsibility for the LifeSight master trust solution and team. Jelena has been with WTW since 2007. In her previous roles at the firm, Jelena has led key account management and regional leadership operations and most recently was LifeSight Head of Operations. Jelena played a key role launching the LifeSight business in 2015.  Jelena is an experienced business leader, helping businesses grow and evolve, particularly within a regulatory context. Jelena graduated with distinction in Business Economics (Hons).

Kim is Director of Defined Contribution and Master Trust Supervision at The Pension Regulator, seeking to enhance outcomes in these schemes through supervisory and broader market engagement. Kim has recently returned to TPR after a 5-year tenure as Head of the Master Trust and Independent Governance Committee at Legal and General. Prior to this, Kim was responsible for both the design and delivery of master trust authorisation and supervision at the Pensions Regulator.
Kim is also an independent board member of the Judicial Pension Scheme and a member of the Pensions Equity Group

Louise joined Aviva in 2023, having worked previously for two of the UK’s largest master trusts. She has worked in pensions for twenty years, initially as an actuarial consultant and has now worked within master trusts for around ten years.

Louise’s role sees her leading the Master Trust business and chairing the Scheme Strategist. She balances her background in governance and risk to support the smooth and secure running of the Trust, whilst ensuring the Trustee are also supported with their long-term focus on continued innovation and improvement in the service to our members.

She is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries, holds the Chartered Enterprise Risk Actuary qualification, is an active member of Pensions UK and the ABI representing the master trust and frequently engages with DWP and TPR on policy and key matters affecting the Aviva Master Trust.

Mark has many years of experience in financial services, including delivering service innovation and pension scheme member services for major FTSE companies.
He leads the team responsible for developing and implementing a range of financial education and guidance services for our existing clients and for companies and Trustee boards across the UK.
Mark also actively manages partnerships with major institutes for retirement savings professionals including the Pensions Management Institute and Pensions Policy Institute and leads the development of our at-retirement services for workplace pension schemes and pension scheme members.

As Head of Department Nike is responsible for delivering the FCA’s strategy and risk outlook in relation to the asset management sector, policy approach to asset management and FCA regulated pensions.

Nike has 20 years regulatory experience gained from working across the FCA, including in overseeing asset management supervision, various capital market policy roles, oversight of primary capital markets transactions and heading the FCA’s prospectus approval function

Rich Fox joined Schroders Asset Management as the Head of UK Public Policy in January 2023.

He leads the group's engagement with UK regulators, policymakers and Governments, as well as supporting engagement in other priority regions.

Prior to that he spent over 15 years at the Financial Conduct Authority in a range of senior roles focused on policy development and international engagement.

An experienced pensions professional, Sharon comes with 30 years’ DC experience consulting across a wide range of disciplines. Sharon joined Scottish Widows in September 2020 and works closely with the Scottish Widows IGC and Master Trust Trustee Board – Sharon has unrivalled insight and well-rounded experience gained from her time in consultancy as well as from being on the provider “front line”.
Sharon is an Accredited Professional Pension Trustee and a member of the PLSA Master Trust Committee; she also Chairs the ABI Master Trust Working Group and is a member of the Scottish Widows Master Trust Scheme Strategist Committee.