From oversight to trusteeship: Why Chantelle Findlow joined TAP

A career shaped by governance and public interest 

For Chantelle Findlow, joining the PMI's Trustee Accelerator Programme (TAP) was the next logical step in a career dedicated to accountability, fairness and protecting the public interest.  

With a legal background, Chantelle has spent much of her professional life working in roles that require scrutiny, challenge and independent judgement.  

And alongside her career, Chantelle is already building a portfolio of independent roles, including a public appointment with the Ministry of Defence and her work as a lay panellist with the General Dental Council.  

That's why she sees TAP as a natural part of developing that portfolio further in a meaningful way. While she never set out to build a career connected to pensions, the sector has become a consistent thread running through her professional journey.  

"It really got me thinking about how schemes operate and the best way to safeguard people's pensions. It was a real peek behind the curtain", she said.  

Her first real exposure came while working at Nest Corporation, where she managed disputes, presented cases to trustee boards and defended cases referred to The Pensions Ombudsman.  

A subsequent secondment to the Department for Work and Pensions provided a broader understanding of the pensions landscape. Later, as an Ombudsman at the Financial Ombudsman Service, Chantelle made independent decisions on complex financial services disputes, including pensions and insurance matters. Subsequently, in her role at the Financial Reporting Council, she further strengthened her experience of independent decision-making, governance and regulatory oversight. 

Together, these roles gave Chantelle a view of pensions from several different perspectives, from scheme operations and government policy to complaints and regulatory oversight. Along the way, she found herself increasingly asking the same question: do people really understand what's happening with their pension savings?  

Turning challenge into better outcomes 

A recurring theme throughout Chantelle's career has been the belief that challenge should never be an end in itself. 

For her, identifying problems is only the first step. The real value comes from finding solutions, improving processes and ensuring future members benefit from the lessons learned.  

"If we've identified a challenge, the next question should always be what can we do about it," she says. "How can we improve things and make sure somebody else doesn't experience the same problem?"  

That mindset is one of the reasons she was drawn to TAP. Chantelle believes trustees play a vital role in raising standards across pension schemes, driving continuous improvement and ensuring members receive the best possible outcomes.  

She also sees constructive challenge as an important antidote to so-called 'groupthink' on pension scheme boards. 

"Having different viewpoints is really important," she said. "It's about looking at the task from different angles and asking how we can make it better and make the solution sustainable." 

Becoming trustee-ready 

For Chantelle, TAP provides an opportunity to build on years of transferable experience and develop the specialist knowledge needed to become an effective trustee.  

The programme's combination of professional qualifications, mentoring, practical experience and peer learning was particularly appealing. She is especially excited by the opportunity to learn directly from experienced trustees and collaborate with a diverse cohort of professionals from different backgrounds.  

Ultimately, Chantelle sees trusteeship as a way to make a meaningful difference to people's lives. That responsibility, she says, requires people who genuinely care about the role. "Too much is at stake for people to be invested for the wrong reasons." 

"We're there for the members," she says. "Trustees are acting on behalf of people whose retirement futures they've been entrusted to protect. We need to make sure we're doing everything we can to safeguard those pension pots and help people achieve the outcomes they're working towards."  

Through TAP, Chantelle now wants to combine her experience in governance, dispute resolution and public service with the specialist pensions knowledge needed to become trustee-ready. Her goal is simple: to challenge constructively, raise standards and help ensure schemes deliver for the people whose savings they are entrusted to protect.