PASA Annual Conference 2025

Retirement and Savings Director

Having joined Phoenix Group at the end of February 2024, Mike is Retirement and Savings Director across the Phoenix Group business. He is responsible for Thinking Forward the insights, debate and creating the platform for thought and direction across Standard Life. As a Consumer Spokesperson connecting topical and future savings and pension issues for both the consumer and press is a top priority with learnings from a global perspective being applied.

Mike previously worked with Hymans Robertson as a Partner and Head of firm-wide proposition for 17 years, most recently overseeing the DC Master Trust consolidation for a number of high-profile corporate clients. He also advised on both M&A as well as creating one of the leading UK independent benchmarking tools on the provider market.

Stephen has been working in financial services for 28 years, with 17 years of that being in pensions administration. In that time, he's held lots of different roles in delivery, client management, operational design and innovation. Currently Proposition Manager at Aptia, Stephen spends his time working on how we can better design and deliver our services to meet members' needs and face the challenges and opportunities within the pensions industry in the UK today.

David joined LCP as a Partner in April 2023, having previously been Executive Director for Regulatory Policy, Analysis and Advice at the Pension Regulator. He co-chaired the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee and was Lead Executive for Climate Change. During his time at the Regulator he oversaw the development and implementation of Policy in relation to the Pension Schemes Act 2021, as well the interim guidance for Superfunds. He also lead on a number of key policy initiatives including TPR’s response to the September 2022 market turbulence around LDI, TPR’s guidance on fiduciary management, professional pension trustee accreditation, covid related guidance and co-ordinated with HM Treasury and DWP on the response to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

During his time at the Regulator, he was also Chair of the Pensions Working Group and Committee of the Joint Forum for Actuarial Regulation, a member of the Regulators’ Stewardship Group, the Productive Finance Working Group, and a member of the Portfolio Committee for oversight of the Pensions Dashboard.

David is an Honorary Professor in the Department of Management and Marketing at Durham University Business School and a Board member of PASA. He is Chair of the Genomics Development Board of Sarcoma UK and an advisory Board member of the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Essex University. He is Chairing the Advisory Board for the King’s College/PPI research into CDC and is a member of the Advisory Board of Guide as well as being a Governor of the PPI.

PASA Chair

Kim has more than 30 years' industry experience, and is a Fellow of the PMI and Pensions Advisory Service. She created KGC, one of the few remaining independent governance consultancies, in 2002.

Kim is a strong advocate of leveraging technology for better saver outcomes. She was a founding director of PASA and has been Chair since 2019. She's a Professional Independent Trustee of Smart Pensions Master Trust and an Accredited Professional Trustee. Kim is a member of the Pension Dashboards Advisory Group and DWP's Default Consolidator Delivery Group. She has engaged with government departments and regulatory bodies on a number of initiatives to help deliver a more robust pension system. Kim is PMI's Principal Examiner for Professionalism and Governance and sits on PMI's Examining Committee.

Kim is a business graduate and holds a Diploma in Business Excellence. Outside of pensions she is a British Dressage judge, and competes on her own horses.

Approaching her 25-year anniversary as Managing Director of Target Professional Services, Lisa Lyon is a pioneer of the pensions industry. With decades of experience in data management and tracing solutions, Lisa's leadership has enabled Target to grow into the market leading tracing and identity provider it is today. Highly regarded and known for her appetite for continuous improvement, Lisa introduced automated tracing to the pension industry and developed an investigated mortality screening service.

Additionally, as the Founder and CEO of mypensionID, Lisa introduced the first reusable biometric app exclusively for the pensions industry in 2019, revolutionising digital verification for UK pension members worldwide. Lisa supports various government departments and private-sector organisations in regard to digital identity and data security standards. She has nearly 30 years experience prioritising consumer data within the pension sector, and for the last 6 years within the financial sector, she has been focusing especially on secure consumer digital journeys.

Outside of her professional achievements, Lisa is also passionate about giving back to the local community having set up Full Up! - Nutritious Meals for Kids in 2020, a charity that provides meals to local children from low-income families during school holidays.

SAUL & PASA Standards Committee Chair

Donna McGuire is the Chief Transformation Officer for SAUL Trustee Company (STC). SAUL is a large mixed benefit, multi-employer scheme with assets in excess of £3.4bn and a membership of 90,000. Donna joined STC in 2012. She is also a scheme strategist for SAUL’s registered Master Trust.

She is a member of SAUL’s executive management team, she maintains ownership of SAUL’s digital transformation strategy to provide high quality services to members and employers. She works closely with the SAUL Trustee providing support and strategic planning. She has experience in managing the complex and diverse administration operations for SAUL.

Donna has an extensive career in the administration industry including the management of varied pension arrangements and clients, from both a third party and in house perspective.

She has been a volunteer with PASA since 2016 and the chair of PASAs Standards Committee since 2019.

Jessica Rigby has over 20 years of pensions operational, governance and strategy experience with specialisms in DC master trusts and consolidation. She is the Chair of the PASA DC working group, leading a large group of experts in delivering practical guidance to PASA members. She is also Fellow of the Pensions Management Institute and continues to support the institute by mentoring students.

Tim Robinson is a partner in the Forensic Services team at Crowe UK, helping organisations ensure that they are properly protected against the latest manifestations of fraud and cybercrime, meet regulatory expectations and respond effectively in the event of an incident. He works with businesses of varying sizes from a range of sectors but has a particular focus on the pensions sector, working with schemes and their suppliers. I also chair PASA's Cybercrime and Fraud Working Group.

Sophia is a partner and Head of DC at XPS Group and is currently President of the Society of Pension Professionals. She has almost 30 years’ experience in the UK pensions industry and advises corporates and trustees across all areas of their DC schemes including optimising benefit design, developing investment solutions, improving member engagement and ensuring effective scheme governance.

She is a well-known industry and media commentator on DC market developments and feels passionately that we must tackle short-term financial resilience as well as deliver better long-term retirement products, if we’re going to help today’s workforce to retire with the security and lifestyle they want.

Outside of work Sophia runs a Girlguiding group, is a Trustee of a foodbank and refugee charity and spends the remainder of her spare time playing tennis and walking her 2 energetic dogs.

Volunteer Chair, Pensions Dashboard Operators Coalition, (PDOC)

Richard Smith has been a pensions professional since 1987, focusing solely on pensions dashboards since 2019, with multiple roles across the UK dashboards initiative, including:

• Volunteer Chair of the (Pensions) Dashboard Operators Coalition ((P)DOC) comprising 15 firms who intend to offer their customers a commercial dashboard
• PLSA's specialist Pensions Dashboards Consultant since 2021
• Member of the PASA Pensions Dashboards Working Group since 2017 and lead author of the industry-standard PASA Data Matching Convention (DMC) Guidance
• Expert speaker on pensions dashboards at events and on podcasts and webinars

Previously, Richard:

• Went on an independent research tour in 2023 of the five continental European countries which have operated dashboards for decades, with all his detailed research findings being publicly available on his independent dashboards blog which he has maintained since the dashboards initiative started in 2014 (co.uk)
• Authored award-winning, large-scale personal data matching research in 2022 with the leading Integrated Service Provider (ISP) PensionFusion from Equisoft/ITM
• Led Government's development of Pensions Dashboards Data Standards in 2020
• Was Nest's representative on the ABI Pensions Dashboard Prototype Project in 2017

Having joined pensions immediately after school I have had a long and varied career almost exclusively focused on workplace pension schemes. Over that period I have lead consulting and actuarial teams and spent time in product development and strategy, developing some of the very first on line transactional DC facilities and DC products. I have lead delivery functions for the very largest pension schemes in the UK at C suite level including for both private and public sectors including the Civil Service and Teachers pension scheme. Most recently I was Chief Officer Benefits for very complex Railways Pension scheme where digitisation had been a key delivery. I am also a NED of PASA. As I approach partial retirement I am looking forwards to further NED and part time activity putting my experience of pensions to good use on myself!

David is a Chartered Accountant and joined TPR in 2009 as a secondee in the Covenant and Financial Analysis team, securing a permanent position in 2011. He has extensive experience covering DB and DC, Master Trust, CDC and consolidation. David has worked on some of the largest interventions TPR has been involved in, including BHS enforcement. David has played a key role in the development of policy and guidance, most recently, the new DB Funding Regs, Code and accompanying covenant guidance. In additional to regulatory case work and policy development, David worked on organisational change.

Emma is the Managing Director (MD) of Retirement and Longstanding, where she is responsible for shaping and executing Scottish Widow’s retirement strategy including individual later life propositions and Bulk Annuities. She is also responsible for Scottish Widow’s legacy propositions closed to new customers. Emma is a member of the Independent Governance Committee, the Mastertrust Strategist Committee from February and is the CEO of the ACD Board.

Prior to joining Scottish Widows in June 2015, Emma was a partner at a leading pension consultancy, specialising in helping trustees and companies manage defined benefit pension scheme risk using insurance solutions. Emma has held senior positions at several other insurance companies, with over 25 years’ experience in the pensions and retirement industry.

With a degree in Microbiology and Biochemistry, and a passion for the Health Industry, Emma also sits on the Board of Trustees for the Centre for Health and the Public Interest.

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CFH are trusted communication experts across the entire pensions sector, working with private pension providers and administrators, and local government pension schemes.

Our 15 years working with the pensions sector, combined with 47 years' experience within the communication sector, means that we understand the significance of effective pension communications. Whether through post, e-delivery, or SMS, we ensure your communications are delivered in the most effective and secure way.

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Knowa is an AI-powered governance and meeting pack platform designed for pension schemes. Knowa has garnered the trust of over 500 pension schemes managing over £180 billion of pension scheme assets, and over 5,000 industry professionals as it continues to set the benchmark for board governance in the pensions industry.

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RSM is a large, independent UK firm of chartered accountants and business advisers with a well-established and highly regarded audit practice.

RSM operates out of 30 offices across the UK delivering local and national specialist expertise. We have 7 Pensions Centres of Excellence. This includes 6 partners, 5 directors, 24 managers, and over 100 professional staff spread across seven locations. We work with around 360 pension audit clients, ranging from the smallest individual arrangements to large schemes of Stock Exchange listed companies.

In addition, RSM are PASA's chosen Independent Assessor to conduct Accreditation assessments. PASA Accreditation demonstrates to your client(s) and/or members and policyholders the administration operation complies with the PASA Standards for good quality administration. These are output driven standards – focusing on the experience of the members and trustees which will progressively and continually improve over time.

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We are a specialist third-party pensions administrator.

Founded in 2006, our mission is to set the highest standard of pensions administration by any recognised measure. We achieve this through sustained investment in our people, processes and systems.

We started life as an in-house administrator. Our foundations are in quality and member experience. Since our creation, we have grown as a third-party administrator. Adopting technology and innovation from across the market, we have emerged as a business of administration experts.

We have offices in London and Farnborough, administer 35 schemes and have 185 team members. We hold internationally-recognised accreditations for quality, security, development, customer service and environmental protection.

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Video Canvas, developed by the award-winning Money Alive Limited, is a pioneering personalised and interactive video communication tool designed to redefine how member communications can be experienced. Our mission is to lead the industry using the most advanced video based storytelling techniques available.

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