Alan Pickering
Chairman
BESTrustees and of the Financial Literacy Charity Life Academy

Alan Pickering is Chairman of BESTrustees and of the financial literacy charity Life Academy.  He is Chairman of the Plumbing Industry Pension Scheme and serves as a trustee of a number of other large schemes.  He is a non-executive director of The Pensions Regulator having previously been a member of the Occupational Pensions Board.  He is a past Chairman of the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) and the European Federation for Retirement Provision (EFRP).  His Government sponsored report “A Simpler Way to Better Pensions” was published in July 2002.  He is a member of the Rules Committee of the British Horseracing Authority.

Andrew Birkett
Head of Pensions
Babcock International Group Plc

Andrew Birkett is the corporate head of pensions at Babcock International Group plc where he has corporate responsibility for pensions across the Group.  This includes numerous defined benefit schemes with around 50,000 members and £3bn of assets.  He has masterminded a number of risk reduction initiatives including the transaction of the first longevity swaps in the UK, innovative investment strategies and strengthened the governance framework across a number of schemes to mitigate some of the key risks as well as consolidating all the Group’s DC schemes.

He is a regular conference speaker and contributes to a number of magazines.  He was previously a consulting actuary at Aon and Mercer where he spent over 25 years.

Andrew Dickson
Investment Director
UK Institutional Business

Andrew joined Standard Life Investments in 2010, having previously worked for 18 years at our parent company where he was responsible for developing relationships and delivering innovative group pension solutions for some of the UK’s largest employers. Andrew now has responsibility for developing relationships and delivering investment solutions to institutional clients that directly benefit both DB and DC pension funds and help clients meet their long-term investment goals. Andrew is a regular contributor in the pensions trade press and presenter at leading pension and investment conferences throughout the UK and Vice Chair of the Defined Contribution Investment Forum.

Flavio Cateni
European Controller and UK FD
Pirelli Tyre SpA

Flavio Cateni is the controller of the Pirelli Tyre activities in Europe, while still retaining his responsibility as UK FD which he took over 4 years ago. For the previous 2 years he served as CFO for the start-up of an industrial facility in Romania and before that period he spent 10 years equally distributed between Italy and Germany, always for Pirelli and inside the A&C and Finance professional family.

He graduated from the Bocconi University in Milano and soon after served as a Lieutenant in the Italian fiscal police (Guardia di Finanza). As a child he spent 7 years in Africa, between Kenya and Egypt.

James Bevan
Chief Investment Officer
CCLA Investment Management Limited

Before joining CCLA in November 2006, James was the Chief Investment Officer at Abbey. Prior to Abbey, James was Chief Investment Officer for Barclays Stockbrokers and Barclays Personal Investment Management, having joined BZW in 1988, following post graduate research in applied economics and asset allocation at Cambridge University.

Julian Lyne
Head of Global Consultants & UK Institutional Business
F&C Asset Management Plc

Julian joined F&C in June 2008 and is responsible for managing the UK institutional business. Prior to this, he had worked for HSBC Investments since 2003 latterly as Head of Global Consultant Relations and was previously Head of UK Institutional Business and Head of DC. Previously he has worked at JPMorgan Fleming and Fidelity. Julian has a BSc Hons in Psychology from City University, London.

Kevin Wade FIA
Head of Investments
SAUL Trustee Company

Kevin Wade is currently Head of Investments at SAUL Trustee Company – trustee for the non-academic staff pension scheme of the University of London. The Scheme has over 30,000 members and around £1.5bn in assets.

Kevin started his career as an actuarial trainee at HSBC Actuaries and Consultants where he developed his understanding of pension scheme liabilities carrying out funding calculations. He then moved into investment consulting at the same employer where he developed his knowledge of investment strategies, their implementation and monitoring.

Kevin has over 12 years experience in consulting, with 9 of these spent in investment. He has held posts at Hewitt Associates and Aon Consulting, where he provided investment advice to his pension scheme trustee clients.

Kevin qualified as and Actuary in 2009 and also holds the Investment Management Certificate.

Mads Smith Hansen
Chief Financial Officer
Sampension

Mads joined Copenhagen-based pension fund Sampension (with assets of EURbn 20) as COO in 2008 and assumed the role as CFO in 2010 with the responsibility for risk, finance and accounting. Prior to joining Sampension, he worked with Nordea for 12 years in the investment banking, treasury and life & pensions areas. Mads holds a degree in mathematics from the University of Copenhagen.

Peter Wallach
Head of Pension Fund
Merseyside Pension Fund

Peter started his career in private banking with Coutts, working in the City for 12 years.  In 1997 he relocated to the North-West working initially for Close Wealth Management as an Investment Manager.  In 2004, he joined Merseyside Pension Fund, taking up his current position as Head of Pension Fund in April 2007.

Richard Murray
Group Pensions Manager
FirstGroup Plc

Richard joined FirstGroup in 2008 from a consulting background.
His main areas of responsibility include risk mitigation, pensions in corporate transactions, benefits strategy, responding to legislative changes and ensuring the funding of pension commitments remains affordable in turbulent times. Richard’s challenge is to manage these issues across First’s portfolio of UK pension arrangements, which covers in-house schemes, Local Government Pension Schemes and the Railways Pension Scheme.

As well as focusing on the corporate aspects of pension provision, Richard places great importance on member engagement. He is a keen advocate of workplace financial education and has played a key role in developing a holistic strategy to help colleagues make the most of the pension, savings and benefit options First offers.

Saker Nusseibeh
Acting CEO and Head of Investment
Hermes Fund Managers

Saker is currently acting CEO and Head of Investment for Hermes Fund Managers. Saker joined in June 2009 as a main Board Director and Head of Investment to drive, support and represent the investment capabilities of Hermes. In 2005, Saker joined Fortis Investments USA as CIO Global Equities and moved on to become Global Head of Equities, responsible for managing the company’s 12 Equity centres. Previously he was CIO Global Equities and Head of Marketing at Société Générale Asset Management UK (SGAM UK) where he re-orientated the company’s offering to include high alpha UK strategies and a Global strategy. This followed on from the sale of Trust Company of the West to SGAM UK, where Saker was Managing Director, running various Global and International strategies as well as the London office. Saker started his career at Mercury Asset Management in 1987.

Susanne Willumsen
Director, Portfolio Manager/Analyst
Lazard Asset Management Limited

Susanne Willumsen is a Portfolio Manager/Analyst on Lazard’s Quantitative Equity team. She began working in the investment field in 1993.  Prior to joining Lazard in 2008, Susanne was Managing Director, Head of Active Equities Europe with State Street Global Advisors (SSgA). During her 13 year tenure at SSgA, Susanne was responsible for the research and portfolio management of all UK and European equity strategies. Prior to joining SSgA Susanne traded equity derivatives for the proprietary desk at Investcorp. Susanne received an MSc in Shipping, Trade and Finance from City University and a BSc in Management Studies from the University of Surrey.

Shiblee Alam
Director, AXA Funds of Hedge Funds
AXA Investments Managers

Shiblee joined AXA Investment Managers (AXA IM) in 2008 and is responsible for the distribution of AXA Funds of Hedge Funds products.
Prior to AXA IM, Shiblee was a Senior Structurer with Lehman Brothers, London on their Hedge Funds Derivatives desk. Prior to Lehman Brothers, Shiblee was based in Paris with SG Asset Management Alternative Investments (SGAM AI). At SGAM AI, he was with the Structured Asset Management unit as a Senior Sales & Structurer. Shiblee began his career as a market maker in FX derivatives with BNP Paribas.
Shiblee holds an MBA in International Finance from McGill University and is a CAIA designee.