Re-Imagining Pensions Podcast | Powered by EY

Georgia Smith, senior investment manager at Nest, is our first guest for the second series of EY’s Re-imagining pensions podcast.

She joins co-hosts, Paul Kitson, head of UK pensions consulting at EY, and Charlotte Moore, co-founder of Moore Squared Communications,

With auto-enrolled pension schemes starting to provide a retirement income, Georgia discusses how Nest is tackling this challenge. She talked about giving scheme members both flexibility and reassurance the income will last a lifetime.

We took a deeper dive into the member research Nest conducts. This consistently shows members want to ask questions about their pensions and have answers which a normal human can understand.

It’s easy for the pension industry to get lost in complexity and technical detail but it must remember the human beings it exists to help.

The recent member assemblies Nest held underscored this point. When you take the time to explain pensions to members, they understand the trade offs between risk and return. They appreciate that not every investment can mitigate climate change.

The recent YouTube Aardman Nest pension adverts aim to further build trust with the scheme’s 13 million members. Even if they are not selecting the scheme themselves, they need to have faith their retirement is being looked after.

We asked Georgia what one area of the pensions she felt we should pay greater attention. And Paul finished the interview asking what Georgia would do if she had a magic wand – watch or listen to the episode to hear Georgia’s reply to both questions!

About the guest:

Georgia Smith, Senior Investment Manager, Fund Proposition, Nest

Georgia works on investment fund evolution and retirement income strategy at Nest, one of the UK's largest pension schemes helping over 14m members save for retirement. Georgia is part of the team developing Nest's forthcoming retirement income solution, shaping its design, governance and member‑focused approach to sustainable income in retirement.

About the hosts:

Paul is a Partner and UK Head of Pensions Consulting at EY. He leads a team focused on advising pension funds and their corporate sponsors across the UK. Paul and has worked with some of the largest defined benefit and defined contribution pension funds in the UK including the British Airways Pension Schemes and the BBC.

Charlotte Moore is an award-winning journalist and co-founder of Moore Squared Communications. She has spent almost two decades writing about how the UK’s largest investment organisations allocate their capital for a number of different specialist magazines including Professional Pensions, IPE and MandateWire. She started this podcast to increase understanding of how and why the UK’s £3 trillion pensions industry invests its members’ capital to provide the best possible retirement.

#ReimaginingPensions

#LGPS

#PensionSchemesAct

#ukpensions

#privatemarkets

Richard Tomlinson, CIO of LPPI, joins Paul Kitson, head of UK pensions consulting at EY and Charlotte Moore, co-founder of Moore Squared Communications, for the sixth episode of EY’s Re-imagining Pensions Podcast.

While The Pensions Scheme Act is creating a lot of change throughout the whole industry, the Local Government Pension Scheme is under pressure. With the number of pools shrinking to six from eight, the remaining pools are having to expand the number of partner funds.

In addition, pools will need to start acting as the principal source of investment advice, as well as providing strategic asset allocations (SAA) for partner funds. They will also need to provide new local investment plans.

Richard says LPPI has been busy as it triples the number of partner funds to nine from three. He said pools will find acting as the principal source of investment advice as well as providing SAA will represent a strategic and cultural shift for many pools.

We unpacked how the strong tie between local authority pensions and local citizens means most pools a significant minority of their assets invested locally.

Richard explained how big is not always beautiful – that there are diseconomies of scale when it comes to investing.

He said there was no magic assets under management number – that the ability to invest across a wide universe assets was determined by how well that asset owner ran their team and had built the right culture.

We discussed the benefits of investing in private markets – with many companies choosing private financing over public financing, ignoring this part of the market meant not accessing the full economy.

Richard also talked about the strongest growth often happened when a company was formed so it is vital to access these companies when smaller. This can be difficult for large asset owners to achieve but working in partnership was vital for success.

This led us to a discussion about strategic partnerships and how we can expect these to develop between asset managers and owners in coming years.

Finally, Richard said he would use his magic wand to ask for a stable environment for pensions so schemes could focus on delivering benefits for members.

About the hosts:

Paul is a Partner and UK Head of Pensions Consulting at EY. He leads a team focused on advising pension funds and their corporate sponsors across the UK. Paul and has worked with some of the largest defined benefit and defined contribution pension funds in the UK including the British Airways Pension Schemes and the BBC.

Charlotte Moore is an award-winning journalist and co-founder of Moore Squared Communications. She has spent almost two decades writing about how the UK’s largest investment organisations allocate their capital for a number of different specialist magazines including Professional Pensions, IPE and MandateWire. She started this podcast to increase understanding of how and why the UK’s £3 trillion pensions industry invests its members’ capital to provide the best possible retirement.

Chapters:

00:00 Welcome and meet Richard Tomlinson of LPPI

01:34 The Pension Schemes Act and pool consolidation

04:44 Advice, strategic asset allocation and the fiduciary shift

08:00 Investing in the UK and fiduciary duty

13:00 The three R's and getting the mandate right

15:20 Is big always beautiful, scale and its limits

20:00 Private markets, the J curve and the partnership model

27:00 Finding the sweet spot and the magic wand

#ReimaginingPensions

#LGPS

#PensionSchemesAct

#ukpensions

#privatemarkets

Alexandra Miles, senior strategy manager at L&G, joins Paul Kitson, head of UK pensions consulting at EY and Charlotte Moore, co-founder of Moore Squared Communications, on the latest episode of EY’s Re-imagining Pensions Podcast.

But Alexandra does much more than her day job – she’s also chair of the IFoA’s pension gap and ageing populations working parties. She recently wrote a report looking at how to Re-imagine retirement, making her the perfect guest for the show!

Alexandra kicks off the episode sharing her three killer facts about retirement – which includes the size of the pensions wealth gap – all of which illustrate there is more to be done to make pensions fit for the future.

She tells us about the retirement sketches she worked on – explaining the difference in pensions prospects for Renee and Paul. This illustrates the pensions gender gap challenge.

Not only do women lose out on pensions contributions when they have children but as they live longer than men, they need more money for care in retirement.

This is not the only pensions gap. Alexandra has investigated the pensions assets of different ethnic groups as well as thinking how we can bridge the gap between the employed and the self-employed.

We talk about the importance of community pensions and deliberative democracy can help to make citizens feel greater ownership of their retirement wealth.

And we also unpack how an ageing population is fundamentally reshaping out society but no policy makers are grappling with full magnitude of the changes. Alexandra explains how actuaries can help to make this change more real to policy makers and quantify the risks.

Finally, Alexandra tells us what she would change if she had a magic wand. And it has nothing to do with GMP equalisation!

About the guest:

Alexandra Miles is Senior Solutions Manager at Legal & General (L&G) and

Woman of the Year (Retirement) at the 2025 WIFA Awards. With 18+ years

across pensions, asset management and consultancy, she leads initiatives to advance pension adequacy and equity in the UK's DC system. After moving from DB to DC, Alexandra supports the default investment strategies for L&G's DC customers and champions collaborative, commercially minded innovation. She co-chairs an industry wide Data & Research Pension Equity group and founded and now chairs the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries' Pensions Gap and Ageing Populations working parties. Recently, she spoke on pension adequacy at a Labour Party Conference fringe event chaired by the SMF, alongside Torsten Bell. Alexandra recently coauthored the "Retirement Reimagined" report with James Smith, proposing practical, flexible reforms for a modern retirement.

About the hosts:

Paul is a Partner and UK Head of Pensions Consulting at EY. He leads a team focused on advising pension funds and their corporate sponsors across the UK. Paul and has worked with some of the largest defined benefit and defined contribution pension funds in the UK including the British Airways Pension Schemes and the BBC.

Charlotte Moore is an award-winning journalist and co-founder of Moore Squared Communications. She has spent almost two decades writing about how the UK’s largest investment organisations allocate their capital for a number of different specialist magazines including Professional Pensions, IPE and MandateWire.

Chapters:

00:00 Welcome to Re-Imagining Pensions with Alexandra Miles

03:21 The four phases of modern retirement

05:16 The biggest pension challenges facing the UK

09:19 What makes a dignified retirement?

13:42 The gender pensions gap and part-time work

18:05 Self-employed workers and pension participation

21:19 Trust, community and employer responsibility

24:35 Policy change, pensions reform and optimism

30:33 Citizens assemblies and democratic decision-making

37:21 Alexandra’s magic wand for the future of pensions

#ReImaginingPensions

#UKPensions

#RetirementPlanning

#PensionReform

#FinancialWellbeing

EY episode summary: "In the fourth episode of EY’s Re-imagining Pensions, Paul Kitson, head of UK pensions consulting at EY and Charlotte Moore, co-founder of Moore Squared Communications, are joined by Patrick Heath-Lay, CEO of the People’s Partnership.

Much of the pensions bill currently making its way through parliament is focused on improving auto-enrolled workplace pensions, says Patrick.

We discussed how we are likely to see a decade of consolidation as pension providers position grow their assets under management. Once the dust has settled, Patrick said he expected there would be 10 to 15 pension providers.

Patrick unpacked whether consolidation and a value-for-money framework would contradict one another and whether it could kill innovation by making pension schemes match investment strategy. He argued that a VFM framework was vital as a tool for comparison and innovation would be needed to stay competitive.

We also addressed the issue of small pots and how a million small pots are created every year. While the current proposed legislation and the introduction of the dashboard will give people greater awareness, Patrick said this was a problem which would need to be fixed in the next round of legislation.

When it comes to retirement income, we talked about it was important to put member need front and centre. With pot sizes currently small, most was likely to be withdrawn but the industry needed to do what it could to encourage members to do something better with their pots than simply leave in their bank accounts.

Finally, we offered Patrick a magic wand to change anything he wanted in the pensions industry – he said we needed to refocus on the member and remember that they do not care about the same things as the industry, they just want a good retirement."

About the guest:

Patrick became Chief Executive Officer of People’s Partnership in 2012 and has brought a wealth of experience to a range of financial and customer service focused roles within the company. He’s responsible for driving the organisation’s strategy and was instrumental in the launch of People’s Pension, which now serves more than seven million people across the UK.

Patrick is passionate about bringing simplicity to the complex world of financial services, providing straightforward and accessible products for everybody. He remains driven to ensure that People’s Partnership, as a company, strives to do what’s best for its members and help people across the UK build stronger financial lives.

He recently celebrated 40 years in the organisation and is one of the UK’s most respected figures in DC pensions.

About the hosts:

Paul is a Partner and UK Head of Pensions Consulting at EY. He leads a team focused on advising pension funds and their corporate sponsors across the UK. Paul and has worked with some of the largest defined benefit and defined contribution pension funds in the UK including the British Airways Pension Schemes and the BBC.

Charlotte Moore is an award-winning journalist and co-founder of Moore Squared Communications. She has spent almost two decades writing about how the UK’s largest investment organisations allocate their capital for a number of different specialist magazines including Professional Pensions, IPE and MandateWire. She started this podcast to increase understanding of how and why the UK’s £3 trillion pensions industry invests its members’ capital to provide the best possible retirement.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

00:38 Meet Patrick Heath-Lay

02:02 The pensions bill

03:03 Consolidation

05:58 Pension landscape

08:55 £25bn scale test

11:55 Small pots problem

14:48 Pension dashboards

17:19 Master trusts and designing pensions around savers

19:41 Contribution levels

22:14 Putting member needs first

24:22 Retirement support

26:43 Patrick’s magic wand

28:36 Refocusing pensions

29:54 Closing

#ProfessionalInvestmentPodcast

#ReimaginingPensions

#WorkplacePensions

#PeoplePartnership

#PensionConsolidation

Claire Southern, partner at Hogan Lovells, joins Paul Kitson, head of UK pensions consulting at EY and Charlotte Moore, co-founder of Moore Squared Communications for the third episode of EY’s Re-imagining pensions podcast.

In this episode we get the lawyer’s perspective of what it’s like to operate in a surplus environment. Claire discusses how this changing the role of trustees and the greater array of options available to them.

We unpack how a surplus environment could also change the way super funds are built with the possibility of new superfunds targeting run-on now a possibility.

Claire jokes that a lawyer’s default position is to think about what could go wrong and talks about the importance of trustees being flexible enough to think about what they should do if bond yields fall and surpluses turn into deficits.

We discuss how trustees also need to stay flexible in the face of a world of increased geopolitical risk which has the potential to reshape government agendas and the future trajectory of interest rates.

For example, for many decades investing in the defence sector was an anathema to sustainable investors but that changed with the invasion of Ukraine. Claire emphasises how important it is to look at what will bring the most benefit over the longer term.

Finally, when offered a magic wand to change one thing in pensions, Claire says she would ask the sector to focus on the important long-term goals of providing people with a decent retirement and for us to not get caught up in issues like GMP equalisation which only benefit lawyers and advisers.

CHAPTERS:

0:00 Introduction to Reimagining Pensions

00:01 Meet Claire Southern of Hogan Lovells

00:03 Trustees, member interests and pension surplus

00:06 How surplus changes endgame thinking

00:09 Professional trustees and difficult decisions

00:12 Risk, uncertainty and staying flexible

00:15 Employer proposals and trustee responsibility

00:18 Geopolitics, markets and pension strategy

00:21 ESG, defence investing and ethical tensions

00:24 Long-term investment and what schemes should prioritise

00:27 Claire Southern’s magic wand for pensions

00:30 Final thoughts and subscribe

About the guest:

Claire Southern is a partner in the Hogan Lovells pensions team with a specialism in risk transfer. She enjoys working with trustees and corporates to understand their issues and provide practical and thoughtful solutions to their problems. She also believes that pensions – like most things in life – are helped if some fun can be injected. She is described in Legal 500 as "amazing at cutting through the jargon” which she slightly prefers to an earlier quote of her as an “out and out street fighter”.

About the hosts:

Paul is a Partner and UK Head of Pensions Consulting at EY. He leads a team focused on advising pension funds and their corporate sponsors across the UK. Paul and has worked with some of the largest defined benefit and defined contribution pension funds in the UK including the British Airways Pension Schemes and the BBC.

Charlotte Moore is an award-winning journalist and co-founder of Moore Squared Communications. She has spent almost two decades writing about how the UK’s largest investment organisations allocate their capital for a number of different specialist magazines including Professional Pensions, IPE and MandateWire. She started this podcast to increase understanding of how and why the UK’s £3 trillion pensions industry invests its members’ capital to provide the best possible retirement.

In the second episode of EY’s Re-imagining Pensions Podcast, Paul Kitson – head of UK pensions consulting at EY and Charlotte Moore – co-founder of Moore Squared Communications talk to Darren Masters, independent trustee at Capital Cranfield about superfunds and DB surpluses.

We start with a recap of the changes the pensions scheme bill will make and observe how the original concept for super funds now feels like it is from a different era – one where pension funds were distressed and needed help to get to buyout.

With new super funds focusing instead on run-on, this seems like a move towards consolidation. This was the original idea behind super funds and Darren explains what else would need to happen in the future to move us towards a realistic consolidation model for DB schemes.

While everyone – the government, trustees and finance directors – would like to spend pension surpluses, no-one seems to know how.

Darren explains how negative accountancy implications are one of the issues holding back people. The best option would be to explain the overall benefits of accessing the surplus, even if it has a negative impact on the company accounts.

We grant Darren a magic wand to change one thing in the UK pensions landscape and he has GMP equalisation in his sights saying all this has created is a multi-billion business for consultants will minimal upside for scheme members.

🔔 Subscribe for future episodes covering pensions, regulation, governance, and industry trends.

EY podcast page on our website: https://mooresquaredcommunications.com/ey-reimagining-pensions-podcast/

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About the guest:

John has a wide range of pension experience including having been involved in looking after the Stagecoach Group Pension Scheme in various roles for nearly 25 years, in which he is currently serving as Chair of Trustees. He was also a long serving Trustee of the multi-employer Railway Pension Scheme from 2009 until 2020. He was instrumental in initiating changes in the 2021 regulations acknowledging the different funding treatment possible for open schemes, and is known for creative and challenging thinking. A member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants (Scotland) Tax Board, his early training was as an international tax adviser. Over his corporate career he has benefited from extensive experiences in business appraisal and valuations for corporate acquisitions and disposals, and this has influenced his approach to pension scheme investment. Passionate about delivering fair pension outcomes and a believer in developing a pension system that is symbiotic with the broader economy.

About the hosts:

Paul is a Partner and UK Head of Pensions Consulting at EY. He leads a team focused on advising pension funds and their corporate sponsors across the UK. Paul and has worked with some of the largest defined benefit and defined contribution pension funds in the UK including the British Airways Pension Schemes and the BBC.

Charlotte Moore is an award-winning journalist and co-founder of Moore Squared Communications. She has spent almost two decades writing about how the UK’s largest investment organisations allocate their capital for a number of different specialist magazines including Professional Pensions, IPE and MandateWire. She started this podcast to increase understanding of how and why the UK’s £3 trillion pensions industry invests its members’ capital to provide the best possible retirement.

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🎧 EPISODE CHAPTERS:

00:00 Introduction

01:20 The Current Investment Landscape

03:05 Market Volatility and Economic Pressures

10:15 Private Markets vs Public Markets

15:05 Risk Management in Uncertain Conditions

17:30 Pension Funds and Long Term Allocation Strategy

19:55 Liquidity Considerations for Institutional Portfolios

22:10 The Role of Alternative Assets

24:30 UK Market Outlook

26:45 Strategic Positioning for the Year Ahead

28:50 Key Takeaways for Professional Investors

29:40 Closing Remarks

Our guest for the first episode of EY’s ( @ernstyoung ) Re-imagining Pensions Podcast is John Hamilton, trustee chair for Stagecoach’s Group Pension scheme. (@StagecoachBus)

He talks to Paul Kitson, UK Head of Pensions Consulting at EY, and me about why Aberdeen agreed to replace Stagecoach as the sponsoring employer of the £1.2bn scheme.

John explains how, finding itself with a strong surplus, the trustees of Stagecoach looked at different options available and chose to run-on with shared ambition. The scheme will target low-risk returns in the future with around two-thirds of surpluses going to members and a minority share to Aberdeen.

Dialogue with the regulator was open and constructive – they are happy to listen to schemes which have innovative solutions while operating within regulatory constraints, John says. Other schemes should take heart from this deal and move away from inertia and conventional thinking, he adds.

Pensions should be at the heart of helping the UK to generate growth – to help to address the Office for Budget Responsibility’s projected yawning gulf between public sector costs and tax revenues. That growth does not have to be confined to the UK, John said.

If John were given a magic wand to make one change to UK pensions, he would alter the PPF’s remit. He’d remove the obligation to protect the PPF now that it is mature, highly-skilled and well-funded with a large surplus. He would replace this with a temporary objective to encourage improved member outcomes.

🔔 Subscribe for future episodes covering pensions, regulation, governance, and industry trends.

And here's the link to the EY podcast page on our website: https://mooresquaredcommunications.com/ey-reimagining-pensions-podcast/

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About the guest:

John has a wide range of pension experience including having been involved in looking after the Stagecoach Group Pension Scheme in various roles for nearly 25 years, in which he is currently serving as Chair of Trustees. He was also a long serving Trustee of the multi-employer Railway Pension Scheme from 2009 until 2020. He was instrumental in initiating changes in the 2021 regulations acknowledging the different funding treatment possible for open schemes, and is known for creative and challenging thinking. A member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants (Scotland) Tax Board, his early training was as an international tax adviser. Over his corporate career he has benefited from extensive experiences in business appraisal and valuations for corporate acquisitions and disposals, and this has influenced his approach to pension scheme investment. Passionate about delivering fair pension outcomes and a believer in developing a pension system that is symbiotic with the broader economy.

About the hosts:

Paul is a Partner and UK Head of Pensions Consulting at EY. He leads a team focused on advising pension funds and their corporate sponsors across the UK. Paul and has worked with some of the largest defined benefit and defined contribution pension funds in the UK including the British Airways Pension Schemes and the BBC.

Charlotte Moore is an award-winning journalist and co-founder of Moore Squared Communications. She has spent almost two decades writing about how the UK’s largest investment organisations allocate their capital for a number of different specialist magazines including Professional Pensions, IPE and MandateWire. She started this podcast to increase understanding of how and why the UK’s £3 trillion pensions industry invests its members’ capital to provide the best possible retirement.

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🎧 EPISODE CHAPTERS:

00:00 Introduction and episode overview

01:20 Paul Kitson introduction and role

03:10 Current state of the UK pensions industry

07:45 Key challenges facing pension schemes

12:30 Regulatory environment and compliance

18:10 Long-term trends shaping pensions

24:40 What pension professionals should focus on now

30:15 Final thoughts and future outlook