Kirstie Sneyd is an organizational psychologist, executive coach and the author of “Returning Well”, a practical, evidence-based guide for working parents and their managers. We were both at INSEAD together, and I have followed her career ever since – and am delighted now to bring some of her learnings to our audience.

Our conversation starts with Kirstie’s roots in consulting, and what drew her to organizational behaviour at INSEAD. The first glimmers of what made a job worthwhile though stemmed from much earlier, and a beachside holiday in Devon. 

A career in consulting evolved into one that focused on coaching executives to find their voice, retain visibility and, in some cases, return to the workplace after a period of absence.

We speak about her book and the reception that it received, and the themes that Kirstie is now working on with her coaching clients. Many of these relate to coping with an increasingly heavy and complex cognitive load, as well as the pressure that social media creates in terms of comparisons to others. 

You can find Kirstie’s book here https://www.amazon.co.uk/Returning-well-working-parents-managers/dp/3111618277  and more information about her coaching practice on her LinkedIn profile here: LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/kirstiesneyd

This podcast is supported by Franklin Templeton and Alvine Capital. 

Franklin Templeton is a global investment management firm that provides a broad range of investment solutions, including mutual funds, ETFs, alternative investments, wealth management, and technology-enabled financial services. Founded in 1947, the firm manages approximately $1.8 trillion in assets under management (AUM) and serves individual and institutional investors across more than 150 countries

Founded in 2005, Alvine Capital is a European focused private capital advisory and placement agent that provides capital raising services to investment managers. From its base in London and its office in Stockholm it creates bespoke capital raising programs that blend appropriate investor targeting and sophisticated marketing to deliver a fundraise aligned with institutional expectations

James Mitchell was a director at Goldman Sachs, Barclays and Phoenix Group before developing a portfolio career including a strategic advisory role with Re-wired Earth as well as Empathy, a company committed to supporting families through bereavement. He holds a number of other advisory and director roles.

Our conversation traces James's career through various roles and some of the realisations that dawned as businesses went through various transformations - such as through outsourcing. He notes that the cost savings realised are rarely those that are expected, and we discuss the various governance changes that are taking place across the financial services industry.

Moving then to his portfolio career we discuss with James the mission of Empathy, and the various strands involved in supporting families through bereavement, while Re-wired Earth has its own exciting opportunity sets. We finish with a discussion of life's passions - from snow boarding to cycling and epic travel to photography.

This podcast is supported by Franklin Templeton and Alvine Capital. 

Franklin Templeton is a global investment management firm that provides a broad range of investment solutions, including mutual funds, ETFs, alternative investments, wealth management, and technology-enabled financial services. Founded in 1947, the firm manages approximately $1.8 trillion in assets under management (AUM) and serves individual and institutional investors across more than 150 countries

Founded in 2005, Alvine Capital is a European focused private capital advisory and placement agent that provides capital raising services to investment managers. From its base in London and its office in Stockholm it creates bespoke capital raising programs that blend appropriate investor targeting and sophisticated marketing to deliver a fundraise aligned with institutional expectations

We are delighted to bring you Series 3 of the 2026 Fiftyfaces Podcast. This set of 10 compelling conversations takes a slightly different tack to usual with a particular focus on some of the building blocks behind firms - such as strategy (as described by Matthew Kentridge), motivation (Kirstie Sneyd) and planning (Brett Hickey). We look at what happens when institutions such as public pension funds are leanly resourced and the creativity that can flow from this in terms of staffing, outsourcing and collaboration (Nadia Oumata). 

Staying with motivation we look at how our teachers and mentors can have play such a formative role (Kristina Hooper), at the enrichment that can come from a portfolio career (James Mitchell), at the inertia in financial markets (Crawford Spence) and the evolution of ESG (Michael Viehs). Sally Bridgeland returns to the podcast to speak about her "soon to be published" book that looks at two schools of thought and approach to the workplace - what she describes as the chess club v. the drama club.

Our guests are strategists, founders, coaches, CIOs, academics, authors, cyclists . . the list goes on. Tune in from later this week for an educational journey . . 

Thanks to Alvine Capital Management and Franklin Templeton for sponsoring Series 3 of 2026. 

This podcast is released as part of a collaboration between Fiftyfaces Productions and the Always a Pensions Angle Podcast produced by DG Publishing.  Nick Dixon is Head of Pensions, Avon Pension Fund, which he has led since 2022.  Avon Pension Fund serves c.140,000 members in the public sector across Bristol, Bath and surrounding areas and is now a partner fund of Local Pensions Partnership.  Previously Nick advised private sector wealth platforms on their pensions and investment proposition. He was CIO of Aegon UK from 2013-21, focused on DC workplace pensions. From 2001-13 Nick was Marketing Director for wealth & pensions platform Quilter.

Our conversation has a particular focus on an engagement exercise that Avon conducted around the fund's investment in aerospace and defence companies. Nick explained that during 2024 and 2025 the fund received a lot of petitions from its members who were deeply concerned about the war in Gaza, and the indirect role of aerospace and defence companies in supplying Israel. In response to that, a critical stakeholder issue, they conducted a survey of all members. We opened up the issue to bring out a set of trade-offs, including the importance of NATO defence, the concern about arms impacts on the environment, the fact that they kill innocent civilians. 

The consultation had reasonable engagement - with 11% of the fund members responding, and the result was that 42% wanted to divest, about 47% said they’d like to remain invested, and about 11% said they didn’t know. The fund did not consider this a clear mandate to divest – and therefore decided to remain invested.

We discuss the importance of engagement generally as well as this critical, sometimes emotive, issue, which has emerged for many local authority pension funds. We reflect on whether surveys and engagement in this way could be a way forward for other funds in the future as these issues continue to gain traction with the underlying beneficiaries and stakeholders. 

This podcast is the latest in our collaboration with the Always a Pensions Angle podcast produced by DG Publishing. 

Peter Wallach is Director of Pensions at Merseyside Pension Fund, a position he took up in April 2007. He started his career in private banking, where he worked in the City for 12 years. In 1997 he joined Close Wealth Management as an investment manager, and in 2004 he joined Merseyside Pension Fund. 

Our discussion, which is Peter's first time being interviewed by Aoifinn Devitt, so his first appearance on the podcast, was a long time coming, in that Peter has been a long-term steady hand in the LGPS, combining investment acumen with operational insight.  Our discussion focused on the evolution at Northern LGPS and we asked what needed to evolve there to meet the new demands of pooling. Peter cites the benefits of collaboration between pools an effective way of delivering the government’s agenda and he mentions both GLIL, as well as a housing initiative that Northern is working on with LPPI. He also mentions the potential for collaboration with DC master trusts as they grow in scale. 

We touch then on the fund's responsible investment policy and how that will evolve under pooling and Peter mentions the fund's baseline as well as its interim milestones. He discusses the importance of targets not being too rigid while still being ambitious.

Richard Law-Deeks is Chief Executive Officer of LGPS Central, which, following its current expansion, will be responsible for over 100 bn GBP in pooled local authority pension fund assets. Prior to joining LGPS Central in 2024 he was CEO of the Royal Mail Pensions Trustees Ltd. and prior to that held a series of financial roles, mostly within the local government sphere. 

We start our discussion with his early study of political science and the rooting in public service that came from his parents. We hear then about his various stepping stones to his current role, many of which involved steep learning curves, change - of both the positive (expansion) and negative (contraction) variety and the public service driver that underpinned many of them. 

We move then to his current role at LGPS Central, itself the center of huge structural change and we discuss in detail the governance complexities that the new structures present, but hear from Richard why he is very optimistic about the new provisions. We reflect on the enduring appeal of public service, the importance of coaching and what he considers to be his own leadership style. This is a rich and multi-layered discussion that is an honest assessment of the uncertainties that present a moments of great change and the tactics to push through them. 

This podcast is kindly sponsored by Benefit Street Partners and PIMCO. Founded in 2008, Benefit Street Partners – BSP – is Franklin Templeton’s specialised private credit manager with $92 billion in assets under management. 

The firm provides a wide range of private credit strategies across the US, Europe, Middle East and Asia Pacific, including direct lending, special situations, commercial real estate debt, infrastructure debt, asset backed finance, structured credit and liquid credit.  

PIMCO (Pacific Investment Management Company LLC) is a premier global investment management firm founded in 1971, specializing in active fixed-income with over $2 trillion in assets under management. Headquartered in Newport Beach, California, it offers diversified investment solutions across public and private markets, serving institutional and individual investors worldwide.

Ami Galani is Co-founder and Managing Partner of Tipt Ventures, a venture capital firm investing in companies “reimagining sports, starting with her”. She is a board member of Beauty by Imagination BB, a PE backed beauty platform, a strategic advisor to Elysian Park Ventures, a venture capital firm backed by the ownership group of the LA Dodgers and holds a number of other board roles. She spent over 10 years at Dick’s Sporting Goods where she focused on identifying M&A, investment and other strategic or non-traditional opportunities to enhance the Dick’s athlete experience and drive Dick’s long-term strategy.

Our conversation is a tour through the dynamic world of women's sports, and starts with Ami's own evolution from working on the legal side of transactions to taking the lead on deals herself. We speak about the mentorship and trust by others that is required for this to take place and examine the factors that make investing in women's sports so compelling. We pull the lens back a little to look at the psychology of entrepreneurship and the evolving world of venture capital. Returning back to granular detail then, Ami explains some of the particular investments that she has been focusing on and the number of compelling adjacencies that women's sports represents.

This podcast is kindly sponsored by Benefit Street Partners and PIMCO. Founded in 2008, Benefit Street Partners – BSP – is Franklin Templeton’s specialised private credit manager with $92 billion in assets under management. 

The firm provides a wide range of private credit strategies across the US, Europe, Middle East and Asia Pacific, including direct lending, special situations, commercial real estate debt, infrastructure debt, asset backed finance, structured credit and liquid credit.  

PIMCO (Pacific Investment Management Company LLC) is a premier global investment management firm founded in 1971, specializing in active fixed-income with over $2 trillion in assets under management. Headquartered in Newport Beach, California, it offers diversified investment solutions across public and private markets, serving institutional and individual investors worldwide.

Richard Tomlinson is Chief Investment Officer at Local Pensions Partnership Investments. He was previously head of portfolio advisory and partner at Albourne, where he spent over 6 years, and prior to that managed was Head of Multi Strategy and Absolute Return at Old Mutual Asset Managers. This podcast builds on the themes recently shared in the Always a Pensions Angle collaboration which featured Richard. 

We begin our conversation with Richard's diverse educational background and how he was interested in particular in entrepreneurship, some of which sprang from his family upbringing. We speak about how that influenced his later moves into other organizations and the creative mindset that followed. Moving then to his focus at the helm of the investment team at LPPI we discuss the recent expansion of the partnership and the challenges and opportunities that it represents. With the new mission statement "Together, Let's Do More" we speak about what that "More" will entail and how in particular the advisory role will be built out and the new responsibilities assumed.

Governance, accountability and stakeholder interests feature strongly in this discussion as do the realities of embarking upon a set of new frontiers.

This podcast is kindly sponsored by Benefit Street Partners and PIMCO. Founded in 2008, Benefit Street Partners – BSP – is Franklin Templeton’s specialised private credit manager with $92 billion in assets under management. 

The firm provides a wide range of private credit strategies across the US, Europe, Middle East and Asia Pacific, including direct lending, special situations, commercial real estate debt, infrastructure debt, asset backed finance, structured credit and liquid credit.  

PIMCO (Pacific Investment Management Company LLC) is a premier global investment management firm founded in 1971, specializing in active fixed-income with over $2 trillion in assets under management. Headquartered in Newport Beach, California, it offers diversified investment solutions across public and private markets, serving institutional and individual investors worldwide.

Carolina (Carol) Strobel, is based in Sao Paolo and a founding partner at Antler Brasil. She is also a Founder and Operational Partner at Redpoint eventures and holds a number of Board Roles, including of public companies in Brazil. Our conversation starts with her original career as a lawyer, and how the deal-level detail naturally led her towards venture investing. 

We speak then about the venture capital ecosystem in Brazil and Latin America more generally and the areas where a venture capital investor can truly add value - sometimes it is more about being a "whatsapp" away rather than formal board responsibilities. We speak about the challenge of becoming visible in certain finance settings and how it is important to trust one's skillset and expertise and let that be the basis to lose the imposter syndrome. 

Moving then to board roles, Carol discusses the importance of boards changing with the times and sometimes being "rebooted" in order to cope with change when it comes to technology and new business models. This is where expert technical knowledge comes in. 

This podcast is kindly sponsored by Benefit Street Partners and PIMCO. Founded in 2008, Benefit Street Partners – BSP – is Franklin Templeton’s specialised private credit manager with $92 billion in assets under management. 

The firm provides a wide range of private credit strategies across the US, Europe, Middle East and Asia Pacific, including direct lending, special situations, commercial real estate debt, infrastructure debt, asset backed finance, structured credit and liquid credit.  

PIMCO (Pacific Investment Management Company LLC) is a premier global investment management firm founded in 1971, specializing in active fixed-income with over $2 trillion in assets under management. Headquartered in Newport Beach, California, it offers diversified investment solutions across public and private markets, serving institutional and individual investors worldwide. 

A special bonus episode brought to you in conjunction with the Always a Pensions Angle Podcast, by D G Publishing. This podcast was recorded in January 2026 at their conference in Windsor.

Richard Tomlinson has responsibility for management of all investment and client activity at LPPI. He has more than 20 years of investment experience. Prior to joining LPPI in 2017, Richard was Head of Portfolio Advisory (EMEA) at Albourne Partners for six years where he advised European investors on alternative investments, portfolio construction and risk management. Earlier in his career, he was Head of Multi-Strategy at Old Mutual Asset Managers and prior to this an analyst at GNI Fund Management. 

Our conversation covers the evolution of their product mix as the pool grows, the development of the advisory function, the opening of an office in Bristol as the pool expands, and their core mission: paying pensions as they fall due, affordably and efficiently. We also take the crystal ball out to look at what the next five years may hold. 

Richard features on The Fiftyfaces Podcast later in Series 2 of 2026.