Lesley Titcomb, Chief Executive of the Pensions Regulator from 2015 to February 2019, takes a look back at how pensions provision, regulation and protections have changed during her career and a look forward to how technology and the rising expectations of a younger generation with less loyalty and less security of employment will force the pace of change. Too often employees don’t get what they want or need from pension schemes, but the complexity of the pensions landscape in the UK makes it difficult to ensure consistent standards for participation, information, investment performance reporting, and governance. While the FCA and the Pensions Regulator are cooperating to improve outcomes over the next 5 to 10 years, there is not yet an agreed approach, and meanwhile changing employment patterns and accelerating technological change are contributing to uncertainty.”

Speaker - Lesley Titcomb retired as CEO of The Pensions Regulator in February 2019. During her tenure the pendulum of pensions regulation swung toward stricter obligations on employers and better coordination with the FCA, where she was Chief Operating Officer until March 2015. One of her victories at TPR was getting Sir Philip Green to pay £363 million back into the BHS pension fund, which had a £571 million deficit at the time of the BHS insolvency. She is now a non-executive director of StepChange, the debt management charity.Lesley was recently awarded the CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours, for services to pensions regulation.

Chair - Kathleen Tyson from Granularity Limited.

Panellists - Con Keating, David McKee and Iain Clacher.

Con Keating - Currently a member of the steering committee of the financial econometrics research centre at the University of Warwick. Con has also served as an advisor and consultant to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) private pensions committee and a number of other international institutions. He has written copiously for Long Finance about pensions reform.

David McKee - Research Fellow at the University of Leeds, in the School of Computing. He has a background in large-scale autonomous systems and cyber-physical systems. He works across industries from manufacturing and supply chain management, through to financial platforms.

Iain Clacher - Associate Professor in Accounting and Finance at Leeds University Business School. He is an expert on pensions and retirement saving and his work covers retirement decision making, pension fund investment, infrastructure investing, sustainable pension systems, trustee governance, and fund management costs and fees.

The overall programme for this event is:
18.00 Registration and drinks
18.30 Speaker presentation and Q & A
19.45 Canapés, drinks and networking
20.45 Close