Investment

Sarah Bates

Chair of Polar Capital Technology Trust plc , John Lewis Partnership Pensions Trust Ltd, BBC Pension Investment Ltd and Universities Superannuation Scheme Investment Management Ltd

Sarah has more than 40 years of experience in the Investment and Investment Management sector. She has also had considerable involvement with the reality of supporting her parents through illness and injury in later life (along with her sister). She is fascinated by what has helped her parents, in terms of organisation and technology, and what has made things more difficult for them and for their daughters (two hospital appointments this week demonstrated some of these challenges: people struggling to do their best in less than wonderful systems?).

She is currently Chair of Polar Capital Technology Trust plc , John Lewis Partnership Pensions Trust Ltd, BBC Pension Investment Ltd and Universities Superannuation Scheme Investment Management Ltd. She is Senior Independent Non-Executive Director of Alliance Trust plc and also Worldwide Healthcare Trust plc, where she is also Chair of the Nominations Committee.

Sarah is a Fellow of CFA UK and was previously Chair of the Association of Investment Companies. She was also previously Chair of Merian Global Investors Limited, St James’ Place plc, JP Morgan American Investment Trust plc, Witan Pacific Investment Trust plc (now Baillie Gifford China Growth Trust PLC) and chair of the audit committees of New India Investment Trust plc and of U and I Group plc, among other Investment Company Board roles.

Sarah is also a mentor for Chairman Mentors International. She is an Ambassador for Chapter Zero and was one of the co-founders of The Diversity Project and was Chair of the Diversity Project Charity until she retired in May 2021.

Investment

Hon Group Captain Sally Bridgeland BSc ARCS FIA FRSA

Non executive director, adviser and trustee

Investment consultant, actuary, and former CEO of the BP Pension Fund now enjoying a portfolio of advisory and commercial, professional, and NFP non-executive appointments.

see video

Sally with her mother Barbara Pilbrow on her 82nd birthday just before lockdown on 13th March 2020.

architecture

Carly Dickson

Architectural designer, research affiliate at the MIT AgeLab and founder of the Radically Accessible Wildly Engaging Project (RAWE Project).

Carly is an architectural designer focused on inclusive, intergenerational environments. In 2019 Carly co-authored ‘Just Living’, with Dominic Hailey of ColladoCollins Architects, a book about designing homes and communities that genuinely consider the needs and desires of older people. Carly began researching, designing, and advocating for social accessibility during her Master of Architecture program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She has been invited to speak on these topics at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the Housing LIN Annual Conference, among others. She seeks to learn and share how design can enable and empower people of all ages and abilities.

see video

Carly with close friends, Margaret & Cor.

pensions

Rachel Elwell

CEO, Border to Coast Pensions Partnership

Rachel joined Border to Coast as CEO in November 2017 with over twenty years’ experience of working in pensions and institutional investment. Having launched in July 2018, Border to Coast is now responsible for managing c. £34bn of assets on behalf of its eleven Local Government Pension Scheme Partner Funds. Rachel is a Cambridge maths graduate, qualified actuary, member of the Institute of Directors and also a member of the Board of the Investment Association and the Board of Trustees of Opera North.

As well as finding huge personal challenge and stimulation in creating and leading Border to Coast, Rachel enjoys making and listening to music and is a Friend of Opera North; watching cricket; walking; and spending time with her husband and two daughters. She also supports Sheffield Wednesday, although it is debatable as to whether that can be described as enjoyable.”

The photo is of Rachel Elwell and Dorothy Sutcliffe, who amongst many other achievements, was a Parish Councillor for 40 years and is a stalwart of our local community.


Rachel Elwell and Dorothy Sutcliffe, who amongst many other achievements, was a Parish Councillor for 40 years and is a stalwart of our local community.

Intergeneration

Angus Hanton

Co-founder, Intergenerational Foundation

The Intergenerational Foundation (www.if.org.uk) is an independent think tank researching fairness between generations. A self-confessed baby boomer, Hanton believes that successive governments have missed opportunities to improve fairness for both young and old. As an economist, businessman, and parent, he feels that we are not meeting our duty to young people or to safeguard the future for those yet unborn. Paradoxically we are also failing older generations by not maximising (safe) intergenerational contact or helping those in the older generation to use their assets to best effect.


Angus with his son, Peter, standing in a street built by his great grandfather.

Innovation

Eric Kihlstrom

Chairman of Centaur Robotics

Eric is Chairman of Centaur Robotics, a next generation personal electric vehicle designer and service provider. He volunteers as an External Advisory Board member to Royal College of Art’s Design Age Institute and Honorary Associate Professor of Primary Care Innovation at De Montfort University. He also volunteers as the UK’s Ambassador to Aging2.0.

Previously, Eric helped to launch the UK Government’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund – Healthy Ageing as the Interim Director. He was responsible for scoping the challenge and facilitating collaborations with industry, Government, 3rd sector and academia to unlock opportunities deriving from the UK and global demographic shift. The Healthy Ageing Challenge Fund is a £98 million fund to invest in innovations enabling people to live better for longer. Following this role, Eric went on to become a co-founder of the Secretariat to the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on Longevity.

Eric is an established innovation professional with a background in large corporations (General Electric, KPMG and IBM) as well as disruptive new startups in technology and healthcare. Eric studied Economics at the University of Pennsylvania and has an MBA from New York University. He is a Freeman of the City of London at the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists. He speaks French, completed the Paris, Berlin and New York marathons and is now an avid cold water swimmer.

Retirement Living

Paul Lester CBE

Chairman, McCarthy and Stone

Paul is Chairman of the FTSE 250 Companies Essentra and McCarthy and Stone. He has just stood down from Forterra the FTSE 350 brick company after a successful IPO.
Paul is also Chairman of Readypower (the private equity backed rail engineering services Company), Marley (the roofing manufacturing Company), Signia (the private investment business); and the private equity backed businesses FirstPort and Appello.
He has been a member of the UK Government Major Projects Review Group since 2005.
Previously from 2002 to 2010 he was Chief Executive of VT Group plc, the support services company.
Paul also held the position of Group Managing Director for Balfour Beatty plc. from 1997 to 2002, and was Chief Executive of Graseby plc from 1990 to 1997 following senior management positions at Schlumberger and the Dowty Group plc.
Paul was Non-Executive Director of Invensys, the FTSE 100 company and has also previously served as President of the Society of Maritime Industries, the BSA and the EEF.
He is a Chartered Engineer, a Fellow of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers and was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws.  Paul was awarded a CBE in 2007.
Paul is a life time West Bromwich Albion Supporter.

see video

Paul with his father, Trevor on his 88th birthday.

Design

Colum Lowe

Director, Design Age Institute

Colum is a senior design leader with a significant track record of developing inclusive products and services in the private, public and charitable sectors. He has been Head of Design at a range of organisations, including the Ministry of Justice, Sainsbury’s Homebase and the NHS National Patient Safety Agency, where he delivered a multi-partner programme to advance the patient safety agenda for the NHS. He has worked closely throughout his career with marginalised user groups, including those with age-related physical and mental frailty. His
experience includes running the design firms Crabtree Hall and CaulderMoore, as well as his own consultancy and founding the Independent Safeguarding Service CIC. Colum Lowe also spent 15 years helping the Design Council to develop and deliver its flagship
design intervention programme, Designing Demand. He holds an MBA in Design Management from the University of Westminster and originally trained as a product designer at Chelsea School of Art.

see video

Medical and commercial

Dr Rachel Melsom MBBS, BSc (Hons)

Founder Director, Medical Matrix Consulting Ltd and Practising Doctor, NHS.

Rachel has a portfolio career working across healthcare and finance: she a practising NHS doctor, with an interest in the Care of Older Persons, and a desire to deliver improved health outcomes that also meet finance sector return objectives, by utilising new and innovative thinking.

Rachel completed her first degree in Genetics at University College London in 1987, and completed her second in Medicine in 2012. In the interim period she pursued an extensive career in advertising, commercial broadcast media negotiations, Intellectual Property development and was a Partner at corporate communications advisors Brunswick LLP in London, and set up consultancy firm Medical Matrix Consulting. From 2016-2020 Rachel also led the growth and implementation of tobacco-free finance decisions across Europe for global charity Tobacco Free Portfolios, persuading firms with combined AUM and loan book of over $12tn to cease investing in tobacco, and to become signatories to the Tobacco-Free Finance Pledge – an initiative launched at UN headquarters in New York in September 2018.


Rachel with her father, Martin Melsom MBE.

Recruitment

Clare Rawlins

Vice President, Student Recruitment and Marketing
Kaplan International Pathways

Clare’s role at Kaplan is truly international, leading a recruitment and enrolment team that spans 10 countries. The team prides itself on its world-class customer service and in-depth market knowledge. Clare has worked in over 30 countries and holds particular expertise in Africa and the Indian subcontinent. She also has a wealth of experience in supporting and shaping university internationalisation strategies. Previously, Clare spent many years in the English language and higher education industries.

Pensions

Chris Rule

Chief Executive, Local Pensions Partnership Investments Ltd.

Chris is the Chief Executive of LPPI Ltd and LPP Group. In these roles Chris leads and oversees c.£20bn of pensions investments, and the administration of pensions for over 600,000 members. Chris originally trained as an investment risk manager and is a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst. Over a period of two decades he has managed a variety of investment portfolios/businesses as both a direct investor and as an allocator of capital – forging partnerships with like minded investors and asset managers. Chris also chairs a primary phase multi academy trust and holds non-executive director positions within the renewables and project finance sectors.

Digital, data & infrastructure

Miranda Sharp

Lead for the Commons Streams of the National Digital Twin Programme

Miranda is the lead for the Commons Streams of the National Digital Twin Programme. She is also a member of the Mayor’s Smart London Board and Infrastructure Advisory Panel, trustee at the Centre for Cities think tank, and advisor on digital, data and infrastructure to clients including the award-winning SME See Sense. Her interest is in enabling better decision with the benefits of data and innovative business models.

Previously at Ordnance Survey, she founded and lead the cross functional practice which collaborates with enterprises from the public and private sectors, academic researchers and entrepreneurs from OS’s Geovation community in the use and exploitation of place-based data.
Outside work, she has moved from swimming, to water polo to rugby and is currently trying to improve at hockey, maintaining her position in the team by taking on the role of club ops director.

see video

Miranda at the Belfast dockyard where her grandfather worked.

Pensions

Robert Waugh

CEO – co-CIO NatWest Group Pension Fund

Robert is the CEO and co-CIO of NatWest Group Pension Fund, responsible for the assets in the Fund (c£50bn). Robert joined RBS in January 2010. He spent the previous 6 years as Head of UK Equities at Scottish Widows Investment Partnership responsible for managing segregated and pooled mandates for clients and performance of the UK equity desk of 12 investment professionals and £15bn of assets.

Robert started his career in London with Phillips & Drew fund managers (latterly UBS Asset Management) in 1986, remaining with the firm for 15 years, managing pension fund assets on behalf of corporates and public bodies. He moved to Scotland in 2001 to head up UK equities at Edinburgh Fund Managers before moving to Scottish Widows Investment Partnership in 2003. Robert was previously the Chair of Trustees of the Royal Bank of Scotland Retirement Savings Plan (DC).

Media & Investment

Hugh Wheelan

Co-founder and Joint Managing Director, Response Global Media (Publishers of Responsible Investor and Responsible Company)

A media entrepreneur, Hugh co-created Response Global Media in 2007 and has built the company to become one of the world’s most respected sustainable finance media and events companies. As a journalist, he has written extensively on investment, corporate and sustainability issues for international newspapers including The Guardian and The Financial Times.

He has interviewed some of the biggest names in global institutional finance and sustainability.
Hugh has won many journalism awards during his career. In 2020, he won the Outstanding Contribution to Institutional Journalism at the State Street Press Awards. He won the respected Aon Consulting award for European Pensions and Investment Journalist of the Year in 2006.

From 2004 to 2007 he was Paris Correspondent and before that Fund Management Editor at Financial News, part of the Wall Street Journal.
Prior to that he was Political and Economic advisor to the Secretary General of Amnesty International.


Hugh with his grandmother, the wonderfully named (and wonderful) Violet Silver: 90 years old and living in Stonehaven, Scotland. She was an inspiration for the Silver Linings competition in nature and name!

Business & Health

Tina Woods

Founder & CEO of Collider Health; Director, All-Party-Parliamentary Group for Longevity; Co-Founder and CEO, Business for Health cic

Tina is a social entrepreneur who brings diverse stakeholders together to address the system changes needed to improve health for all. She is Founder and CEO of Collider Health and works with the National AHSN AI Network, NHSX AI Lab and UK Research & Innovation on the Healthy Ageing Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund.

Tina is also Secretariat Director of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Longevity and acting CEO of Business for Health, is a business-led coalition of socially responsible employers, purchasers, investors and innovators supporting long-term sustainable innovation and investment in preventative health and care. Tina’s book, ‘Live Longer with AI: How artificial intelligence is helping us extend our healthspans and live better too’ was published in October 2020 and is now available on Amazon (and free for the NHS workforce via Health Education England- see website here)

Technology

Shefaly Yogendra, PhD

Portfolio NED specialising in deep tech, risk and decision-making

Shefaly Yogendra, PhD is a portfolio NED with experience of building organisations, brands, and culturally diverse teams. Shefaly specialises in decision making and brings experience and expertise in deep tech, risk and talent to her governance roles.

At present Shefaly is a Non-Executive Director of JP Morgan US Smaller Companies Investment Trust (LSE: JUSC) where she chairs the Remuneration Committee, and of Temple Bar Investment Trust (LSE: TMPL). She is also an independent Governor of London Metropolitan University where she chairs the Audit Committee and earlier chaired the Governance Committee. Earlier she was the COO and an executive director of Ditto AI. She founded the luxury startup Livyora. Her career began at HCL Technologies.

Shefaly was among the “100 Women to Watch” in the Female FTSE Board Report 2016 and holds a PhD in Political Decision Making from the University of Cambridge. She trained earlier in engineering, management, and technology policy.