Your trustee board

Richard Butcher

Chairman of the board

Richard is Managing Director of PTL a market leading and award winning professional independent pension trustee company. Richard joined PTL in 2008 and became Managing Director in 2010. Richard has been involved in pension scheme governance since 1985.

He is a Fellow of the Pensions Management Institute (PMI). Richard is Chair of the Pension and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA), the industry association for pension schemes. He was a member of the FCA’s Institutional Disclosure Working Group (IDWG), a body established to create a template for the disclosure of investment costs and charges, until it completed its work. He has also sat on the Investment Associations Cost Disclosure Working Group, the Council of the PMI, the PLSA DC Council (which he chaired for two years), the Pension Regulators DC Practitioners Panel and the Department of Work and Pensions Trustee Panel.

He is a regular contributor to the trade press and has won a number of awards and accolades. Richard is qualified to be a member of an Board by merit of his significant experience in and knowledge of the pensions industry, his expertise in assessing the value for money of arrangements such as this (gathered from his role on similar boards) and his knowledge of underlying investment costs and charges. He is qualified to chair the Board by merit of his significant experience of and positive track record in chairing similar arrangements as well as other boards and committees. Richard is also an Accredited Professional Trustee of the Association of Professional Pension Trustees.

Rene Poisson

Independent Director

Rene retired in September 2012 after a 30 year career with JP Morgan, latterly as Managing Director and Senior Credit Officer for EMEA. He has extensive experience of pension fund governance of both UK DB and DC pension schemes.

He currently holds a number of non- executive appointments including as an Independent Director and Chair of the Remuneration Committee of the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), Chair of the JP Morgan UK Pension Plan and its Investment Committee, Director of the Standard Life Master Trust and Chair of the Advisory Committees of Five Arrows Credit Solutions and Five Arrows Direct Lending. Rene is also an Accredited Professional Trustee of the Pensions Management Institute.

Catherine McKenna

Independent Director

Catherine is a partner at Squire Patton Boggs (UK) LLP, a global law firm.  She has over 30 years’ experience in the pensions industry as a qualified solicitor, providing advice to companies, trustees and product providers on a wide range of pension issues and as a trustee and board member.  She was the head of Squire Patton Boggs’ award winning pension team for a number of years, leading its approach to client service and responsible for its strategic direction.  Catherine is actively involved in the development of pensions policy and regulation.  She has been a member of the CBI’s Pension Panel and is an author of and contributor to pension books, numerous publications and responses to the Government’s consultations on pension change.  Catherine has qualified as an accredited professional trustee, is a director of Squire Patton Boggs’ independent trustee company and is an Associate of the Pensions Management Institute. Catherine is also an Accredited Professional Trustee of the Pensions Management Institute.

Andrew Davies

Independent Director

Andrew is an experienced strategist, marketeer and business development professional. His career of over 30 years spans the breadth of Financial Services covering pensions, wealth management, life, healthcare and general insurance.

Andrew has held a wide range of senior management positions. Most recently he was Director of Marketing Strategy & Customer Insight for AXA UK & Ireland during which he established their first customer centricity strategy. Whilst Head of Strategic Development for AXA Life, Andrew created the initial strategy, and was one of the founder members of the Elevate investment platform (now Standard Life Elevate).

Andrew currently runs his own management consultancy business specialising in strategic change and business transformation. He is also an ambassador and adviser to a number of start-up businesses.

Andrew has qualified as a Chartered Insurer and Financial Planner in addition to holding separate professional Project, Process and Proposal Management qualifications.

Caroline Escott

Independent Director

Caroline has 15 years’ experience of investment and stewardship policy and practice. She currently heads up the global stewardship and corporate governance work for RPMI Railpen, one of the UK’s largest Defined Benefit pension schemes. She previously led on investment and stewardship issues at the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) and was Head of Public Policy at the UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association (UKSIF).

She has sat on HM Treasury’s Patient Capital – Pensions Investment Taskforce, led the asset owner work-stream of the government-appointed Growing a Culture of Social Impact Investing Taskforce and also contributes to a number of other industry groups including the Pensions Climate Risk Industry Group (PCRIG).

She speaks and contributes press pieces regularly on pensions and investment issues and was recently picked as one of Financial News’ 2020 “Top 25 Rising Stars of Asset Management in Europe”. She was also awarded InvestmentWeek’s “Investment Woman of the Year 2019” for small and medium firms. She holds the CFA UK accredited Investment Management Certificate (IMC) and the PMI’s Certificate in DC Governance.

She is passionate about working towards a more diverse pensions industry to better reflect diverse savers’ needs. She sits on the board of NextGen, which aims to promote and encourage greater diversity and inclusiveness across every aspect of the pensions and investment sectors.