Press release

Appointment of new Trustees to the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST) Corporation

Appointment of 3 new Trustees to the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST) Corporation, announced.

From:
Department for Work and Pensions and The Rt Hon Steve Webb
Published
27 February 2015
This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

Minister for Pensions Steve Webb today (27 February 2015) announced the appointment of 3 new Trustees to the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST) Corporation.

The appointments of Sally Bridgeland, Caroline Rookes and Jill Youds will commence on 1 April 2015.

Minister for Pensions Steve Webb said:

I am very pleased to announce that Sally Bridgeland, Caroline Rookes and Jill Youds will be joining the NEST Trustee Board. They bring a wealth of experience, expertise and skills from both the public and private sector which will prove valuable to NEST in the years ahead.

With well over 1.8 million members, NEST is already one of the biggest pension schemes in the UK. It is playing a vital role in the success of automatic enrolment, ensuring that all employers have access to a high quality, low cost pension scheme for their workers.

More about NEST

NEST Corporation is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Work and Pensions. It was set up in July 2010 as a corporate trustee to run NEST.

NEST is a low-cost, occupational pension scheme that employers can choose to use to meet their automatic enrolment duties. With over 1.8 million members and more than 10,500 participating employers, NEST is playing a vital role in supporting automatic enrolment, ensuring that all employers are able to meet their duties.

NEST Trustee Members are public appointments made by the Secretary of State for the Department for Work and Pensions. The appointment process has been an open competition regulated by The Office for the Commissioner of Public Appointments. These appointments will commence on 1 April 2015. They will receive a remuneration of £19,050 a year for a time commitment of 30 days a year.

In accordance with the Nolan Principles (the 7 Principles of Public Life), appointees’ political activity (if any declared) should be made public. In addition, the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 requires the Electoral Commission to publish a register of recordable donations. No political activity has been disclosed.

The Trustee Members form the Trustee of the NEST Scheme. There must be a minimum of 9 and a maximum of 15 Trustee Members including the Chair.

The existing members are: Chair (Otto Thoresen) and the Trustee Members (Iraj Amiri, Ian Armfield, Graham Berville, Tom Boardman, Carolan Dobson, Sharon Darcy, Karen Silcock, Nigel Stanley)

New member biographies

Sally Bridgeland

Sally’s career in UK pensions and institutional investment spans nearly 3 decades. She is currently a non-executive director of Royal London Group. Sally is also a Senior Adviser with Avida International. Until recently, she was the Chief Executive Officer and Trustee of the BP Pension Fund. Previously, she was a partner, pensions actuary and investment consultant at AON Hewitt. Sally is a member of the 300 Club and the EDHEC Risk Institute International Advisory Board. She is the Founder and Chair of the Trustee Board, Executive Shift – a charity supporting flexible working at senior levels. She is the Chair of the Education Committee, of the Worshipful Company of Actuaries; a Trustee of the Worshipful Company of Actuaries Charitable Trust; and a Member of the FTSE Policy Group.

Caroline Rookes, CBE

Caroline is CEO of the Money Advice Service. Formerly a senior civil servant, her career spanned several top management roles. She has extensive experience of and expertise in shaping and delivering major policy programmes across government. Between 2005 to 2013, Caroline was Director of Private Pensions at the Department for Work and Pensions where she led a landmark and successful reform of the UK’s private pension regime introducing automatic enrolment. From 2002 to 2005, Caroline was the Director of Savings Pensions and Share Schemes at HMRC, where she was responsible for a fundamental reform of the tax regime on pensions. In 2014, she was awarded an Alumni Award by Lancaster University for outstanding achievement.

Jill Youds

Jill has a wide experience and expertise in workplace transformation, HR and finance shared services in executive and non-executive roles in a broad range of sectors including telecoms, technology and media, financial services, retail and the public sector. Jill was appointed in 2014 as Chair of the Judicial Pensions Board. Between 2008 to 2013, she was an Executive Director at Virgin Media. Previous executive roles include: Head of People Development at Lloyds Group; Group HR Director at Pearce Group Ltd, and Head of HR at Clarks International. Jill is a Non-Executive Director at University Hospitals Bristol NHS Trust and at Hoople Ltd. She is also a Director of her own executive coaching practice, Cresco Ltd.

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Published 27 February 2015