Our Team

Dame Jane Newell has been involved in pensions governance since 1992 when she was appointed a founder Trustee, and subsequently Chairman, of the Maxwell Pensioners Trust. She has chaired large pension schemes including Dixons Group, Royal Mail Pensions Trustees and most recently the John Lewis Partnership and held many appointments across public, private and voluntary sectors including Chair of the Board of Governors of London South Bank University for 8 years, a Trustee of Age UK and a Justice of the Peace for 20 years.

She was awarded an OBE in 1997 and a DBE in the 2012 New Year’s Honours. She has been President of the Pensions Archive Trust since 2021.

I am a retired pensions professional, having specialised in the accounting and financial management of pension schemes. I first worked in pensions in the 1980s and gained experience both inhouse and working for various outsourcers. In 2005 I joined the Pension Protection Fund as its first Director of Finance, and worked in the PPF finance team until my retirement in 2018.

Throughout my career in pensions, I was an active member of the Pensions Research Accountants Group, and a Volunteer Advisor with OPAS, then the Pensions Ombudsman. I was honoured to be asked to chair the Pensions Archive Trust when the founding chair, Alan Herbert, stood down in 2021.

Grant is Company Secretary for the Pensions Archive Trust, having had a career in pensions spanning more than forty years. His roles included working for an insurance company, employee benefits consultancies, and in-house.

Grant’s work was principally U.K. focussed, but also included involvement with arrangements in the U.S., Europe and Japan. Retiring from full-time work in 2023, Grant is currently Chair of the Occupational Pensions Defence Union Advisory Council. Grant is a retired Fellow of the Pensions Management Institute.

A lawyer by profession, she  pursued a career in the City as a corporate pensions specialist. A founding member of the Association of Pension Lawyers in the 1980’s, her early career was spent at Lovell White & King before becoming a partner at  pensions law firm Ellison Westhorp.

Following the firm’s merger with Hammond Suddards she managed its national pensions team and subsequently became a partner at MacFarlanes LLP. She has contributed to a number of books and written widely on the subject

Helen started her career in the City as a junior fixed income manager for Sumitomo Life in 1988. She moved to Hermes three years later and progressed to Director of Fixed Income, managing portfolios for the Post Office and British Telecom. In 1999 Helen was appointed Head of Rates at F&C (BMO/Columbia), managing £28b of fixed income assets for pension, insurance and local authority funds.

After 13 years at F&C, she became the Lead Investment person at the PLSA, tackling investment issues faced by its pension and local authority members. In 2015 Helen joined Wells Fargo Asset Management (Allspring) and spent seven years working as a Senior Portfolio Specialist, facilitating new business opportunities and meeting existing client needs.

Alkesh Shah is the Managing Director, Content and Strategic Partnerships for The European Pension Fund Investment Forum (EPFIF) & SPS Conferences

Alkesh has overall responsibility for writing the programmes for all investment forums/seminars/Conferences across the various divisions of EPFIF in the UK, Europe and Southern Africa as well as SPS Conferences. He is responsible for recruiting appropriate speakers and building relationships with forum members. Alkesh works closely with the EPFIF Advisory Boards/Committees who select the various topics used at seminars. In addition, he managers Strategic Partnerships with key members of EPFIF/SPS.

Prior to joining EPFIF in 2009 Alkesh was Head of Consultant Relations (EMEA) at JPMorgan Worldwide Securities Services (WSS). His responsibilities included liaising and building relationships with pension funds and their consultants. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan in 2006, Alkesh worked as an Investment Consultant for several years at Towers Watson. His responsibilities included general consulting advice for pension fund clients including areas such as Investment Strategy, Manager Selection and Monitoring as well as being part of the Custody Consulting Research team.

Alkesh holds an Investment Management Certificate (IMC) and a BSc Economics degree from the University of Warwick.

Dr. Yally Avrahampour is an Associate Professor (Education) in the Department of Management at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he has worked since 2008.

He is currently co-program director of the Master’s in Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship.  Yally has a PhD on the history of occupational pension fund provision and management in the eighty years spanning the 1920s and the early 21st century from Essex University.  His work on the history of occupational pensions in the UK has received best paper awards at conferences of the Academy of Management.  His paper on the cult of equity has been published in Business History Review.

Yally also has seventeen years experience of working as private client relationship manager, including as Vice President at Merrill Lynch International Bank, where he served as a Member Nominated Trustee of the MLIB UK pension funds.  Yally is also a member of the OPDU’s Advisory Council.

Gary has worked in pensions for almost 30 years in various roles. In the last 15 years he has worked very closely with Trustees and Finance professionals to understand the needs of pension funds.

Gary is currently Head of UK Pension Relations for Momentum Global Investment Management, having previously worked for Russell Investments and undertaken roles within large institutional investors including Railpen, Unilever, and Shell.

Outside of work he has enjoyed offshore yacht racing, taking part in a few challenging races. He also enjoys playing golf, and is a keen history buff.

Frank is a CIMA qualified accountant and a Chartered Secretary. He served as President of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators UK and Ireland Division from 2015 to 2016. He graduated from University College London in 1982 with a degree in English and his first role was as a graduate trainee at Williams & Glyn’s Bank followed by a spell in the university sector on the finance side at the University of Manchester and then the University of Surrey in the 1980s.

He started his career in pensions at the railway pension fund in 1990 where he held various roles until his retirement in 2016 and in semi-retirement has chaired various non-railway pension scheme trustee boards. He is currently chair of the trustees of the CIMA Pension & Assurance Scheme. He has been a member of the OPDU Advisory Board since its inception in 1998. He also chairs the Chartered Secretaries’ Charitable Trust and is Churchwarden and Joint Treasurer of St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate EC2.