Private Markets Profile – DC Summit

Roger Breeden joined BESTrustees in 2021 and specialises in workplace Defined Contribution and Master Trust pension schemes.

Roger’s financial services experience spans more than 40 years, the majority of which was with Mercer where most recently as a Partner he led the launch and successful authorisation of a Master Trust establishing operational and governance systems and processes.

Roger started his career as a personal financial adviser which provided him with day to day experience of the needs of pension scheme members while both building and drawing down on their savings. His current appointments include a leading Master Trust and Independent Governance Committee.

Roger is a fully accredited professional trustee with the APPT and also outside of Pensions, Roger is a Non Exec Director and Chairperson of a not for profit company that helps people with a learning disability to lead independent lives.

Specialist areas: Defined Contribution and Master Trust; Independent Governance Committees.

Joanna is a Partner in Aon’s Investment Practice and the Chief Investment Officer for Aon’s DC
Solutions. She has over 20 years’ experience in the pension and investment industry and is a Fellow of
the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.
Joanna is responsible for the development and implementation of delegated investment solutions for
DC pension schemes, working closely with Aon’s UK delegated team. Joanna also leads the
development of Aon’s house views around DC investments, in particular default and lifestyle strategies,
and sits on the UK DC Investment Committee.

Jonathan has worked in the workplace pensions and savings industry for over 20 years.  He is currently a Managing Director at Gallagher and Head of the DC.

Prior to joining Gallagher, Jonathan held senior positions in pensions (Head of Investment Strategy for Zurich Corporate Savings), consulting (senior consultant for Willis Towers Watson) and asset management (Head of EMEA DC for Dimensional Fund Advisors).    

In addition to his role at Redington, Jonathan is an independent trustee on Aviva’s Master Trust, a position he has held for 5 years.  He also chairs the Investment Committee and is a member of the Audit & Risk Committee.

Jonathan is CFA charterholder (2005) and holds the Diploma in Financial Planning.  He graduated from Bristol University with a BA (Hons) in Ancient History.

Martyn James is the Director of Investment for now:pensions, the UK master trust provider.

Martyn is responsible for leading the investment strategy for the business, with a focus on improving returns and retirement outcomes for its members whilst ensuring the portfolio has a real-world impact on creating a sustainable future for its members.  He is an advocate of making sure the scheme assets are stewarded in a way to help progress the transition to net-zero by 2050.

Martyn joined now:pensions in April 2024.  Prior to joining now:pensions, Martyn spent 22 years at Mercer, most recently as a Partner within Mercer’s UK DC business, but also with a recent two and a half year secondment leading Mercer’s Wealth (Pensions and Investments) business in Latin America.

Phil is Deputy CIO and joined Peoples Partnership in December 2024. Phil works with Dan in the CIO office to lead the investment team of People’s Partnership, driving forward the investment strategy of the £30bn+ People’s Pension Master Trust which serves over 6 million members and is one of the largest asset owners in the UK.

Prior to this, he spent 14 years at M&G Plc as a multi-asset portfolio manager specialising in long only portfolios with varying risk ratings across several client types. Before M&G, he spent 15 months at the Bank of England as a research assistant whilst completing his degree. Phil has experience working with Trustees, Charities and is a NED for a financial software platform.

Phil holds a degree in Banking and International Finance from Bayes Business school, is a CFA Charterholder and successfully passed the CFA Certificates in ESG Investing and Climate & Investing.

Phil was previously an approved person by the FCA.

Sukhdeep is a DC Investment Consultant at Isio.  She draws upon a broad skill-set and experience, having worked in the Finance industry as an Investment Strategist and Investment Consultant to institutional clients, including DB and DC pensions funds for over 15 years.  As part of her experience, Sukhdeep led the Investments workstream to co-create and take WTW’s DC Master Trust, LifeSight, to market.  This involved designing and setting up the DC Investment offering, being responsible for the asset allocation of the underlying Investment Strategy, setting up the relevant internal and external governance committees and advising the Trustees.

Sukhdeep’s experience also includes being an Investment Committee member of a Euro Secure Income Fund, which invested in income generating real asset investments across the range of secure income assets.

More recently, Sukhdeep proactively spent time away from the pensions industry to work on sustainability initiatives in South America and executive leadership projects, working at a change management consulting firm to gain experience in setting progressive business cultures to help facilitate greater impact and results. She also trained to be a yoga teacher, something she is keen to introduce to the corporate world as part of health & wellbeing priorities.

Sukhdeep enjoys collaborating with clients and comes with a fresh perspective to collaborate with the wider DC community to create innovative solutions to meet the needs of members. She is results focussed and puts her clients at the heart of her decision-making process, whilst consistently encouraging greater diversity and fostering more inclusive work environments to reach the best outcomes.

Rhyadd Keaney-Watkins is a Managing Director and  Head of ESG at Arjun Infrastructure Partners, a London-headquartered and independent asset management firm dedicated to identifying, executing and managing mid-market infrastructure investments. Founded in 2015, Arjun now manages over €7 billion of capital on behalf of prominent institutional investors.

Prior to Arjun, Rhyadd spent over 15 years in sustainability consultancy, advising a range of Development Finance Institutions and Infrastructure Fund Managers on infrastructure ESG strategy development, risk management and value creation. His diverse experience includes advising the International Finance Corporation on solar development in Zambia, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in hydropower and agricultural irrigation in Morocco, and Infrastructure GPs on a range of infrastructure strategies focussing on OECD countries. He has also advised companies on topics such as ground risk and liabilities, greenhouse gas accounting and climate risk assessment.
Rhyadd is a Chartered Environmentalist (C.Env.) and Chartered Member of the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (MCIWEM).

Andrew Williamson is Managing Partner of Cambridge Innovation Capital.

He has 20 years’ experience of venture capital investment, returning to the UK to lead CIC in 2016 having spent ten years in US VC (Physic Ventures in San Francisco and True North Venture Partners in Chicago). Prior to that he was pursuing an academic career path, leading research in clean technology applications at several notable American research institutes. 

At CIC, he has responsibility for overall investment direction, strategic partnerships and policy engagement. He is additionally responsible for all technology investments, which would include AI in healthcare.  CIC Funds span investments in Life Sciences  (encompassing Therapeutics,  MedTech  and Diagnostics) and DeepTech. Andrew has built a team around him which has a strong capability in appraising opportunities arising from scientific innovation in these sectors and the intersection between them, which is reflected in the current portfolio.

Andrew is passionate about continuing to develop and raise awareness of the UK venture ecosystem, which he has been doing through his role on the BVCA Council at the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association and exemplified in his recent appointment as co-lead on the UK Government University spinout review (Nov ’23) by the Treasury.

He holds a PhD in Physics from the University of Cambridge and an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley and is a Kauffman fellow.