Hymans Robertson makes executive appointments

Catherine McFadyen

Hymans Robertson, the pensions, actuarial and financial services consultancy, has announced a number of senior executive appointments.

Catherine McFadyen has been appointed to the role of Head of Pensions in which she will guide the firm’s five pensions market’s business units – Actuarial Private, Actuarial Public, Investment, DC Consulting and TPA – and join the firm’s management board.

She takes on the role from Richard Shackleton, who will now be focusing on the provision of actuarial advice to the company’s clients and supporting various strategic initiatives within the consultancy.

McFadyen joined Hymans Robertson in 2003 and has been a partner since 2014.

“She has deep experience in pensions market, advising large Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) Funds and leading that area of the business,” said Hymans Robertson.

“In stepping into her new role, Catherine will relinquish her responsibilities leading the actuarial public business unit but will retain her LGPS clients and her presence in the LGPS market.”

McFadyen said: “The past few years have been a period of intense activity for the pensions market, and I’m thrilled to take on this role at such an exciting time for pensions with a new Minister and Government in place.

“The next 5 years will be pivotal as the Government looks to address adequacy for savers, consolidation and investment in the UK.

“We have great opportunities to deliver endgame solutions for DB Funds, particularly through our relationships with commercial consolidators and our brilliant risk transfer team.

“And with my open scheme experience, I’m looking forward to helping to continue driving our propositions for longer term run off, continuation of open schemes and the new world of CDC.”

Hymans Robertson has also appointed Rob Bilton as Head of Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) Actuarial and Robbie McInroy as Head of LGPS Client Consulting, co-ordinating across all service lines provided in the LGPS market.

“Rob and Robbie’s appointments follows on from Catherine McFadyen’s appointment as Head of Pensions at the leading pensions and financial services consultancy,” said the firm.

“Rob and Robbie are both partners having started at Hymans Robertson as graduates over 15 years ago.

“Rob has worked with a variety of UK local government clients as a fund actuary and liaises with national LGPS stakeholders on current actuarial issues.

“In recent years, he has also led the development of Hymans Robertson’s actuarial propositions to meet the requirements of an ever-evolving LGPS. In his new role, he will work closely with existing leads Susan Black, Head of LGPS Governance, Administration and Project (GAP) services and Iain Campbell, Head of LGPS Investment.

“Robbie is fund actuary to several LGPS Funds and has been leading the firms LGPS consulting proposition for some time. His wider focus is working with client teams, LGPS funds and other stakeholders to ensure Hymans Robertson meets market needs and delivers a comprehensive offering to the LGPS.”

Hymans Robertson also announced two new hires and a promotion within the firms’ LGPS Governance, Administration and Projects (GAP) team.

Con Hargrave and Michael Burton join the consultancy as Consultants, with Claire McDines being promoted to Associate Consultant.

“Prior to joining Hymans Robertson, Con had 17 years’ of experience, including policy work at the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) where he was a Senior Policy Adviser in the local government pensions team,” said Hymans Robertson.

“Con undertook a leading role on the project to legislate for the remedy to the McCloud discrimination in the LGPS. He has also held key roles at the Local Government Association as Pensions Adviser and London Pensions Fund Authority in the employer services team.

“Michael has around 15 years’ experience working across the finance industry, most recently at The Pensions Regulator and the East Sussex Pension Fund (ESPF).

“At ESPF he led the Governance and Compliance Team, overseeing the development of policies and procedures, providing training, and ensuring Regulatory expectations were met. At TPR, Michael primarily engaged with Public Sector and Private Occupational DB Schemes to resolve breaches of law and improve governance across the market.

“Claire has worked at Hymans Robertson for the past 10 years, initially within the actuarial private sector before joining LGPS as a member of the GAP team.  Claire has experience across all the core GAP team services from the delivery of large-scale data and backlog projects to development of our General Code of Practice Compliance Checker. “