"Good afternoon, and thank you, Nic, for once again convening this forward-thinking forum.
The World Pension & Investments Forum is one of the rare places where genuinely new ideas about long-term capital can surface — where we look beyond our own jurisdictions and ask how pensions ought to work, not merely how they currently do.
It’s a pleasure to be with you.
I’m here in two capacities:
as Chief Executive of ShareAction, a civil society organisation working for a financial system that serves people and planet, and as a trustee of Nest, the UK’s largest pension scheme by membership — with just shy of 14 million savers.
Both roles give me an appreciation of something very simple:
decision-making improves when it is scrutinised, explained, and accountable.
And nowhere is this truer than in the defined contribution era, where deeper member participation is, I predict, going to become essential to the credibility and long-term success of our pensions systems.
I’d like to begin somewhere slightly unexpected: ancient Athens.
The Athenians built democratic practices that still echo today — deliberation, public reasoning, scrutiny of officeholders, and a belief that citizens should have a voice in decisions affecting the community.
But let me acknowledge something upfront: they didn’t get everything right.
Women were excluded, the slaves of Athenian citizens were excluded. As someone who owes a personal debt to the courage of suffragists and suffragettes, I’m grateful democracy has broadened since the days of ancient Greece.
Still, the Athenians handed us a principle of enduring relevance:
those affected by decisions should have a meaningful voice in making them. I believe that principle belongs at the centre of pension governance in the 21st century.
In defined benefit schemes, institutions hold the liability — and therefore hold the power. But in defined contribution schemes, risk has migrated:
market risk, longevity risk and inflation risk
—all now borne by individual members.
But power has not migrated with it. Most members don’t know who runs their pension scheme, how decisions are made, or how their money is invested on their behalf.
We have democratised ownership of assets while leaving governance of assets largely insulated.
It seems to me that imbalance is not sustainable. If members bear the risks, members deserve a stronger voice in the governance of their capital. This is not sentimentality. It is a foundation for legitimacy and long-term trust.
One of the strengths of this Forum is that it reminds us that pension governance varies very significantly around the world. Denmark stands out with member representation on boards; joint governance between employers and unions; transparency as a cultural norm; schemes that hold annual general meetings; schemes that allow members to elect fiduciaries.
The election of fiduciaries has been normal practice in the corporate sector since the 19th century but it is vanishingly rare in pension fund governance in this country. As a shareholder in a company, I can vote for its directors. As a member of a pension scheme, this is highly unusual, certainly in the UK.
But it happens in Denmark and the result is high trust across Danish society in its pensions system and strong alignment between scheme governance and member priorities.
In the Netherlands, accountability bodies routinely review and challenge trustee decisions.
In Sweden, member-elected representatives help shape investment risk appetite.
In Australia, several super funds are using digital tools to crowdsource member views on stewardship themes.
These aren’t abstractions. They’re proof that participation of members works in many places. It is evidence that the UK is well-placed to learn from global peers.
Before turning to technology and innovation in pension fund governance models, I want to pause on something important: what pension savers themselves actually value.
A recent Survation poll, commissioned by ShareAction earlier this year, showed that 88% of the British public say paying a real Living Wage is important whilst 77% say it matters to them that their pension is invested in companies that treat their staff well, including paying the Real Living Wage. Among Nest members, a scheme with a high proportion of low and moderate earners in its membership, support for this is particularly strong. Working people saving into pension schemes intuitively understand that fair wages, safe conditions and dignity at work are the foundations of long-term, sustainable business performance.
Which leads me to a simple but significant question: Are pension schemes today acting in ways that reflect these very clear member priorities?
Because if our stewardship activity, our voting decisions, or our investment practices stray too far from what our members value, trust will erode. And if we truly believe — as I do — that pension assets are the deferred wages of working people, then their views and values must have a more direct route into scheme governance and investment decision-making.
As we consider pension fund governance, we also many strong institutional traditions to draw on.
From corporate governance, we can draw the very idea of fiduciary duty but also independent oversight, the right to scrutinise, and transparent reporting. From mutuals, we can draw examples of lively member participation, meaningful elections, and cultures that strengthen through dialogue.
Modern pension schemes should combine these traditions:
the rigour of fiduciary governance with the legitimacy of democratic participation.
For years, the resistance to deeper member engagement was that it would be too costly, too complex, too unwieldy.
Technology — and especially AI — is making those objections obsolete.
Schemes can now rapidly consult members, run polls, crowdsource insights, and create digital touchpoints that were unthinkable a decade ago.
For members, AI is a powerful enabler. It means members can digest thousands of pages of voting records, ESG analyses, controversies and climate data — and turn them into plain-English, personalised insights.
A member could ask:
“How did my pension scheme vote at company AGMs this season? And how does this compare to other schemes like mine?”
“Which companies in my portfolio have labour or safety issues?”
“Explain my scheme’s climate pathway and risk management.”
AI is rapidly shifting the way people think about and make decisions relating to their personal finances. It won’t leave pensions untouched.
When it comes to offering members the chance to engage with their fiduciaries, hybrid member meetings — not purely virtual AGMs — would seem to offer the best of both worlds:
direct, physical proximity between trustees and members combined with digital reach that allows participation far beyond those able to attend an AGM in person.
Technology, used well, should extend democratic practice without weakening its human core.
Nest is about to take an important step — modest in scale, but ambitious in intention.
In early 2026, Nest will hold its first Members’ Assembly — a citizens’ assembly of around 70 Nest savers, selected by sortition. They will spend four days — in two blocks — learning about and deliberating on what Nest’s priorities should be in responsible investment.
Let me emphasise modesty here:
this is an experiment.
It hasn’t happened yet.
We expect to learn a great deal about what works, what doesn’t, and how deliberative structures apply in the context of a large pension scheme.
But we hope it will give us a richer picture of what matters to our members, insights on how to balance risk-adjusted returns with members’ interest in corporate behaviour and impacts, and guidance that will feed into Nest’s triennial review of our Statement of Investment Principles. It should shape our responsible investment priorities for the next few years.
Whether this model will become a standing part of our governance cycle is something we will learn over time.
But it is a serious attempt to deepen member voice in a structured, thoughtful way.
More broadly, we are seeing across the pensions industry, here and overseas, a range of efforts to bring members closer to decision making:
• Member advisory panels,
• Participatory stewardship,
• Digital dashboards,
These innovations do not weaken fiduciary duty.
They strengthen it — by grounding expert judgement in the lived priorities of real people.
Public trust depends on openness, fairness, and voice.
Governance improves when decisions are explained and subjected to scrutiny. This leads me to a conviction, you might call it a provocation: that the future of pensions will become more democratic or it will become less legitimate.
Let me end by returning to the Athenians.
They understood that participation wasn’t an optional extra. It was the source of legitimacy.
Our pension systems shape the long-term fortunes of millions. Collectively, it is our privilege to invest trillions on our members’ behalf. Our sector influences the future society millions will retire into.
With modern tools — digital platforms, data, AI — we can bring democratic principles into pensions in a way the Athenians could never imagine.
What we must recover is their insight that those who bear the consequences of decisions deserve a voice in shaping them.
If we hold true to that, the evolution of defined contribution pensions will produce a system that is resilient, responsive, better trusted, and ultimately more human.
Thank you."
