20-20 Trustees, one of the UK’s leading independent trustee firms, has further strengthened its national presence in 2019 with the opening of a new Birmingham office. The additional office takes us to four locations in the UK, with current offices in London, Manchester and Nottingham. The new office will be headed up by Trustee Directors Julia Yates and Nadeem Ladha.
The office opening follows a recent recruitment drive that saw five new Trustee Directors join the 20-20 Trustees team.
Kevin Dolan joined earlier this year from the Pension Protection Fund’s restructuring team where he played a key role in a number of high profile insolvencies and brings a wealth of experience in dealing with complex cases involving the Pensions Regulator and PPF.
Mark Cliff, a professional trustee for over ten years, is Chair of a major retail pension scheme as well as a broader portfolio of schemes. He was previously Pensions Director at Manchester Airport Group where he was responsible for management of senior stakeholders on strategy, funding, investment, financial accounting and oversight of delivery of trustee services by third-party providers, as well as Trade Union relationships.
Duncan Willsher joins from Willis Towers Watson where he spent 14 years in senior investment consultancy positions where he built a wealth of experience as lead adviser to a number of large institutional investors, advising DB and DC pension scheme Trustees, companies, multinationals, and charities. During his time as Global Head of the Custody Research and Consulting team, Duncan led a global team of experienced professionals to help clients improve their governance and operational efficiency, as well as managing and negotiating costs out of clients’ portfolios.
Chris Halewood joined the team following the acquistion of independent trustee business CS Trustees. A professional trustee for 17 years, Chris has a wide range of DB, DC and hybrid Trustee appointments ranging from £3m to over £500m.
Aimee Denham will join the firm in July 2019 and will be based in the newly established Birmingham office. Amy’s career has been spent in a number of senior roles with ‘big four’ consultancies KPMG, Deloitte and most recently as PwC where she was Senior Manager for Pensions and Employee Benefits with particular expertise in DC but also providing advice to a variety of clients across the UK in relation to scheme design, governance and risk management, strategy, communications, scheme closures and provider review and selection.
Commenting on the recent growth of the firm, Managing Director Naomi L’Estrange, said “In 2018 we recognised the huge opportunities in the Trustee market and set ourselves the target of recruiting dynamic and experienced trustees with a diverse skill set to help schemes meet their needs and build on groundbreaking work by our founder Antony Miller and the wider team. I’ve been delighted by the level of talent that we have been able to bring into the business and we’ve already seen our new directors have an immediate impact on the schemes they work with. We’ve also been able to recruit internally and externally at a number of levels and have a team of experienced and knowledgeable Trustee Consultants and Associate Directors, across four locations, supporting all areas of the business”.
20-20 Trustees’ contribution has not gone unnoticed in the industry, with the firm winning ‘Independent Trustee Company of the Year’ at the 2019 Pension & Investment Provider Awards and ‘Independent Trustee of the Year’ at the UK Pensions Awards 2019. Naomi L’Estrange is also nominated for ‘Pensions Woman of the Year’ at the Women in Pensions Awards 2019 having won Trustee of the Year at the same awards last year.