About Us

Ian Brimecome was appointed Chairman in September 2009. He joined the Board in January 2007 and is Chairman of the Nominations Committee.  He is Executive Chairman International of Tokio Marine Holdings and a non-executive Director of Axa UK plc., R J Kiln and Co. Ltd. and Edelweiss Tokio Life in India. Ian is also Chairman of Kiln Group Ltd., Tokio Marine North America, Bluefin Group Limited and associated companies and is Deputy Chairman of Tokio Marine Asia. He is an outside Board Member of Philadelphia Consolidated Holdings in the United States.  Ian has over 30 years of experience of the financial services industry in a wide variety of roles. He has advised on more than 100 merger and acquisition transactions in the insurance and asset management industries in more than 20 countries.

Chris Wiscarson was appointed Chief Executive in September 2009. He was previously at Lloyds Banking Group where he held very senior roles on the Group Executive Committee — most recently Group Integration Director. He started his career with Equitable Life, before moving to South Africa in 1979 as General Manager of Southern Life. In 1986, he returned to England to take up the position of Chief Executive of Save & Prosper Insurance. In 1990, he became European Director of the Lloyds Abbey Life Group and, in 1991, took up the position of Group Finance Director before becoming Chief Executive of Lloyds TSB Life. At the beginning of 2000, Chris took responsibility for the non-UK businesses in the Lloyds TSB Group, participating in 30 countries.

David Adams joined the Board in April 2001. He was appointed Deputy Chairman on 1 April 2010. He was Finance Director from 1974 and Chief Executive from 1979 of Harrow Council. In 1987 he became Finance Director of the Railways Pension Scheme and was appointed Chief Executive four years later. From 1997 to 2000 he was Chief Executive of CIPFA. He is a non-executive Director of the Keystone Investment Trust plc. He is honorary Chair of Trustees of the Mencap Pension Plan Trustees.

Mark Earls joined the Board in September 2009 having worked for Equitable Life since 2002. He was responsible for managing the programmes which led to the transfers of the non-profit annuities to Canada Life and the with-profits annuities to Prudential. He is playing the leading role in securing the new administration arrangements. Prior to joining Equitable, he was a Programme Director at PwC and prior to that spent 20 years at Marks and Spencer.

Keith Nicholson joined the Board in August 2009. He chairs the Audit and Risk Committee. Keith left KPMG in 2009 after more than 30 years with the firm. He has a wealth of experience with financial services companies covering audit and advisory roles. These included FTSE 100 companies in the UK and non-UK multinationals. He has also served on the Auditing Practices Board and on the Insurance Subcommittee of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

Ian Reynolds, a Chartered Director and qualified actuary, joined the Board in October 2006. He is a non-executive Director of Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society and of Alternative Assets Opportunities. He served ten years on the Council of the Institute of Actuaries. Ian has over 40 years of experience in the insurance industry. He held the roles of UK Divisional Director and then General Manager Life at Commercial Union plc and a variety of posts at Royal Insurance. He has also worked as an insurance Special Advisor at the Financial Services Authority.

Cathryn Riley joined the Board in August 2009. She chairs the Remuneration Committee. She is the UK Commercial Director at Aviva plc after having served in a number of executive roles within the Aviva Group. In a wide-ranging career covering human resources, customer services, operations and general management, she has worked for British Coal, British Airways, Coopers & Lybrand and BUPA before joining Aviva in 1996.