The Trustees
The Pace Trustee Board is called Pace Trustees Limited and is a separate company from the Co-op.
A trustee board is a group of people, known as trustees, who make sure that a pension scheme is run in the best interests of members. Trustees work closely with specialist advisers, who help them look after a number of areas, including investments, governance, funding and administration.
The Pace Trustee Board is made up of four professional independent Trustees. A short biography of each of the Trustees is below. The Pace Trustees have significant, relevant pensions experience.
The Pace Trustees meet frequently and undertake regular training in relation to issues that they will need to understand in detail in order to carry out their role, for example, investment strategy or valuing DB scheme benefits, as well as current pensions issues.
Professional Independent Trustees
Chris Martin (Chair)
Chris Martin was elected Chair of the Pace Board in May 2019 and is the founder and Executive Chairman of Independent Trustee Services (ITS).
He has been a professional trustee for 27 years and acts as trustee on a number of complex defined benefit schemes. He also leads on two of ITS’s larger defined contribution schemes.
Chris has been a Trustee on some of the Co-op’s other pension schemes for four years.
Stuart Benson
Stuart Benson is a professional independent trustee and has been a Trustee of Pace since November 2014.
He is a former actuary, and was previously a partner with a leading global pension consultancy, with many years of experience in working with schemes of all sizes, particularly on funding, investment and risk issues.
Anne Kershaw
Anne Kershaw has been an independent trustee on the Pace Trustee Board since October 2016.
She is a qualified actuary with over 35 years' pensions and investment experience. She is also an Associate Director at Muse Advisory, advising pension scheme trustees and sponsors on governance matters with a particular specialism on investment governance issues.
Prior to 2009, Anne was a Worldwide Partner at Mercer where her most recent responsibility was leading the Scottish investment team.
Christopher Wheeler
Christopher Wheeler is a professional independent trustee employed by BESTrustees Limited and has been a Trustee of Pace since August 2018.
He is an experienced pension trustee of both defined benefit and defined contribution schemes and also has over 20 years of banking experience.
Christopher is both a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. He was also a Senior Advisor to the Pensions Regulator for two years until November 2018.