OAC - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Consultant Actuary
Before joining OAC Ben was a Pension Scheme Actuary with nine years of experience advising trustee and corporate clients of varying sizes and types of schemes. Ben is looking for a new challenge in our Redress Solutions Team and will add to the experience in the team with his ability to undertake complex calculations and his skills and passion for developing actuarial systems.
Outside of work, Ben spends his free time playing various sports; admitting to playing anything badly but Squash and Hockey are what he does most of.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Head of Redress Solutions
Brian joined OAC having previously been a partner at Hymans Robertson, serving as its Senior Actuary for 15 years. Brian has been a Scheme Actuary for over 20 years advising many schemes up to £3bn in size helping them into positions of financial strength. Brian provides leadership on both technical and professional issues and has acted as an expert witness in many professional negligence cases over the last 10 years.
Job Titles:
- Head
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Head of Insurance Consulting
- Senior Member
Cara is a senior member of the actuarial consulting team and holds roles as Chief Actuary, With-Profits Actuary and Reviewing Actuary. Her main areas of expertise are regulatory reporting and financial modelling, coupled with 20 years' experience of various aspects of with-profits business.
Cara is adept at communicating effectively and to take responsibility for the delivery of high-quality work within agreed timescales. She has much experience of managing and delivering year-end valuations to clients, as well as embedding all aspects of Solvency II.
Cara has spoken at a number of industry events and has a specific interest in the benefits of, and promotion of, smaller mutuals. She's member of the Association of Financial Mutuals' Health and Protection Committee, and previously on the Regulation and Governance Committee. Cara is also an assistant examiner for the Actuarial Profession and currently volunteers for one of the Profession's Working Parties.
Prior to joining OAC she worked for Royal London Group where she gained extensive experience at a senior level in the management of with-profits business.
Outside of work, Cara has completed her Leadership Qualification for Girlguiding and volunteers weekly at her local Rainbow unit. She also enjoys road trips with her young family in their campervan, playing the piano, long walks in the hills and looking after her garden.
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Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Consultant and Practice Leader
Christine is an experienced Consultant and Practice Leader responsible for the development and delivery of all aspects of OAC's investment complaint and business review casework.
She has a comprehensive portfolio. In addition to large and small business review loss assessment projects, Christine has completed, and audited, all aspects of investment complaint processing, including investigations, compliance assessment and reporting, redress calculation and settlement.
Christine possesses an in-depth knowledge of the Personal Pension, FSAVC and Pension Switching reviews, Endowment policy review and SERPS complaint issues.
Outside of work, Christine loves food, friends and fresh air.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Consultant Actuary
Claire is an experienced actuary who joined OAC in October 2017 with ten years' Life Actuary experience and five years' management experience.
Claire has gained experience in various fields during her time as an actuary. She commenced as a student actuary at Britannia Life where she gained broad actuarial experience before moving to Abbey National (later Santander) where initially she was part of the interdisciplinary team tasked with launching new products into the UK, Belgium, Germany and Hong Kong. Following this she moved to the International Product Development Team as their International Product Development Manager working on product pricing, international product development and then moved to managing the Financial Modelling team. When she joined OAC, she was the Project Manager for the Insurance Consulting team before moving to the Redress team. Since then, she has gained experience on many different types of Redress calculations and clients.
Outside of work, she enjoys swimming, reading, following her football team, Rangers, and scaring her children on roller coasters.
Job Titles:
- Chief Executive
- Chief Executive Officer
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Appointed CEO in 2013, Responsible for Strategy and Vision
- Head of Financial Modelling
Joined OAC in 2009 as Head of Financial Modelling, overseeing business development and Mo.
Fifteen years' previous experience of financial software development and delivery for many international financial institutions.
Experience of governance risk and compliance, introducing systems and related services internationally.
Darren joined OAC in 2009 as Head of Financial Modelling. He was responsible for overseeing the development of Mo.net, OAC's actuarial modelling solution, and the global business development strategy.
Since 2013 Darren has held the role of Chief Executive with responsibility for all elements of OAC's strategy and vision.
Prior to joining OAC, Darren had 15 years' experience of financial software development and delivery for major international banks, insurance companies, central banks, regulators and government departments in the USA and UK.
Darren sits on the OAC Board and also the Board of our subsidiary software business, Software Alliance Ltd.
Outside of work, as well as being a husband and father to two boys, Max and Ethan, his major hobby is football. Until recently he was Chairman of a local children's football club with 15 teams and still manages to play goalkeeper for Caldecote Old Crocs veteran football team. On occasion, he can also be seen cycling the banks of the River Cam trying to stop any accidents at his son's rowing club.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Consultant Actuary
David joined OAC in August 2011 with 16 years' experience of working in life offices. Since joining, David has been involved with all aspects of Solvency I and II valuations (assets and liabilities), own risk and solvency assessments (and in their past guises), profitability and pricing calculations, loss assessment calculations (including expert witness cases) and research and communication.
As part of the preparation for Solvency II, David was a member of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries' Life Solvency II Current Issues Committee. Internally, David was particularly involved in assessing the reporting requirements (Pillar III) and continues to monitor and share key developments in this area alongside capital requirements.
David is responsible for technical research at OAC, keeping abreast of technical and other developments, disseminating the knowledge around the firm and to clients.
His early career focused on completing valuations for pension schemes, embedded values and the Pensions Review, before David specialised in FSA statutory valuations and the management of with-profits business. David broadened his experience in his role as the actuarial representative on a Legal Development Forum and assisting in the preparation of expert witness cases.
David is keen to build on his knowledge with recent activities in the areas of data science, data visualisation and climate change.
Outside of work, David has an interest in various sports in an attempt to stave off middle age (not there yet) and keeping up with two young children.
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Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Consultant Actuary
Erika is a qualified actuary with over 17 years of post-qualification experience in the insurance industry. Her main areas of expertise are regulatory reporting, modelling, and with-profits fund management.
At OAC, Erika manages the actuarial function for several mutual insurers, including liaising directly with the Reviewing Actuary and drafting Board reports. She also regularly provides peer reviews, covering life insurance, critical illness, and funeral plans.
Erika enjoys collaborating with people from all areas of expertise and backgrounds, and is committed to delivering BAU work and projects successfully, on time, and in the right way, whether in hands-on technical work or in management. She is a contributing member of the IFoA Management of Closed With-Profits Funds working party.
Prior to joining OAC in 2019, Erika worked for several life insurers and consultancies, including Sun Life, LV=, AIG, and Deloitte, where she enjoyed driving key business improvements.
Outside of work, she keeps busy with her young daughter, particularly dance performances, and loves worldwide travel.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Head of Culture & Organisational Development
Frances is responsible for developing the OAC culture and operations infrastructure to ensure it always fully supports our staff and is reflected in the quality of services we provide to our clients.
Before joining OAC, Frances had 30 years of operational and business management experience in the City for international investment banks and structured finance companies.
Outside of work, Frances is an avid reader, enjoys keeping fit by walking the family Dachshund/Jack Russell-cross, yoga, entertaining family and friends, eating out and visiting new places. She recently re-kindled her love of skiing with a trip to Austria. Above all, Frances enjoys peace and tranquillity.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Head of Non - Life Consultancy
Graeme is a senior actuary with over 35 years' business management and actuarial experience in the life assurance, investment and pension fields, both in the UK and internationally.
Graeme is particularly suited to helping clients with risk management projects because of his Board level experience, his background in marketing and product development, experience in insurance policy administration, knowledge of pensions' consultancy and exposure to life and general insurance reporting. He understands the business processes supporting insurance business from sales and marketing through to the safe custody of assets.
Within the context of Solvency II, Graeme consults on all aspects of the regulatory requirements for Standard Formula firms and fulfils the role of Chief Actuary for one General Insurance client.
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Head of Financial Modelling
Greig is a consultant and part-qualified actuary with a passion for financial modelling. Since joining OAC in June 2011, he has become a leading expert in the use of OAC's Mo.net financial modelling platform.
As well as developing a wide range of cashflow models for annuities, conventional non-profit, with-profit and unit-linked products, Greig has also developed solutions to calculate market risks and Solvency Capital Requirements under Solvency II.
Greig brings an enthusiastic can-do attitude to projects, from the pre-sales stage through to the final completed project, often working to challenging deadlines and budgets.
Outside of work, Greig is busy with his family, but can otherwise be found at a football ground or at a local parkrun.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Consultant Actuary
Ianthe is a qualified actuary with over 15 years' experience in the life insurance industry. She spent a large part of her career working in a variety of roles at Standard Life, with a focus on risk management and product development.
Ianthe joined OAC in September 2017, and since joining has worked on Solvency II valuations, as well as experience analyses, funeral plans and PRIIPs. She enjoys producing work to a high technical standard and has a friendly approachable nature.
Outside of work, Ianthe is kept busy with her two young children. She also loves cooking, running with friends, swimming and windsurfing.
Job Titles:
- Pensions Administrative Coordinator
Jennifer's early career was as a Research and Development Technologist in the paint and plastics industries before moving into administrative roles for East Renfrewshire Council supporting teaching staff and school management in day-to-day admin. Jennifer lives in Glasgow with her family and loves travelling, watching her son play football (her husband is the team coach) and shopping with her daughter.
Prior to working at OAC, Jess worked for a medium sized accountancy firm where she qualified as a Chartered Accountant. Jess is responsible for the day-to-day running of our finance department as well as getting involved in projects such as the implementation of expenses software and alignment of finance processes and controls across the group.
Jess is from Yeovil in the west country and outside work likes to get out for walks to the park or along the Dorset coast.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Consultant Actuary
- Consultant Actuary and Senior Quality Assurance Representative
John has over 30 years' insurance industry experience and acts as Chief Actuary and Appropriate Actuary. He previously held roles of Chief Risk Officer, member of Risk, Investment and With-Profits Committees, along with a number of other key governance committees.
John is a senior member of the actuarial consulting team and holds roles as Chief Actuary and Appropriate Actuary. His main areas of expertise are regulatory reporting and managing actuarial strategies in large corporate project.
Prior to joining OAC in 2019, John spent more than 30 years working for Abbey Life Assurance Company Limited. There he held roles as Chief Risk Officer and Chief Actuary as well as leading the actuarial function and developing and maintaining an effective risk management framework. He has extensive experience advising boards and committees and managing teams through periods of great change.
Outside of work he enjoys travel, walking his beagle and playing the trombone in a local brass band.
Karen is an experienced Consultant who manages and delivers all aspects of investment, pension complaint and business review casework. Her familiarity with the administration of financial products means that Karen is adept at understanding the challenges faced by OAC clients.
In addition to business review loss assessments, work has included the whole investment complaint process from the initial complaint acknowledgement through to the investigation, compliance assessment, compliance reporting, redress calculation and settlement.
Karen's in-depth knowledge extends to the Personal Pension, FSAVC and Pension Switching reviews and SERPS complaint issues.
Outside of work, Karen interests include playing the flugelhorn in a brass band, reading, knitting and plenty of dog walking.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Consultant Actuary
Kath joined OAC in 2022 and is a qualified actuary with over 10 years' experience in the life industry. Kath specialises in actuarial model development and control and loves finding efficient and practical solutions to complex problems.
Prior to joining OAC Kath gained experience across a range of actuarial areas in the life assurance industry at HSBC. She has managed a number of large-scale actuarial modelling projects, including the migration of models between software platforms, and the creation of a suite of new models for an overseas subsidiary.
Outside of work, Kath likes to spend time with her two children, who are now too old to justify her ongoing enjoyment of Lego. She also enjoys gardening and cryptic crosswords.
Lilian joined OAC in September as an apprentice data analyst. Earlier this year Lilian achieved AAA in her Maths, Computer Science and Music Technology A levels.
Lilian has an interest in finding patterns and doing calculations with large amounts of data. Lilian is OAC's first apprentice and we view it as a very exciting opportunity for both OAC and Lilian.
Outside of work Lilian enjoys singing in choirs and reading articles on the internet.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Consultant Actuary
Mel is a qualified actuary with 30 years of experience in the life and health assurance industry. She has a breadth of experience in both pricing and reporting fields, having worked for reinsurers, direct insurers and consultancies. As well as being part of the both the reporting and financial modelling teams, Mel is responsible for the pricing function within OAC. She has valuable insight into the whole pricing process from design stage to product launch and the embedding of new products in financial models. Mel has extensive knowledge of many actuarial software packages and has built bespoke models to price new products including dynamic tools for sales forecasting and post-launch monitoring tools.
Outside of work, Mel enjoys being on stage with her local musical theatre group and spending time with her 3 musical children.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Actuarial Analyst
Moira is a part-qualified actuary with over 20 years' postgraduate experience gained in the financial services industry, specialising in life, pensions and investments. She has excellent in-depth technical skills utilising Mo.net, Excel, VBA, VB.Net, Microsoft Access and SQL.
Her knowledge spans both the policy administration/system side of the actuarial world and the more standard Solvency II valuation modelling part of the discipline.
Moira joined OAC in January 2017, and since joining has worked on Solvency II valuations and reporting, as well as building financial models in Mo.net.
Job Titles:
- Pensions Redress Data Co - Ordinator
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Actuarial Consultant
Phil is an actuarial consultant with over 20 years of consultancy experience. Phil has worked in the compliance, pensions and life assurance sectors. Phil has gained valuable experience in pensions, mortgage endowment and other compliance and redress calculations with experience in the complete loss assessment process . Phil also has experience in Solvency I and II valuations, forward looking assessments of solvency, investment strategy, financial and regulatory reporting, risk management, product development and external audits, cleaning and manipulating data, developing financial models and deriving financial and demographic assumptions.
Outside of work, Phil's main interests are very much sport related, watching, playing and coaching. Phil has run many marathons both in the UK and internationally and has a keen interest in American sports.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Consultant Actuary
Rachel is a qualified actuary with over 25 years' experience and has previously held a Chief Actuary position.
Outside of work Rachel enjoys walking in the countryside, spending time with her family and home improvement projects. Rachel also likes going to the cinema & films in general, visiting new places in the UK, entertaining family & friends and travelling the world. Like many of our other actuaries, she also loves getting lost in a good jigsaw!
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Actuarial Analyst
Rae started her career at Steve Dixon before working as an actuarial analyst at Sterling Insurance Group. Rae lives with her partner and two young children in Kent, enjoys playing competitive netball, visiting new places and socialising with friends and family.
Richard is a Microsoft Certified IT Professional with over 20 years of industry experience in private and public sectors, from healthcare to financial services. At OAC, he is responsible for the development and security of the firm's IT infrastructure, ensuring staff are equipped with the most suitable tools to fulfil their roles within a controlled, productive and secure environment. This also extends to specific software solutions provided to clients.
A graduate from Manchester University's computing school, he has worked in varied roles and built up a broad range of technical skills from the early days of Novell and Microsoft networks, through SAN's and VMWare to the latest cloud technology.
Outside of work, Richard can often be found at the North Wales Tennis Centre or watching Manchester United (mostly from the comfort of the sofa).
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Head of Data Analytics / Consultant Actuaries
Richard joined OAC in 2010 and is a qualified actuary with over 15 years' experience gained in life assurance and investment companies.
His main area of expertise is financial modelling. Having held a variety of roles within different life companies he has the ability to adapt to different products and systems.
Outside of work, Richard enjoys cooking, travel and listening to all types of music.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Consultant Actuary
Roger is a qualified actuary with over 40 years' experience gained in pensions and life assurance with actuarial consultancies and life offices.
He is system and project orientated, with the ability to communicate complex issues to non-actuarial personnel and clients. Roger is a self-starter who can work effectively alone or as part of a team.
For the past 24 years at OAC, Roger has provided and supported the provision of advice to insurance companies, regulatory bodies, pension scheme trustees and employers, independent financial advisers, solicitors and their clients.
Roger has also provided Skilled Person's Reports under Section 166 of Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.
Outside of work, Roger sings with a choral society and enjoys outdoor pursuits, principally gardening and walking.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Consultant Actuary and Head of Risk
Sally has over 30 years' insurance industry experience and is a senior member of the actuarial consulting team. She holds roles as Chief Actuary and With-Profits Actuary and her main areas of expertise are regulatory reporting and the management of with-profits funds.
Prior to joining OAC in 2017, Sally held a number of roles, including Actuarial Manager, Chief Finance Officer and Chief Risk Officer. She has extensive experience of reporting at Board level and has regularly attended Board and Committee meetings, has recruited and developed an in-house actuarial team with the appropriate skills to provide a full range of actuarial support.
Sally is also a member of the ILAG Prudential Regulation Practitioner Group.
Outside of work, she enjoys being part of her local sailing community, where her family spends much of their time, and pottering in her garden.
Job Titles:
- Company Secretary
- Head of Finance
- Member of the Leadership Team
Sally spent the first ten years of her career as a Pensions Actuary advising mainly city-based financial institutions on their employee benefits offerings and helping trustees run their pension schemes. Following a move to rural Somerset to start a family she retrained and acquired financial advisor, accountancy and tax qualifications. She spent a number of years working as a Tax Advisor to local businesses before moving to OAC to run the finance department.
Outside of work, Sally finds balance in yoga and playing for the local tennis club and spends as much time as possible trying to tame a somewhat unruly garden.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Consultant Actuary
Simon is an experienced actuary who joined OAC in January 2022. He enjoys providing simple solutions to complex problems.
During the almost 30 years prior to joining OAC, Simon held roles at Deloitte, Aon Hewitt, PwC, KPMG and Mercer where he primarily advised corporate sponsors of defined benefit pension schemes on all aspects of pension scheme management. For over a decade, Simon was a member of the Association of Consulting Actuaries' accounting committee, including chairing it for a number of years.
When not working, Simon runs and cycles, and walks his mischievous puppy.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Consultant Actuary
- Member of the Actuarial Team
Subbu joined OAC in 2015 and has since qualified as a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries.
Subbu is an enthusiastic member of the actuarial team and her core expertise is in financial reporting, with extensive experience of regulatory valuations including Solvency II reporting, along with Market Consistent Embedded Value and Value of New Business calculations. She also has extensive knowledge of carrying out experience analysis and using these to set pricing and valuation bases. Subbu also worked in actuarial system migration and testing projects.
As well as projects in the life insurance sector, she has worked on projects in both the general insurance and funeral sector.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Leadership Team
- Consultant Actuary
Tom is an experienced actuary who joined OAC in February 2022.
In the 16 years prior to joining OAC, Tom worked at Mercer, a global benefits consultancy. He assisted Trustees of defined benefit pension schemes in a wide array of actuarial and scheme management matters. His experience also includes providing valuations and reports, under various accounting standards, to corporate sponsors of defined benefit schemes.
Outside of work Tom enjoys running and cycling in the Surrey hills.