Charles Counsell was appointed Chief Executive of The Pensions Regulator (TPR) on 1 April 2019.

Prior to this Charles was Chief Executive at the Money Advice Service for nearly two years.

Charles spent six years before this as Executive Director for Automatic Enrolment at TPR where he was responsible for the successful roll-out of this programme across the UK, working alongside the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). In his time at TPR, the automatic enrolment programme led to over 7.5 million workers newly saving into a workplace pension from over 500,000 employers.

Charles was awarded an OBE in 2017 for services to workplace pension reform.

He has spent much of his career setting up and leading major change programmes in both the private and public sector in the UK and overseas.

Charles is also a Trustee of South Somerset Citizens Advice.

David was appointed Executive Director of Regulatory Policy, Analysis and Advice on 2 July 2018, having previously been a senior partner in KPMG’s Pension Practice. He is responsible for the development of policy for TPR and has oversight of TPR’s professional advisers including lawyers, actuaries, investment advisers and business analysts.  

He is co-chair of TPR’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee and a member of the cross-Government Portfolio Committee overseeing the introduction of the Pensions Dashboard. He is the responsible Executive for climate change and ESG within TPR and a member of HM Treasury’s TCFD Senior Steering Board, the Stakeholder Stewardship Working Group, the Working Group on Productive Finance and the Climate Financial Risk Forum. He is also a member of the Joint Forum for Actuarial Regulation and chairs the Pensions Working Group. 

David is a former Chairman of the Association of Consulting Actuaries and Director of the Association of Consulting Actuaries Limited, a former Council member of the International Actuarial Association and the inaugural Chairman of the Joint Industry Forum for Workplace Pensions. He was also a Council member of the Society of Pension Consultants and a former Chairman of the Actuaries Club.

David is also Chair of the Genomics Development Board for Sarcoma UK and an advisory Board member of the Association for Business Psychologists and the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Essex University. He is a Governor of the Pensions Policy Institute.

Liz joined TPR as Director of Communications in April 2016. Liz has worked across the public, private and voluntary sectors, joining TPR from the Association of British Insurers where she was Head of Communications from 2010-2016. She joined the Department for Work and Pensions in 2005 as a press officer and then worked as a press secretary to two Secretaries of State during the 2008 financial crisis and during significant reforms to the pensions system which saw the introduction of automatic enrolment into a pension scheme for workers in the UK. She began her career at technology PR firm Firefly Communications in 1999 and also worked as a communications officer for Age Concern – now Age UK.

Dan joined TPR as a Media Officer in February 2020, having previously been on the communications team for a health charity. Before joining TPR, Dan worked as a reporter, sub editor and news editor for local, regional, national and business-to-business media titles. He is a committee member for PROUD, one of TPR’s employee networks.

Tess Craven is the Policy Evaluation and Development Lead at TPR, having previously worked in Parliamentary Affairs. Tess has been with TPR since March 2019, and has been the co-chair of the Women’s Network since October 2020, having previously been a committee member for more than a year.

Prior to working for TPR Tess was the senior caseworker for Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion, a role which she had for 4 years. Tess joined Caroline’s after a 15 year career in the Not-For-Profit sector, working primarily in mental health and homelessness services. She worked in front line support, advocacy and policy development. Throughout her career Tess has focused on the importance of inclusion, and helping people, particularly from marginalised communities, find their voice.

Lisa joined TPR in June 2017, initially working in the Regulatory Transaction Team. Lisa’s current role is as a Specialist in the Rapid Response Team, who respond swiftly to emerging risks to schemes (e.g. corporate restructures, mergers, acquisitions, deteriorating covenant etc), with focus on particular risks to schemes, rather than aggregate issues. In January 2021 in addition to her role as Specialist, Lisa took on the role of Co-Chair of the ME Network at TPR.

Prior to joining TPR Lisa worked in a range of roles in the Social Housing sector.

Alicia is a Specialist within the Relationship Supervision team at TPR and has worked on the DB Superfund project nearly two years. She joined TPR in an FLS role and supported the launch of 121 Supervision. Previously Alicia qualified as a corporate finance solicitor at Slaughter and May and worked in the property department of regional law firm Mayo Wynne Baxter.

Alicia is the co-chair of the Time to Change Network at TPR which champions mental health awareness. She’s been involved with Time to Change since joining TPR in 2018 and is also an active member of TPR’s Women’s Network, the ME Network and the Sustainability Group. Outside of work Alicia volunteers with The Choir with No Name, a choir for people impacted by homelessness or otherwise marginalised. Alicia has also volunteered as a tutor with the Access Project, was a school governor in Wood Green and pre-COVID led volunteer groups, including safety teams at dance events.

Sarah was appointed Chair of The Pensions Regulator in June 2021.

Sarah is an experienced Non-Executive Director and Independent Trustee. She is a qualified Chartered Accountant and has held a portfolio of non-executive and advisory positions. She was a member of the Board, Senior Independent Director and Chair of the Audit and Risk Assurance Committee of TPR from 2016 to 2021.

Sarah has spent over 20 years in the pensions industry in a variety of different roles. She was Chair of TPT Retirement Solutions from 2010 to 2018, has worked with both London Pensions Fund Authority and Lothian Pension Fund, was an independent member of the Investment and Funding Committee for Unilever UK Pension Fund and chaired the Financial Times Pensions Governance Committee. Outside of pensions Sarah has been closely involved in social investment, sitting on the boards of both Social Investment Scotland and Big Society Capital, where she was also Chair of the Audit Committee. She also chaired the Audit Committee of UK Athletics.

Prior to moving to a portfolio career, Sarah worked in the investment management industry. She spent nine years with Standard Life Investments and was latterly responsible for developing and managing liability-driven and absolute return investment solutions for institutional investors. Sarah is highly respected within the pensions industry and has won many accolades for her innovative approach to pensions

Charlotte is a Policy Business Lead at TPR, responsible for policy on our Scrutiny of Decision Making and Bold and Effective Regulation strategic priorities. She is also a member of TPR’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee. Prior to joining TPR, Charlotte worked for DWP for nearly 18 years, including on Automatic Enrolment, Defined Benefit and pensioner poverty policy, as well as on a range of welfare to work issues.

David has been an Intelligence Analyst at TPR since 2013, working first in AE, and then in FLR. He works within the Strategic Intelligence Team, where he supports a variety of decision making forums including TCG and Gateway.

He is Co-Chair of the Disability Network, a member of the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee and part of the Employee Forum.

David formerly ran his own business, ran a foodbank, was trustee of an early year’s educational charity, and had a career in law enforcement, the Army and banking.

Harus Rai is an accredited professional pension trustee and the Head of Sole Trusteeship for Capital Cranfield. He has been in the pension industry for over 20 years the last 11 of which has been working for professional trustee firms. In 2017 he joined Capital Cranfield, one of the largest professional trustee firms in the UK, to overview their entire sole trustee proposition.

In 2020 Harus was elected to the Council of the Association of Professional Pension Trustees and currently sits on their Diversity & Inclusion Committee looking to promote D&I amongst the professional trustee arena. He also sits as a co-Chair of one of the working sub-group established by the Pensions Regulator which is looking to promote D&I amongst all types of trusteeship.

Kim joined Legal & General as Pension Scheme Director in February 2020, delivering the executive support for the Mastertrust and Independent Governance Committee.  Kim is also a committee member at NextGen, an organisation focused on giving fresh ideas a voice and helping new talent in pensions.  Before that, she worked for the Pensions Regulator for 12 years in a number of roles. Most recently, Kim was responsible for both the design and delivery of mastertrust authorisation and supervision.

In her spare time, Kim enjoys playing netball with a very amateur but determined local side. Living in Brighton, she enjoys the outdoor life, both in her garden and by the pebbly seaside.

Hadassah is a Senior Associate at CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang.

As well as being chair of the practical tools subgroup of TPR’s working group, she is also co-chair of the research and insights sub committee of NextGen who are also looking at inclusion and diversity in our industry.  

Matt joined TPR as Media Relations Manager in 2014 having worked as a national and regional journalist and a public relations director for nearly 20 years. He now manages TPR’s media and parliamentary team, part of the Public Affairs unit. Matt started in general news media, reporting major breaking news stories for regional newspapers in Wiltshire and Brighton before joining the Press Association where he covered current affairs at a national level. Matt then moved into communications, handling PR, crisis comms and media relations for a range of companies and local authorities before joining TPR.