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.

Nicola Parish was appointed Executive Director for Front-Line Regulation in July 2016.

Nicola has worked at TPR in various roles for eight years, including as Director of Legal Services and Enterprise Risk Management, and her most recent role as Director of Case Management.

As Executive Director she is responsible for the education and enablement activities of TPR’s Customer Support and Regulatory Transactions teams, risk identification and escalation by Intelligence, and the enforcement interventions of TPR’s Case Management team. She will also be responsible for the delivery by TPR of the new approach to the regulation of master trusts.

Nicola began her career in the City as a litigation lawyer for Denton Hall. In 1996 she joined the Securities and Futures Authority as a senior prosecutions lawyer. She later worked in the Enforcement Division of the Financial Services Authority for 8 years before joining TPR in 2008 as a litigator.

Mike is head of intelligence at The Pensions Regulator. Prior to this Mike was the manager for the triage team within TPR’s risk department which is responsible for identifying thematic, event driven and systemic risks to pension schemes and providing an intelligence picture.

Mike has been with the regulator and its predecessor OPRA for 15 years. Mike has also worked as a case manager in enforcement and as an intelligence analyst in triage.

Nick is a Policy Lead in the Regulatory Policy Analysis & Advice directorate at TPR.

Nick joined TPR in 2016. Since then he has spent most of his time involved in the development of the master trust authorisation framework. He also spends a significant portion of his time dealing with Public Service Pension Schemes.

Prior to joining the Regulator Nick has had a varied career pensions covering two decades. In this time, he has developed experience of administration, consultancy, sales, product design and policy.

Sarah Webster is the Campaign Manager responsible for scams at TPR.

Sarah has been at the regulator since 2014 being instrumental in helping to bring ‘Workie’ to the world. She was also part of the original team which devised and implemented the joint TPR-FCA ScamSmart pensions campaign which has seen hundreds of thousands of savers check who they are dealing with before making any decision about their pensions. Sarah joined TPR following a career in marketing in the financial sector.

Margaret Snowdon OBE is a pensions professional and experienced non-executive director. She is a Non-executive Member of the Phoenix Group With Profits Committees, the ReAssure Fairness Committee, as well as a Non-executive Director of XPS Pension Group plc.  She has recently stepped down after four years on the Board of the Pensions Regulator. She sits on the Advisory Board of Moneyhub Financial Technology Limited. Margaret previously held partner and director level positions with the leading employee benefit consultancies.

Among her many voluntary roles within the pensions industry, Margaret is Chair of the Pension Scams Industry Group, which has saved countless £ millions from falling into the hands of scammers.  She is the first Honorary President of the Pensions Administration Standards Association, having previously been Chair for seven years. She serves on the Council of the Pensions Policy Institute and is a Member of the Personal Finance Society’s Pensions Advice Taskforce, leads on the PASA DB Transfers Code of Practice and is a member of the STAR Steering Group.  She is also a Early Resolution Adviser with the Pensions Ombudsman service.  Margaret was appointed an OBE in 2010 and has received many awards for her contribution to Pensions.

Charlotte Jackson is Head of Pensions Operations and Customer Protection Strategy at the Money & Pensions Service – new to pensions in 2010 Charlotte always saw her role as checking that the pensions guidance provided by The Pensions Advisory Service did what it said on the tin, provide high quality technical pensions help in a way that the average man or woman on the street could understand and respond too.  In 2010 the TPAS guidance team was a team of twelve and on the eve of automatic enrolment we embarked upon an ambitious plan to grow demand and create a narrative about the need to make taking guidance the social norm. Ten years on and now operating under the Money and Pensions Service banner – the service employs more than 100 pensions technical specialists, has in recent years faced an exponential growth in demand for pensions guidance and is now looking to how it can best serve consumers going forward.  Since April 2019 as part of the reorganisation within the Money and Pensions Service, Charlotte took on the additional responsibility of leading on the development of MaPS Customer Protection Strategy – this builds upon her work with Project Bloom and activity in the pensions space around fraud and mis-selling. Prior to joining The Pensions Advisory Service Charlotte spent nine years working for the Citizens Advice Service.

Kevin is Money Laundering Reporting Officer (MRLO) at Embark Group, responsible for AML and financial crime compliance in the group’s pensions businesses. Prior to becoming MLRO 4 years ago, Kevin has worked in a variety of roles in the pensions industry for more than three decades. For the last 20 years, Kevin has worked in and around the SSAS and SIPP arena and was recently appointed to the Pension Scams Industry Group board and Technical Group; helping to shape the next version of the PSIG Code of Practice. He is also a member of the Pension Scams Industry Forum.

Colin is Head of XPS Pensions Group Member Engagement Hub and is an experienced operations professional who specialises in tracing, identity verification and large scale communication projects. Colin has led XPS’  award – winning proprietorial technological innovation at the forefront of these services ensuring the best possible member experience.

He has been responsible for leading the XPS’ Scam Protection service since 2015, which has had oversight of nearly 4,500 transfers and orchestrated 1,200 compliance interventions on over £220m of assets red flagged for scam activity. Colin is also a board member of the Pension Scams Industry Group.