Vidett strengthens teams in London, Manchester and Birmingham with four key appointments

Vidett, the leading professional trustee and pension governance firm in the UK, is pleased to announce the expansion of its teams in London, Manchester and Birmingham through the appointment of four highly skilled and experienced professionals. This strategic growth follows the successful merger earlier this year between 20-20 Trustees and Punter Southall Governance Services, establishing Vidett as a leading player in the industry.

Karen Wells joins Vidett as a new Client Director in London and brings over 30 years of invaluable experience in both defined benefit (DB) and defined contribution (DC) pension schemes. Previously, Karen was a Pensions Manager at BMW Pension Services Ltd and also worked as a Principal at Mercer for 15 years, where she provided expert advice to companies and trustees, particularly in the areas of governance and pension scheme management.

In Manchester, Caroline Eastwood joins as Client Director. Caroline was a Senior Pensions Manager at Nationwide Building Society, and before that Skipton Building Society, where she supported both trustees and sponsors in outsourcing the administration of their £8bn DB scheme. Before moving in-house, she was a member of the Mercer Governance Trustee Services team. She was recognised at the 2019 Women in Pensions Awards, where she was named Pensions Manager of the Year.

Claire Broadhurst joins as a Senior Trustee Consultant in Birmingham. Claire joins from Taylor Wimpey where she was Pensions Specialist, carrying out the pension scheme governance and secretarial responsibilities for the £2bn+ scheme. She has also worked as the Pensions Lead for LGSS, where she led the team responsible for employer administrative duties, ensuring their statutory responsibilities were met. Before that, she worked in the investment communications team at National Employment Savings Trust (NEST).

Rich Ingham joins as a Senior Trustee Consultant in London from Mercer where he was a Pension Consultant. Gaining experience in secretarial, governance and consulting matters, he became scheme secretary of JLT’s in-house pension scheme and assisted the scheme merger following Mercer’s acquisition. Throughout his career, Rich has helped trustees and sponsoring employers to achieve various objectives, such as implementing new DC strategies, negotiate parent company support packages, develop new governance policies and manage schemes through to buy in/out and wind up.

Naomi L’Estrange, Co-Chief Executive at Vidett, stated, “We are delighted to welcome Karen, Caroline, Rich, and Claire to Vidett and boost our existing teams in London, Manchester and Birmingham. Vidett was formed in February, so this is an exciting time to join and help us drive growth, strategy and business. All our new recruits bring exceptional industry expertise and extensive knowledge from working on prominent pension schemes and our clients will find this invaluable. We wish them every success as they embark on their new roles.”

Vidett is a privately owned business, independent from any other provider of services to corporate pension and employee benefit schemes. With an unrivalled knowledge bank to support client needs, Vidett currently looks after over 475 clients with total assets in excess of £142bn and over 2.5 million scheme members.