The PASA annual conference returns to London in 2026
All These Things That I’ve Done
29 April 2026, 09:00-18:00
The 2026 Conference also marks PASA’s 15th anniversary year. It’s a milestone which allows us to look back at how far the administration profession has come, and how PASA has helped shape this journey. Over the past decade and a half, PASA has driven improvements in standards, accreditation, governance, digital capability, professional recognition, and industry collaboration. These achievements form the foundation for the next chapter.
The theme of PASA’s 2026 Conference is ‘All These Things That I’ve Done’. It captures the spirit of achievement and ambition driving the pensions administration community. Administrators have led the charge in delivering standards, professionalisation, and digital innovation – but the work continues. This conference invites the industry to celebrate PASA’s 15-year legacy, AND also to commit to the next era of progress.
#PASA2026
Agenda
| 09:00 - 09:30 | Registration & Breakfast - sponsored by Trafalgar House |
|---|---|
| 09:30 - 09:40 |
Welcome & IntroductionPASA Chair, David Fairs |
| 09:40 - 10:10 |
Keynote: TBC |
| 10:10 - 10.50 |
Stronger Futures: Admin Regulation & Disorderly ExitBy April 2026, the DWP consultation on trusteeship and governance will have closed, and the industry will be grappling with some of the most consequential proposals administration has faced in a generation. This session explores what future administration regulation could look like, why it’s being considered now, and what this could mean in practice, from standards and oversight to evidence, accountability and continuity. The panel will also tackle disorderly exit: no longer a theoretical risk, but a live operational concern. While the risks manifest differently across scheme types, the underlying operational questions are increasingly shared. Crucially, this isn’t a policy-only discussion. Panellists will focus on what organisations can do now to strengthen resilience, raise delivery confidence and prepare for a future where administration is treated explicitly as system-critical infrastructure. Delegates will leave with clarity on the emerging direction of travel, where consensus is forming, where tensions remain, and how to start preparing immediately. Board sponsor: Ian McQuade |
| 10.50 - 11:20 | Coffee break and networking |
| 11:20 - 12:00 |
'The New Accountability Model' - Who Owns Outcomes Across the Admin Chain?Modern administration is delivered through complex, interdependent chains - trustees, providers, TPAs, software platforms, data services and communications partners. Over the past 15 years, collaboration has driven progress. Today, rising scrutiny forces a harder question: who truly owns outcomes when delivery is shared? This panel explores how accountability is evolving across the administration ecosystem and what new operating rules are required to protect quality, resilience and trust. It examines how trustees should set expectations, how administrators and providers manage dependencies, and which governance, contractual and reporting mechanisms work in practice. As administration regulation tightens, this session considers how responsibilities may be redefined particularly around continuity, service evidence and third-party oversight, and what accountability now looks like. Board sponsor: Jayne Pocock |
| 12.00 - 12.45 |
The Member Journey - From Process to People: Designing Administration for Real Lives (25 mins)Followed by a Spotlight Fireside Chat with TBC (20 mins)As pensions policy grows more complex administration plays a defining role in whether savers can engage, decide and act with confidence. This session reflects a shift in the administration profession from transactional processing to human-centred service design. The first half explores how inclusive communication and cognitive-aware design can strengthen understanding, reduce friction and support better decisions for all savers. The second half brings lived experience to the fore. In a dedicated fireside conversation with a special guest, the discussion highlights where pension processes can unintentionally cause confusion or distress, and what practical changes can make journeys calmer, clearer and more humane. This is administration not just done accurately, but done thoughtfully. Board sponsors: Amanda Asante and Paul Sturgess |
| 12.45 - 13:30 | Lunch |
| 13:30 - 14:00 |
Afternoon keynote: TBC |
| 14:00 - 14:20 |
PASA Fireside Chat: All These Things We’ve Done - and the Work Still to DoFor 15 years, PASA has helped professionalise pensions administration by raising standards, building shared understanding and giving the sector a collective voice. But progress brings new responsibility. In this reflective but forward-looking session, PASA Directors explore what PASA has achieved and why it matters, where it has genuinely moved the dial, and how its role must continue to evolve as administration becomes more central to policy, delivery and saver outcomes. This is also a listening moment. Delegates will be invited to shape PASA’s priorities for the next chapter, ensuring the organisation continues to reflect the realities, pressures and ambitions of the administration community it represents. Board sponsors: Jo Darbyshire and Chris Connelly |
| 14:20 - 15:00 |
Where Value is Won or Lost: Turning DC Strategy into Real Saver OutcomesThe DC market has become more ambitious, more transparent and more outcome-focused. But time and again, value is delivered or lost in administration. This panel explores what it really takes to deliver modern DC at scale. It focuses on the operational and IT foundations which turn strategy into reality: data quality, platform coherence, automation, reporting maturity and resilient operating models. With regulators increasingly assessing service quality as part of Value for Money, this session examines what administration and technology leaders must do now to ensure DC propositions remain credible, deliverable and trusted. Board sponsor: Jonny Hawkins |
| 15.00 - 15:30 | Coffee Break |
| 15:30 - 16:15 |
The Year of Too Many Projects: When Everything Lands at OnceBy 2026, pensions administration will be delivering more change, across more schemes, under more scrutiny than ever before. dashboards, GMP equalisation, data improvement, cyber resilience and endgame readiness are colliding, turning delivery into a portfolio-level challenge. For LGPS and large multi-scheme administrators, this pressure is often multiplied by scale and regulatory scrutiny. This panel explores how administration leaders are responding with discipline, realism and maturity: applying programme and portfolio management, protecting BAU, managing finite expertise and sequencing work to avoid failure. The focus is practical. What does good delivery governance look like now? How do trustees support pace without friction? And how does the industry move from heroic effort to sustainable execution? Board sponsor: Dan Taylor |
| 16:15 - 16:25 |
Closing Remarks and presentations |
| 16:25 - 18:00 | Drinks Reception |
Speakers
Amanda Asante
Amanda has 20 years' experience in the pensions industry with a background in Pensions Management, Trustee Secretarial, Administration and Governance. She has worked both in-house (including for a FTSE 100 Company) and within major Third-Party Administrators.
Amanda's recent experience includes managing in-house administration team, responsible for day to day administration of a £1bn+ DB pension scheme, a £100m+ DC pension scheme (held under Master Trust) as well as various medical and life assurance policies. She was also Scheme Secretary and governance lead for the £1bn+ DB pension Scheme and sat on corporate Pension & Benefits Governance Board for all other benefits. During this time, she sat on and chaired the Administration and Governance sub-committees.
Amanda has experience working with both DB and DC Trustee Boards on all aspects of day to day pension scheme management as well as a range of complex matters such as ETV exercises, Master Trust Selection, movement to a Fiduciary Management model, GMP reconciliation and equalisation, Flexible Apportionment Agreements, outsourcing of administration providers, adviser reviews, tender exercises and implementation of automatic enrolment.
Amanda has a strong focus on good governance and uses this as a method to reduce the operational risk of Trustee Boards. She combines this with an excellent technical understanding of administration, member matters, communications and benefit calculations. Due to the nature of her in-house experience, she brings a unique view from both sides of the table (Trustee and Employer) and helps to pull these two views together to reach a common goal. Her strengths include project management, risk review, compliance, relationship management, attention to detail and problem solving.
Amanda is a fully-accredited professional trustee with the Association of Professional Pension Trustees.
Chris Connelly
Chris Connelly's role at Heywood encompasses strategy right across the pension landscape. Chris has over 30 years' experience, starting in pensions administration and evolving into solution and service design across 3 continents.
Chris has previously worked on many industry initiatives including:
- helping draft TPR's data quality guidelines and reporting,
- seconding into the Pensions Dashboards Programme (PDP) at MaPS, to ensure direct, practical experience was built into the industry infrastructure, standards and legislation,
- advising PDP as a member of MaPS' Pensions Dashboards Advisory Group,
- chairing a collaborative group of industry software providers to help input into the PDP, PASA and wider engagement with the Regulators.
After being with PASA since inception, he was appointed Director in March 2025.
In 2022, his contributions to the pension industry through his work in PASA and MaPS were recognised by the readers of Pensions Age, awarding him the "Pensions Personality of the Year".
LinkedIn - Chris Connelly
Jo Darbyshire
Chief Executive Officer, LPPA
Jo joined LPPA in April 2019 and oversees all aspects of the business to deliver LPPA's vision to be the pension administration partner of choice for the public sector. Jo has been pivotal in establishing firm foundations across LPPA and is now focused on using technology and developing our people to transform the experience of members, employers and our partner clients.
Jo has a wealth of experience, starting her career training to be an actuary in pensions consultancy, before moving to life assurance. She has held various senior roles in IT, business transformation, strategy and finance in both financial services and retail organisations including the Co-operative Group.
David Fairs
David joined LCP as a Partner in April 2023, having previously been Executive Director for Regulatory Policy, Analysis and Advice at the Pension Regulator. He co-chaired the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee and was Lead Executive for Climate Change. During his time at the Regulator he oversaw the development and implementation of Policy in relation to the Pension Schemes Act 2021, as well the interim guidance for Superfunds. He also lead on a number of key policy initiatives including TPR's response to the September 2022 market turbulence around LDI, TPR's guidance on fiduciary management, professional pension trustee accreditation, covid related guidance and co-ordinated with HM Treasury and DWP on the response to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
During his time at the Regulator, he was also Chair of the Pensions Working Group and Committee of the Joint Forum for Actuarial Regulation, a member of the Regulators' Stewardship Group, the Productive Finance Working Group, and a member of the Portfolio Committee for oversight of the Pensions Dashboard.
David is an Honorary Professor in the Department of Management and Marketing at Durham University Business School and a Board member of PASA. He is Chair of the Genomics Development Board of Sarcoma UK and an advisory Board member of the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Essex University. He is Chairing the Advisory Board for the King's College/PPI research into CDC and is a member of the Advisory Board of Guide as well as being a Governor of the PPI.
Jon Hawkins
Jonathan (Jon/Jonny) Hawkins brings over 25 years of hands-on experience across the UK pensions landscape, from his early days as a pensions administrator through to his current roles as Trustee Director at Aon MasterTrust and Propositions Lead EMEA at Bravura Solutions.
Jonny joined the PASA Board of Directors in 2024, having previously contributed to the association's Pot For Life working committee. His recent involvement in the DWP's feasibility study for the small pots consolidation framework demonstrates his continued commitment to solving the industry's most pressing challenges through practical, innovative solutions.
Jonny's career has spanned the full spectrum of pensions administration – he's built calculations, implemented schemes, designed automation solutions, and even helped create the tech infrastructure for one of the UK's first commercial master trusts. His deep technical knowledge, combined with his passion for innovation, has made him a go-to speaker on Pensions Dashboards since 2016, where he's been working to solve complex connection challenges and design an ISP solution.
What sets Jonny apart is his ability to translate technical problems into streamlined, automated solutions that actually work in practice. He is currently the board member responsible for the Digital Administration, Engagement and Communications, and the Transfers working groups.
Ian McQuade
Ian has over 37 years' pension experience, covering the governance and management of all sorts of pension schemes. He leads Muse Advisory's business, and advises Trustees and Companies on a wide range of strategic, operational and governance related issues, including advising on strategy, governance, operational and administration effectiveness, and leading clients through the review, selection and implementation of their various advisers. He started his career in pensions as an administrator, and before moving into consulting, led one of the largest TPA's private sector pension administration team.
Jayne Pocock
Jayne Pocock has over 37 years’ experience in the pension industry, specialising in governance and administration. Jayne passionately believes in prioritising the member experience and is Head of Trustee Services at Clara where she supports the Clara Trustee Board, and the wider Clara team, to deliver better outcomes for members.
Jayne is a Fellow of the Pensions Management Institute and has supported many trustee boards during her career, including several pension schemes sponsored by FTSE 100 and 250 companies. She understands what is required to have a well-run pension scheme. Past roles have included working for employee benefit consultancies, an independent trustee firm and more recently the in-house pensions governance manager at Legal & General.
Paul Sturgess
Having joined pensions immediately after school I have had a long and varied career almost exclusively focused on workplace pension schemes. Over that period I have lead consulting and actuarial teams and spent time in product development and strategy, developing some of the very first on line transactional DC facilities and DC products. I have lead delivery functions for the very largest pension schemes in the UK at C suite level including for both private and public sectors including the Civil Service and Teachers pension scheme. Most recently I was Chief Officer Benefits for very complex Railways Pension scheme where digitisation had been a key delivery. I am also a NED of PASA. As I approach partial retirement I am looking forwards to further NED and part time activity putting my experience of pensions to good use on myself!
Daniel Taylor
Dan Taylor is a pensions administration professional with a proven track record of delivering exceptional client service while driving growth and innovation.
As Client Director at Trafalgar House, Daniel is responsible for leading the development and execution of the company's client service strategy, ensuring that clients receive the highest levels of service and support. With over 25 years of experience in pensions administration, Daniel has held senior leadership roles covering operations, implementations, quality assurance and business development. He has successfully run third-party administration operations and played a key role in developing and implementing new technology and communication solutions to enhance member and client experiences.
Prior to joining Trafalgar House in 2017, Daniel acted as Head of Administration Services within another third-party pensions administrator, where he oversaw the delivery of high-quality pensions administration services to a diverse range of clients.
LinkedIn - Dan Taylor
Sponsors
Barnett Waddingham
With freedom to take a long-term view, BW builds strong, trusted relationships with a wide range of clients, across the public and private sectors - including almost 25% of FTSE 100 and over 15% of FTSE 350 companies.
BW's structure and ethos of independence empowers its 1,600+ people across nine offices to work with clients in a more personal way. Its experts look for new solutions and go beyond the expected to achieve more. BW's flexible service delivers reliable, expert advice and solutions tailored to each client.
CFH
CFH are trusted communication experts across the entire pensions sector, working with private pension providers and administrators, and local government pension schemes.
Our 15 years working with the pensions sector, combined with 47 years' experience within the communication sector, means that we understand the significance of effective pension communications. Whether through post, e-delivery, or SMS, we ensure your communications are delivered in the most effective and secure way.
Providing savings in time and money, improved quality and enhanced audience engagement, we can support you to achieve optimal outcomes and address industry challenges.
Hymans Robertson
Knowa
Knowa is an AI-powered governance and meeting pack platform designed for pension schemes. Knowa has garnered the trust of over 500 pension schemes managing over £180 billion of pension scheme assets, and over 5,000 industry professionals as it continues to set the benchmark for board governance in the pensions industry.
LCP
LCP is powered by passionate people driven by curiosity. We provide market-leading advice to help build a financially secure future for society. Our love of data, technology, and solving complex problems has led us into exciting new areas.
Our PASA-accredited pensions administration team combines technology and talented people to provide a high-quality, member-first approach to pensions administration. We use our bespoke administration system to efficiently administer members' benefits – all while providing a responsive and highly experienced team.
Procentia
Procentia, part of the Brightwell Group, is an award-winning software and technology company specialising in the Pensions and Bulk Purchase Annuities market. Established in 2002, Procentia is renowned for its web-based administration and management system, IntelliPen.
Procentia's solutions help pension schemes manage exceptional volumes of data, meet the demand for self-serve technology, and provide meaningful, consumer-like experiences that are expected from online services.
With offices in the UK and North America, Procentia supports some of the largest schemes across the private and public sectors including BP, BTPS, L&G, British Airways Pension Scheme, Rolls-Royce, Retirement System City of Detroit, and USS.
Target Professional Services Ltd.
Established in 1988, Target Professional Services is a leading specialist trace agency dedicated to providing excellent and reliable trace and mortality solutions for the pensions industry and financial sector. With over three decades of experience serving a variety of both public and private sector clients, we have built a stellar reputation. Our innovative, bespoke solutions are tailored to meet each client's unique needs, reducing the risks associated with inaccurate records, ensuring compliance, and safeguarding schemes from fraud.
Target is recognised for pioneering advancements in the pension industry: having introduced both automated tracing and an investigated mortality screening; and by launching the first pensions-specific biometric verification application, mypensionID in 2019. Used across the world, mypensionID offers secure digital verification of pension members in minutes, streamlining traditional processes and enhancing security. At Target Professional Services, we are committed to delivering excellence and innovation, enabling our clients to navigate the challenges of data management and accuracy with confidence.
Trafalgar House
We are a specialist third-party pensions administrator.
Founded in 2006, our mission is to set the highest standard of pensions administration by any recognised measure. We achieve this through sustained investment in our people, processes and systems.
We started life as an in-house administrator. Our foundations are in quality and member experience. Since our creation, we have grown as a third-party administrator. Adopting technology and innovation from across the market, we have emerged as a business of administration experts.
We have offices in London and Farnborough, administer 35 schemes and have 185 team members. We hold internationally-recognised accreditations for quality, security, development, customer service and environmental protection.
Becoming a Sponsor
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Venue
Join us at Convene, Bishopsgate - Stylish London Conference & Meeting Venue
Convene
155 Bishopsgate
Liverpool Street
London
EC2M 3YD
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