PASA Edinburgh Conference

Sandy Begbie CBE, FRSE was appointed Chief Executive of Scottish Financial Enterprise in October 2020.

Prior to joining SFE, Sandy led the development of the Scottish Government's Young Person's Guarantee following an 18-month contract at Tesco Bank as the Chief Transformation Officer.

Sandy was responsible for the Global People, Organisation and Culture Integration following the successful merger of Standard Life and Aberdeen Asset Management in 2017. Before the merger Sandy was the Chief People Officer and Lead Executive for China and Hong Kong for Standard Life for eight years. During this time, he led the Standard Life HR team to be recognised as one of the top performing functions in the UK and also led the turn-around of Standard Life's Chinese Joint Venture. Sandy was appointed Senior Advisor to the Standard Life HASL Asia business in Hong Kong in July 2020, having been Chair of the Hong Kong-based Board since 2014. In December 2023 Sandy was appointed as International Director to the HASL Asia business and stepped down as Senior Advisor.

Before joining Standard Life in May 2010 Sandy held similar Transformation and Group HR Director positions within Aegon, Scottish Power and Royal Bank of Scotland.

Sandy holds several non-executive positions including Chair of Place2Be Scotland and a Trustee on the National Place2Be Board, Chair of Young Person Guarantee and Chair of DYW (Developing the Young Workforce).

Sandy was awarded a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List in August 2018 for services to business and social inclusion. He was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) in March 2023. In December 2024 Sandy was awarded Freedom of the City of London for his transformative leadership in Scotland's financial sector and his enduring commitment to fostering economic growth and social inclusion across Scotland.

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

Neil has over 25 years' pensions experience. He is a qualified actuary by profession but brings extensive, practical expertise in pensions administration.

Prior to joining GAD, Neil oversaw the outsourced administration of the Teachers' Pension Scheme, managing operations for approximately 2 million members. Here the challenges faced were similar to many of the issues faced by administrators today (data quality, automation, digital journeys, member understanding of pensions, changing the focus away from an SLA driven approach).

At GAD, Neil leads the Pensions Administration Consulting Team, a team of 12 pensions administration specialists advising across all public service pension schemes. Recent projects include supporting clients with the selection and transition of administrators and systems, preparing for pensions dashboards, improving data quality and providing independent quality assurance of calculations and processes.

Professional Trustee, BESTrustees

Prior to joining BESTrustees, Zahir was a partner in a major accountancy practice, where he established their highly successful Pensions Group.

A Chartered Accountant by training, his current appointments cover a wide range of pension schemes and diverse industry sectors, including several appointments to both DB and DC Schemes as Chair of Trustees and also as a Sole Trustee. Zahir is experienced in negotiating with employers on funding and other issues and with his background is quick to understand and appreciate a company's financial position and corporate objectives.

Zahir is a fully accredited professional trustee with the APPT and is also Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants. He is a past Chair of the Institute of Chartered Accountants' Pensions Sub-Committee and also of the Pensions Research Accountants Group.

Specialist areas: end game strategies; smaller schemes; funding.

LinkedIn - BESTrustees

Website - BESTrustees

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

Commercial Director (New Propositions), Lumera

Maurice plays a key role in ensuring Lumera's propositions and innovations meet the evolving needs of their clients. Through his deep understanding of technology, financial services regulation, and industry developments he provides consultancy on a wide range of life and pensions data issues. This expertise enables Lumera to continually focus on solutions to support the biggest challenges in the industry.

He also chairs PASA's Pensions Dashboards Working Group, which provides support to the industry on the implementation process of Pensions Dashboards. Through creating guidance and raising awareness the working group provide insightful input to key stakeholders.

Maurice has worked in financial services specialising in corporate pensions throughout his career, including roles at ITM, Watson Wyatt and Punter Southall.

LinkedIn - Lumera

LinkedIn - Maurice

David is an advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion; serving as Deputy Chair of TPR's EDI Steering Committee and a Public Sector Equality Duty champion.

He is Director of Trusteeship, Administration & DB Supervision. A chartered accountant with over 20 years' experience spanning pensions regulation, financial analysis, and corporate restructuring. David has led on strategic transformation across defined benefit schemes, trusteeship, and administration and has played a key role in the development of policy and guidance, most recently, the new DB Funding Regs, Code and accompanying covenant guidance. David has played a significant role in TPR's transformation.