Marsh has appointed Phil Parkinson as Mercer UK CEO, subject to regulatory approval.

Parkinson joined Mercer in 2007 as an investment consultant. Since 2007, he has held numerous international leadership positions and was appointed as UK wealth business leader, responsible for Mercer’s investments and retirement business, in 2022. Parkinson succeeds Benoit Hudon, who is leaving the business to pursue other opportunities and will work closely with Parkinson to ensure a smooth transition. Parkinson is expected to take up his new role in the coming weeks and will report to both Mercer CEO and president, Pat Tomlinson, and Marsh UK CEO, Chris Lay, with the reporting line moving from Lay to Lisa Quest when she takes up the role of Marsh UK CEO on 6 April.

Sackers partners, Stuart O’Brien and Andy Lewis, have joined the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) technical working group on fiduciary duty.

The group will support DWP in developing forthcoming statutory guidance, announced by Pensions Minister, Torsten Bell, which is aimed at providing clearer and more practical direction for trustees on how fiduciary duty applies to modern investment decision-making, as issues such as systemic risks and opportunities, member impacts and member views come increasingly into focus. Both O’Brien and Lewis were members of the Financial Markets Law Committee working group that, in 2024, produced guidance for pension trustees on fiduciary duty and climate change. They were also part of a recent cross-industry initiative which tabled a legislative amendment to clarify investment duties for trustees.

Law Debenture has appointed Khadeja Khanum and Una-Marie O’Donoghue to its pensions governance team.

Khanum joins the team from Dalriada Trustees, where she held the role of pensions manager and has seven years of experience in business and pension support. In addition to Khanum’s appointment, O’Donoghue has joined from PwC, where she held the position of pensions administrator & assistant to the head of trustee services. In her role, which is new to the pensions governance team, she will draw on her expertise supporting trustee boards, pension project management, overseeing third-party providers and delivering finance, governance and secretariat functions to the schemes.

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