By 2030, there will be over 20 million older people in the UK

John Beard, MBBS PhD, works globally with academia, policy makers and the private sector to reimagine the second half of life. He is a Professor with the University of New South Wales, Chief Advisor for the European Institute of Innovation and Technology Health consortium (EIT Health), a commissioner with the US National Academy of Medicine Commission on Healthy Longevity, visiting professor at Toulouse and Peking Universities and has a number of private sector appointments.

For 10 years until 2019, he was Director of Ageing and Life Course with the World Health Organization in Geneva where he led major global initiatives including the World report on ageing and health and the Global Network of Age-friendly Cities and Communities. Dr Beard has worked extensively with the World Economic Forum, including as chair of their Global Agenda Council on Population Ageing and as facilitator for several events at their annual meeting in Davos.

Dr. David E. Bloom is Clarence James Gamble Professor of Economics and Demography in the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Bloom is an economist whose work focuses on health, demography, education, and labor. In recent years, he has written extensively on primary, secondary, and tertiary education in developing countries and on the links among health status, population dynamics, and economic growth. Dr. Bloom has published over 300 articles, book chapters, and books.

Dr. Bloom has previously been a member of the public policy faculty at Carnegie-Mellon University and the economics faculty at Columbia University and Harvard University. He currently serves as a Faculty Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and is a member of the Board of Directors of PSI and of the Board of Trustees of amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research. Dr. Bloom also serves as Director of Harvard’s Program on the Global Demography of Aging. In April 2005, Dr. Bloom was elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Bloom received a BS in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University in 1976 and a PhD in Economics and Demography from Princeton University in 1981.

Claire was appointed to the newly created role of Director of Corporate Affairs and Investor Relations in June 2020 having previously held the role of the Head of Investor Relations since March 2018. As the Director of Corporate Affairs and Investor Relations, Claire is responsible for challenging the delivery of Group’s purpose and strategy as well as leading the Group’s sustainability and brand strategies. As the UK’s largest long-term savings and retirement provider, Phoenix purpose is helping people secure a life of possibilities and supporting customers as they journey to and through retirement.

Claire joined the Group in 2000 and has held a number of senior positions, including Director of the Group’s SII Delivery Programme. She has worked on a part time basis for the majority of her time with Phoenix and continues to have a “working from home” contract, acting as an ambassador for flexible working. Claire is a qualified chartered accountant.

Professor Sir Michael Marmot is Professor of Epidemiology at University College London, Director of the UCL Institute of Health Equity, and Past President of the World Medical Association.

He is the author of The Health Gap: the challenge of an unequal world (Bloomsbury: 2015) and Status Syndrome: how your place on the social gradient directly affects your health (Bloomsbury: 2004). Professor Marmot holds the Harvard Lown Professorship for 2014-2017 and is the recipient of the Prince Mahidol Award for Public Health 2015. He has been awarded honorary doctorates from 18 universities.

Professor Marmot has led research groups on health inequalities for over 40 years. He chairs the Commission on Equity and Health Inequalities in the Americas, set up in 2015 by the World Health Organizations’ Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO/ WHO). He was Chair of the Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH), which was set up by the World Health Organization in 2005, and produced the report entitled: ‘Closing the Gap in a Generation’ in August 2008.

At the request of the British Government, he conducted the Strategic Review of Health Inequalities in England, which published its report ‘Fair Society, Healthy Lives’ in February 2010. This was followed by the European Review of Social Determinants of Health and the Health Divide, for WHO Euro in 2014. In February 2020, he launched the ‘Marmot Review 10 Years On’ report on the health inequalities across England, which served as an update to the ‘Fair Society, Healthy Lives’ review. He chaired the Breast Screening Review for the NHS National Cancer Action Team and was a member of The Lancet-University of Oslo Commission on Global Governance for Health. He set up and led a number of longitudinal cohort studies on the social gradient in health in the UCL Department of Epidemiology & Public Health (where he was head of department for 25 years): the Whitehall II Studies of British Civil Servants, investigating explanations for the striking inverse social gradient in morbidity and mortality; the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), and several international research efforts on the social determinants of health.

Professor Marmot served as President of the British Medical Association (BMA) in 2010-2011, and is President of the British Lung Foundation. He is an Honorary Fellow of the American College of Epidemiology; a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences; an Honorary Fellow of the British Academy, and an Honorary Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health of the Royal College of Physicians. He is also a trustee of the Food Foundation, was a member of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution for six years, and in 2000 was knighted by Her Majesty The Queen, for services to epidemiology and the understanding of health inequalities. Professor Marmot is a Member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Dr Chris Phillipson is Professor of Sociology and Social Gerontology in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Manchester. He has led a number of research programmes concerned with family and community life in old age, problems of poverty and social exclusion, social theory and ageing, and issues relating to urbanisation and migration.

His theoretical work has focused on developing a critical gerontology which explores and challenges some of the dominant social and cultural assumptions made about ageing and ageing societies. He has a particular interest in questions relating to the relationship between urban development and population ageing. He has published numerous books and research papers on various topics relating to the development of ageing populations.

Chris is the co-director of the Manchester Institute for Collaborative Research on Ageing (MICRA) and has served as member of the Advisory Committee of the New Dynamics of Ageing Programme and was a member of the Advisory Board of the Norwegian Lifecourse, Ageing and Generations Panel Study. He is a Fellow of the British Gerontological Society and the Gerontological Society of America. In 2011, Dr Phillipson received an Outstanding Achievement Award from the British Society of Gerontology to acknowledge his contributions to the study of ageing.

Yvonne Sonsino is Partner and Global Co-leader on “Next Stage” at Mercer. Her current focus is on the organisational implications of macro trends such as increasing longevity, 4IR future of work scenarios and sustaining a truly inclusive workforce. Mercer’s Next Stage platform examines the coalescence of living and working longer, and how organisations can harness the longevity dividend as we move into an increasingly digital age. Multigenerational fairness plays a big part here.

She co-chaired the UK Govt. Department for Work and Pensions Fuller Working Lives Business Strategy Group, working with employers to recruit, retain and retrain older workers, which published its policy document in 2017. Her first book, The New Rules of Living Longer, was published in November 2015, with a foreword from the UK Pensions Minister. She is an advisor to the Healthy Ageing challenge fund and currently working on a global dialogue series called “Redesigning Retirement for the 100 year life” with the World Economic Forum.

She has worked in senior HR and HR Consulting roles for 30 years, living in the Middle East and Europe and working with global organisations on strategic HR and people programme design. She holds Masters Degrees in Psychology and Business Research and is a Fellow of The Pensions Management Institute, previously an author of their International Diploma syllabus. She is a Director in the creative arts education sector and is trained in advanced design thinking methodology.

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With a distinguished record on equality, inclusion, and human resources, Caroline is Deputy Chair of the EHRC, Vice President of Carers UK, Trustee of the RSPCA and Founder of CW Consulting Box. As Director of People & Policy at BT, she routinely set the agenda; demonstrating real thought leadership.

An influential leader and practitioner in the original movement to create new ways of working and a leader of the nascent flexible working agenda, Caroline continues to build more inclusive approaches to work. She is a Director of Wilson James and a member of the Leaders as Change Agents Board. Caroline was listed in the Top 100 Disability Power List 2019, awarded HR Director of the Year 2009, as well as one of the most influential HR practitioners of the last decade by HR Magazine Excellence Awards 2015 and an HR Mover and Shaper in 2019.

Caroline routinely works with and advises policy makers. She contributed to the Department of Work and Pensions publication ‘Disability and Health Employment Strategy: the Discussion so Far’ chairing the Task and Finish Group on Young Disabled People and Employment. She Co-Chaired the Department of Health, Task and Finish Group which launched ‘Supporting Working Carers: The Benefits to Families, Business and the Economy’ in autumn 2013. She also chaired Employers for Carers, Employers’ Forum on Belief, Employers for Fathers and Lone Parents working group.

She was awarded the OBE for services to progressive HR practice, diversity, and equal opportunities in the New Year’s list in 2010. Caroline’s was recognized by Race for Opportunity’s Best Ethnic Minority Recruitment Programme. BT is the only company to top seven leading diversity benchmarks at the same time, during three consecutive years.

As Founder of CW Consulting Box Ltd. Caroline provides high-level support and guidance across the private, public and charitable sector, including Board Effectiveness reviews, Board coaching, Business and strategic HR guidance, OD design, flexible working strategies, behavioural action planning, capacity building and strategic communications.

Steve Webb was Minister of State for Pensions between 2010 and 2015, the longest-serving holder of the post. During that time he implemented major reforms to the state pension system, oversaw the successful introduction of automatic enrolment and played a key role in the new pension freedoms implemented in April 2015.

Steve was a Liberal Democrat MP from 1997 to 2015. Before this he was professor of social policy at Bath University for two years, having previously worked for nine years as an economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Steve graduated with a first class honours degree in PPE from Oxford University in 1986. He was awarded a knighthood in the New Year’s honours in 2017.

Following his time in Parliament he worked for Royal London for four years before joining LCP as a partner in 2020.