Sovereign’s Your Island Pension appoints UK NEST boss to chair governance committee

Helen Dean, chief executive of the UK auto-enrolment occupational pension scheme NEST, has been appointed as chair of Guernsey’s Your Island Pension (YIP) Governance Committee from January 2024.

The NEST (National Employment Savings Trust) occupational pension scheme, which is run on a not-for-profit basis, ensures that all UK employers have access to suitable, low-charge pension provision to meet their new duty to enrol all eligible workers into a workplace pension automatically.

Helen was with NEST right from the start. Her involvement began as an adviser on pensions to the UK government when she helped develop the auto-enrolment policy, saw it become law, and then designed and built the national pension scheme itself, which is provided by NEST.

Helen initially led the product, marketing and operations arms of NEST, before being appointed CEO in September 2016. Under her watch, Nest has grown to become one of the largest pension schemes in the UK and now manages pensions for a third of the UK’s working population. Nest is forecast to have £100 billion of assets under management by the end of the next decade.

To secure the financial future of its residents, the government of Guernsey took the decision to adopt the UK model of offering free auto-enrolment to employers for their staff. It is to introduce its own mandatory secondary pensions scheme – called Your Island Pension (YIP) – starting from 1 July 2024, which will be operated by Sovereign Pension Services (CI) Ltd.

“We are delighted to announce that Helen Dean has accepted the role of Chair for the Your Island Pension Governance Committee,” said Sean Gillease, Managing Director of Sovereign Pension Services.

“Her significant experience from the design and introduction of auto-enrolment in the UK and her time since with NEST Corporation, most recently as CEO, will be invaluable to us as we embark on the same journey that they set out on more than a decade ago. It is not an overstatement to say that Helen is the perfect person to take this role and we are excited to have her involved and looking forward to working with her in the coming years.”

Last year, Helen visited Guernsey to talk to States members about her experiences in setting up the UK scheme ahead of the debate in November on the introduction of YIP. She told them it was the enrolment policy that was key to getting both employees and employers signed up. This was a consequence of the decision to make the scheme opt-out rather than opt-in.

“Setting up an auto enrolment scheme is an important step for Guernsey and Alderney and building on my experience of this in the UK, I look forward to working with Sovereign and the Governance Committee to ensure Your Island Pension has strong and effective governance and the best possible pension scheme for the people of Guernsey and Alderney,” she said.