Overview
What we do for your employees
Engaging your people Fidelity's retirement service Workplace Investing Service Centre
Engagement strategies
Engagement strategies
Engaging your people Fidelity's retirement service Workplace Investing Service Centre
Fidelity Master Trust Board
Acting in Scheme members’ best interests, independently
The role of the Master Trust Board
The Fidelity Master Trust is run by a board of five Trustees, all of whom are independent. The Trustees are responsible for ensuring the Scheme is run in accordance with the Scheme rules and the relevant legislation.
The Master Trust Board has a legal obligation to act in members’ best interests. The Scheme rules give the Trustees:
- Responsibility for managing the Scheme’s investments;
- The power to appoint and remove advisers and service providers;
- The right to terminate the Scheme in certain circumstances.
In addition, the Trustees have to comply with The Pensions Regulator’s Code of Practice for the governance of occupational defined contribution plans and the authorisation and supervision of master trusts. This is based on six elements that contribute to ‘good member outcomes’:
- Appropriate contribution decisions;
- Appropriate investment decisions;
- Effective and efficient administration;
- Protection of assets;
- Value for money;
- Appropriate decumulation decisions.
Trustees
As Scheme sponsor, Fidelity was responsible for setting up the Master Trust Board. It is the Chair’s responsibility to ensure that the Board as a whole has the right combination of skills, knowledge and experience to fulfil its responsibilities. To this end, the Trustees, with the consent of Fidelity, may appoint or remove a trustee. Independent Trustees are required to go through a re-appointment process at least every five years, and no individual may serve as an Independent Trustee for more than 10 years.
You can read profiles of the Trustees at the bottom of the page.
Current areas of focus for the Trustees
- Reviewing default investment strategies;
- Reviewing the scope and content of member communication;
- Taking account of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors when reviewing the investment choices available to members;
- Determining the issues to be considered in assessing value for money – for example, examining charges and transaction costs, the service members receive from Fidelity and the tools they have access to;
- Considering the ways in which members have access to their pension pots, including Investment Pathways and regular income drawdown;
- Considering the process for obtaining feedback from members.
You can read more about sustainable investing and ESG, as well as the role they play in the Master Trust’s default investment option, FutureWise, when you visit the page on sustainable investing.
Please see here for the Master Trust Board’s policy on sustainable investing.
Members of the Fidelity Master Trust Board
Kim Nash – Independent Governance Committee Chair
Kim Nash is a Client Director, ZEDRA Governance Limited, which she joined in February 2012. Kim is a qualified Actuary and previously worked for Willis Towers Watson as an actuarial benefit consultant. Kim brings her significant DC experience both as a Trustee and a member of governance committee to lead the Master Trust to develop the value for money framework and make comparisons on Fidelity’s performance against the wider industry.
Roger Breeden - Independent Member
Roger Breeden is a Trustee Executive with independent trustee company BESTrustees and specialises in workplace Defined Contribution and Master Trust pension schemes. His financial services experience spans more than 40 years, the majority of which was with Mercer where most recently as a Partner he led the launch and successful authorisation of a Master Trust establishing operational and governance systems and processes. He started his career as a personal financial adviser which provided him with day to day experience of the needs of pension scheme members while both building and drawing down on their savings.
Dianne Day – Independent Member
Dianne Day is a Client Director at Independent Trustee Services Ltd (ITS). She joined ITS in 2015, specialising in defined contribution (DC) schemes. Dianne holds the PMI Certificate in DC Governance and is a Fellow of the Financial Services Institute of Australasia. She has worked for major investment firms in senior communications and management roles. Dianne applies her extensive DC governance and communications experience to help with the evaluation of Fidelity’s member service, communications and engagement programmes.
Gerald Wellesley - Independent Member
Gerald is a Professional Trustee and Client Director of Vidett Governance Services Limited. He has over 35 years’ experience in the finance industry, 15 years as pension trustee and 3 years in HR management.
His current portfolio of trusteeships includes chair, sole trustee and subcommittee positions with DB and DC schemes and DC Master Trusts. He brings strengths in the investment and financial management disciplines together with more broadly-based trustee skills. He was previously at BNY Mellon where he led the corporate strategy for the UK and European pensions industry where BNY Mellon is a leading provider of asset management, custody and collateral management services.
Jill Mackenzie - Independent Member
Jill Mackenzie has over 25 years of industry experience and more than ten years’ experience as a pension scheme trustee, working across DC and DB. She currently chairs four pension trustee boards and most recently spent seven years on the board of Nest Master Trust where she was the Senior Independent Director. She is also a Member of the Pensions Management Institute and holds the PMI Diploma in Pension Trusteeship.