Episode 7: UK Public Pension Fund Special Series - Chris Hitchen, Chairman of Border to Coast - Building an Institution for the Long Haul

Chris Hitchen is Chairman of the Border to Coast pension partnership, as well as the Pension Super Fund and Trustee and Chair of the Investment Committee at Nest, the National Employment Savings Trust. He holds a number of other Board and director roles and was formerly chief executive of RPMI representing over £27 billion of pension arrangements for the UK rail industry.

Our conversation is a far-reaching one that starts with Chris's educational path into investment consulting and how his breadth of interests was in evidence even then - including a passion for singing and violin. Another passion is trains, and when he was given an opportunity to join the investment team of RPMI, then known as Railpens he seized the opportunity.  That close to 20 year assignment saw him create a unified investment plan from over 100 separate initial liability pots, transition ultimately from an outsourced investment model to a hybrid one that included in-house managers and prioritize value for money.  We dig in to what this means and the various governance models that work well in different investment entities.

With his extensive governance experience Chris has extensive insight into the importance of institutions "carrying on" into the future - and what a sustainable institution looks like. We examine ESG integration and how this is affected by governance as well as how it is driving it and assess the diversity of the finance industry as it currently stands.

This podcast is a collaboration between Fiftyfaces Productions and Room151. Room151 is an online news, opinion and resource service for local authority Section 151 and other senior officers covering treasury, strategic finance, funding, resources and risk. Room151 was launched on 8th November, 2011, by Longview Productions Ltd, the organiser of the Local Authority Treasurers’ Investment Forum and is a small, privately owned, publishing and events company. There is more information about Room151 here: https://www.room151.co.uk/about/