OverviewFidelity 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 and climate change.
Members of the Fidelity Master Trust Board
Mark Cliff – Independent Chair
Mark is a Client Director at Vidett, with previous roles including Head of Pensions at Manchester Airport Group (MAG) and as a Reward Director. He has been an independent trustee since 2013, with a large focus on large complex Defined Benefit (DB) and Defined Contribution (DC) pension schemes. He joins from the Legal and General Investment Management (LGIM) Master Trust, where he has been a Trustee for over four years, chairing its Member Experience sub-committee. Mark brings significant experience of both Chair of Trustee roles for DB and DC schemes, with extensive experience of DC Master Trust. Mark’s broad experience as Chair of Trustees includes working with Debenhams and Bentley Motors.
Pavan Bhardwaj - Independent Member
Pavan is a senior Trustee Director at Independent Governance Group (IGG). He has a background covering both legal and financial services and is able to draw upon a broad skill set as a trustee. Prior to joining IGG he spent over ten years working in investment banking with a range of institutional clients. He currently sits as a trustee on a number of boards, including one of the largest groups of DB and DC plans in the UK.
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.
Lok joined LawDeb in 2023 and acts as Trustee Director across a range of DC and DB pension arrangements. Prior to joining LawDeb, Lok spent 24 years at Willis Towers Watson, working on both the asset side as an investment consultant and the liability side as an actuary. He was responsible for designing and launching a number of propositions for WTW’s investment business, including a long-dated credit fund and delegated cashflow driven investment mandates. He was also a member on the Integrated Risk Management Working Party for the Faculty & Institute of Actuaries.
As a Trustee, whilst Lok is involved with all aspects of overseeing pension arrangements, much of his work is in investment-related areas, including asset transitions, strategic reviews, fund selections and sustainability. Lok holds a First Class MA Degree in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge and is a fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.
Jill is a Client Director at Capital Cranfield Pension Trustees Limited, she has over 25 years of industry experience and more than twelve years’ experience as a pension scheme trustee, working across DC and DB. She currently chairs three pension trustee boards and 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.