The highest standards of governance at the lowest cost.
Stoneport is overseen by professional trustees, ensuring the highest standards of knowledge and independence underpin its operation and the commitment to deliver the best outcomes for all members.
The current trustees of the Stoneport Pension Scheme are set out below. As more employers join Stoneport, the make-up of the board will change, with two further professional trustees joining Stuart Southall, replacing the two other existing trustees.
Stuart Southall
Chair of Trustees of the Stoneport Pension Scheme
Stuart is a professional trustee and chair of Punter Southall Governance Services, an independent trustee and pension secretary firm. He is also the chair of Trustees of the Stoneport Pension Scheme.
Through his career, Stuart has worked with pension schemes varying in size from £15 million to £4.6 billion. Having worked in the roles of trustee, scheme actuary and sponsor adviser, he is able to balance perspectives between the fiduciary responsibilities of trustees, and the duties owed to scheme sponsors.
Having grown a business from only 9 people to over 1,200 employees, Stuart has demonstrable entrepreneurial attributes and an ability to interact with and motivate a wide range of people. These skills are invaluable when running a financially efficient and operationally effective pension scheme.
He has extensive knowledge of mergers and reconstructions of large schemes, of liability management exercises and has been involved in buy-ins and buy-outs.
During his career, Stuart has attended well in excess of 1,100 trustees’ meetings. He is fully conversant with the legislative, regulatory and good governance requirements of UK pensions. He has the ability to appreciate and balance the duties and concerns of all parties to such schemes.
John Batting
Trustee of the Stoneport Pension Scheme
John Batting was CEO of Punter Southall between 2004 and 2018, when Xafinity acquired the business and merged it to become part of the XPS Pensions Group. Prior to that, he was one of the four founders of BGJ & Co Limited, an actuarial consulting business established in 1993 and merged with the Punter Southall businesses in 2002.
John is currently an Executive Director and Scheme Actuary at XPS, with over 38 years of experience in the actuarial profession, providing pensions and investment advice to both trustees and sponsoring companies.
Will Wolfenden
Trustee of the Stoneport Pension Scheme
Will is a qualified actuary, and Scheme Actuary at XPS, with over 17 years’ experience. He is also an FCA Approved Person as well as providing investment advice to several pension schemes.
