TRUSTEE BOARD DIRECTORS

Introduction

The Trustee of the Plan is a corporate Trustee, Nortel Networks UK Pension Trust Ltd. This Trust Company is governed by its Memorandum and Articles of Association and it has fiduciary responsibility for the operation and management of the Plan. Under Trust law the Board must act equally in the interests of all members of the Plan. The current Board is constituted as follows:-

1 Independent Chairman
1 Independent Director
3 Company Nominated Directors
3 Member Nominated Directors (elected from the membership via the former Consultative Committee)

 In accordance with the Pension Regulator's guidance, the Board has adopted a policy to deal with conflicts of interest.

• David Davies - Chairman of the Trustee Board
• BESTrustees plc (represented by Bruce McNess) - Independent Trustee and Chairman of the ADB
• Clive M Gilchrist - Company Nominated Trustee
• Gerry Staunton - Company Nominated Trustee
• Pat Masterson - Company Nominated Trustee
• Norma Bowles - Member Nominated Trustee
• Tim Rossiter – Member Nominated Trustee
• Brian Izzard – Member Nominated Trustee

David Davies - Chairman of the Trustee Board

David is a qualified actuary (FIA 1973). He has been involved in the Life & Pensions industry since leaving university in 1968 with a degree in Economics & Statistics. He has been Chief Executive of several Life insurance Companies including Pearl Group and is currently Executive Chairman of Sun Life Financial of Canada (UK). He is also a Non-Executive Director of Co-operative Insurance society (CIS) and the Co-operative Bank.

David has had an active interest in the pensions arena largely through being a Trustee of the BT Pension Scheme (the UK’s largest private pension scheme) for 9 years (1997 – 2005) and more recently by being a Non-Executive Director of Hermes Pensions Management Limited (the principal Investment Manager of the BT scheme).

BESTrustees plc (represented by Bruce McNess) - Independent Trustee and Chairman of the ADB

Bruce has worked in pensions since 1979. For ten years he was an investment manager responsible for the bond and property portfolios of Reed International’s pension schemes. Bruce qualified as a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and as an Associate of the Society of Investment Analysts.

In 1989 Bruce transferred to the role of professional pension scheme trustee, firstly with Law Debenture and, from July 2006, with BESTrustees. Bruce has a very wide experience as trustee of all types of occupational pension schemes and the issues they face (including investment, funding, governance and risk reviews, mergers, benefit changes, Clearance Notices and Assessment Periods). He has acted as trustee of large and small schemes throughout the British Isles and has direct experience of working with all of the principal suppliers of services to pension schemes. He has carried out special assignments to neutralise conflicts of interest etc. and spoken and published articles on investment and governance issues. He has worked successfully with management, member and pensioner trustees to achieve and maintain best practice in a field that has been subject to considerable change.

Clive M Gilchrist - Company Nominated Trustee

Clive Gilchrist is Managing Director of BESTRustees plc. He has many years' experience of the pensions and investment industries including 10 years at PosTel (Managers of the BT and Post Office Pension Schemes). He has been Vice President of the National Association of Pension Funds following his Chairmanship of its Investment Council, and has served on a number of City and Industry bodies. He has served as Chairman of the Pension Committee of The Association of Corporate Trustees and as a Member of its Council. Clive represented BESTRustees on the Board of the Nortel Networks UK Pension Trust from  July 1995 to June 2007.

Gerry Staunton - Company Nominated Trustee

Gerry, an active member of the Plan until 14 January 2009, is a Company nominated Trustee. He has served on the ADB Committee (formerly the Management Committee) as a Company nominated member from July 2001 until his appointment as Trustee and was the Chairman of the Consultative Committee from 2002 to December 2005. He is now on the Finance Sub Committee.

Gerry joined Nortel in Ireland in 1980 and held various management positions in Finance and Operations in Ireland and Germany prior to transferring to the UK in 1992. He is currently Director, Accounting and Control, EMEA and is based in Galway.

Gerry holds a B.Comm from the National University of Ireland and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.

Pat Masterson - Company Nominated Trustee

Pat is Employee Relations Consultant within Nortel’s EMEA with particular responsibility for UK and Ireland. Prior to this, Pat was leader of the Monkstown HR team, having joined the company at that site, as an STC plc employee in 1980. A Chartered member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, Pat has also represented Nortel Networks on a number of external bodies, between 2000 and 2005 Chairing CBI’s N Ireland region Employment Affairs Committee.

Pat continues to live in N Ireland where he is married with five young Children, which helps explain why interests take second place.

Norma Bowles - Member Nominated Trustee

Norma took retirement in 2002 after 13 years working in the Pensions Department. She has extensive pension’s knowledge and brings a unique set of experiences from her period working within the Nortel Pensions Department and other roles in the pensions’ industry including some part-time work in pensions’ consultancy.

Norma was appointed a Director of Nortel Networks UK Pension Trust Limited in April 2005.

Tim Rossiter – Member Nominated Trustee

Tim worked for Nortel (and formerly STL) for over 30 years until March 2009  in a number of R&D, Managerial and Technical sales support and consultancy roles.  He was elected to the board in December 2006 and is a member of the Investment and Finance Sub  committees.

He is a Chartered Engineer (MIET), holds an MSc in Electronics & Computer Science and has completed the Pensions Regulator "Trustee Toolkit" training programme.

Brian Izzard – Member Nominated Trustee

Brian took early retirement in 2001 having worked for Nortel (and previously STC) since 1998 at the Basildon and New Southgate sites. He was a professional engineer (C. Eng, MiMechE) but spent most of his working career in the commercial and legal arena where he was Commercial Director for Nortel both in Europe and subsequently in Singapore for Asia Pacific.

Brian became a Trustee Director in April 2008 and joined the ADB committee in September 2009. He also works as an voluntary adviser for the Citizens Advice Bureau.

Back to top of page
Print this page

Copyright © Nortel Networks UK Pension Plan 1999 - 2004. All Rights Reserved.