Robert Holford Email & Phone Number

Colchester, Gb

Bath / London

Exciting new role leading the creation and development of Altus's new Strategic Insights Function.

Bath / London

Responsible for the strategy, development and delivery of Altus’s consulting business within the Life & Pensions sector – broadly covering pensions, protection, equity release, retirement investments and any other long-term savings products, offered by Altus’s consulting clients which include Life Cos, retail banks, building societies/mutuals, wealth managers, financial advisers & networks, platforms, regulators and emerging FinTechs.Also responsible for representing Altus in a range of industry groups including TISA's Retirement Strategy, Consumer Duty and Financial Guidance working groups working on various aspects of Pensions and Savings Policy.

Brighton, United Kingdom

I lead TPR's Strategy and Insight team where key elements of my role included:- Facilitating Board and ExCo decision-making to create and deliver TPR’s first corporate strategy designed to have a transformative effect on the organisation and “put the saver at the heart of what we do” by increasing the strategic focus on saver impact and outcomes in the planning and delivery of regulatory activity.- Responsible for end-to-end strategy development and embedding process (from Board/ExCo to directorate/ team level) including horizon scanning/waterfront analysis, workshopping strategic challenges and possible responses, authoring and evolving a strategic plan, and managing internal feedback processes.- Leading the delivery of TPR's insight agenda including our DB, DC and Public Sector surveys as well as stakeholder surveys designed to help measure the quality of the organisation's delivery over time and internal surveys in areas such as wellbeing- Leading the co-ordination and overall delivery of TPR-FCA joint strategy work on pensions including work on Value for Money and Pension Consumer Journeys. I also sat as TPR’s representative in the UKRN Strategy Leaders network.- At the heart of co-ordinating the organisations Covid 19 response through my team's engagement with both ExCo and TPR’s Gateway governance committee, this has including including risk mapping and economic scenario analysis as well as supporting specific workstreams to design to deliver mitigations.- Chair of TPR’s Master Trust Expert Risk Panel (ERP) advising the organisation on both overall level of risk in market as well as providing insights into scheme level risks.- Over two years I have built TPR’s strategy and insight team from nothing to a department of 13 people with 5 direct reports. Also led development of TPR’s strategy governance processes including design of the organisation’s Gateway/TCG governance structure and annual strategic cycle framework.

London, United Kingdom

I worked in FCA's Strategy & Analysis team as the Technical Specialist leading the FCA’s strategic planning and sector intelligence work for the Pensions Savings & Retirement Income and Retail Investments Sectors.The key elements of my role included:- Leading the development of the FCA's Sector Strategies and Sector Views for both sectors (to determine the key harms and sector objectives, goals and priorities). - Leading the development and updating of the methodology used to measure and assess harm across all the FCA’s retail sectors as well as leading on the design of strategic frameworks used across all the sectors- Providing technical and strategic insights to support the development of pension and retail investment-related policy and supervision work (e.g. for the development of the FCA/TPR joint pension strategy)- Leading the ongoing monitoring, development and delivery of the intelligence picture for these sectors and identifying gaps/limitations in the FCA's data and knowledge then working with teams such as Data & Information Operations to develop strategies to fill these gaps.- Developing and maintaining a stakeholder engagement and management strategy, including proactive management of stakeholder relationship within Policy, Supervision, Competition, Risk and other FCA teams to ensure high quality inputs and buy-in for the Sector View/Sector Strategy process.- Sitting as the Strategy representative on the FCA/TPR joint steering group to ensure the delivery and ongoing delivery of the joint strategy.

London, United Kingdom

I led the delivery of Spence Johnson's (now part of Broadridge) strategic consulting practice as well as its retirement market intelligence research. My clients were a range of financial industry participants including asset managers, life companies and master trusts. My areas of focus included:- Leading the firm's strategic consulting practice delivering projects in areas such as market entry studies for investment management firms looking to enter new institutional markets (for example workplace DC pensions or insurance asset management); asset management product testing; and institutional product reviews.- Leading the firm's research into the growth and structure of the UK and European Defined Contribution markets, the UK Retirement Income market, and Smart Beta product markets.- Leading the development of new trustee, consultant and provider benchmarks in the DC and Retirement Income markets. - Supporting the firm's wider research and benchmarking projects with investment and other insights drawn from my previous consultancy experience. - Presenting at conferences/chairing panels on retirement-related topics at industry events including Institutional Investors’ UK DC Forum, Workplace Pensions Live, Allianz Oxford Pensions Conference, the DC Investment Forum; and MFS DB & DC Forums. - As part of my role I also wrote/contributed to articles that appeared in Pensions Expert Pensions Insight, Pensions Age, eFinancial News, Professional Pensions, Engaged Investor and IPE.

London, United Kingdom

Worked in the Business Consulting team consulting to front office, sales and senior management of asset management firms on a range of issues including:- Positioning and structuring of investment proceses for the institutional investment market.- Client experience assessments for the institutional client servicing teams of large asset managers.- Strategic advice and white papers for asset management firms looking to compete in local, regional and global markets. - Worked on projects offered by the Investit's Platform Consulting team and Investit's Intelligence Service, including projects focused on transaction cost analysis, market entry and internal auditing of asset management businesses.

Senior Research Associate in Cambridge Associate’s EMEA Manager Research Team:- Performed extensive due diligence on the organisational structures, investment processes and risk controls of long-only equity and fixed income managers covering Europe, the UK, the Middle East and Africa. - This involved quantitative analysis of investment portfolios as well as regular interviews with portfolio managers on a range of issues concerning the design, implementation, and long term management of their investment strategies. - In addition to research directed at specific investment strategies also contributed to the firm's capital market's expertise by conducting broader research into asset classes within the EMEA region

- Client-facing experience working in small consulting teams to present investment services to a wide range of institutional clients including pension funds, endowments, charities, sovereign wealth funds and family offices. - Used a variety of tools including Excel, Adobe, PowerPoint and proprietary models to edit/prepare client materials and conduct analysis of client portfolios, as well as providing the consultants with support in the creation and on-going management of 12-15 client portfolios.

- Managed a project aimed at organising the various payees of c. $40 million in fees into business categories to allow the Thomas Miller to better understand and manage their costs.

- Worked as part of relationship management team researching investments for client portfolio proposals and helped create investment strategy pitches for clients.

Mres, International Political Economy & Global Governance (Global Politics)

Modules: International Political Economy; The Politics of Globalisation & Global Governance; Qualitative Research Methods; Quantitative.

Graduate Diploma In Law (Gdl), Law

Ba/Ma (Hons), English

Education record