Life as a Member Nominated Trustee – 10 minutes with Stephen Cunningham

We caught up with Stephen Cunningham, one of our Member Nominated Trustee Directors, fresh from him being selected to office for a further four years, to talk to him about his life as a Trustee of the Prudential Staff Pension Scheme.

Hi Stephen, firstly, congratulations on being selected for a further four-year term as a Trustee and thank you for giving up your time to speak to us today. I’d like to start by you giving us a little bit of detail about your background, if that’s OK?

No problem, I’m a qualified actuary and work as a Corporate Pensions Pricing Manager, essentially setting and reviewing charges for pensions and other products. Before that I was Unit Linked Governance Manager and was also the Reinsurance Manager for Prudential.

Before my time at M&G, I worked at two other large insurance companies in actuarial roles. My career has spanned across 23 years (which I can’t quite believe!) and has involved working in a variety of pensions, insurance and investment roles. This experience has helped me to understand risks that the pension scheme bears and how to help mitigate those risks.

I’ve also found it useful being a member of other large pension schemes, which has helped me bring another perspective to our Scheme.

What do you enjoy about being a Trustee?

I think the key thing I enjoy is listening to any queries or concerns that colleagues at M&G have about their pension and considering how to best to answer, direct or represent these at a suitable forum.

I’m also passionate about member communications. Your pension could be your largest and most significant life saving, so it really is so important for us to communicate the benefits of pensions to members in an engaging way, helping them to consider the risk and rewards they bear and their pension decisions more carefully.

What are the key skills needed to be a Trustee?

Attention to detail is a must. But also, keeping your eyes open to risks. As a Trustee Board we are advised on risks that we’re aware of, but it’s up to the whole Trustee Board and its advisers to keep a look out for potential risks on the horizon.

The world we live in today is already very different from the start of 2022. The new high level of inflation is on my radar and how this could impact the future purchasing power of your pension, for example.

So, the ability to spot, communicate and control risks is a very important skill to have as a Trustee.

I also think it’s vital for Trustees to be approachable for our members, as I discussed earlier, I do have quite a few members come to me with queries.

What have been some of the challenges and highlights from your last four years as a Trustee?

Well, there have been quite a few!

In 2019, the Company changed their benefits, which presented challenges to myself and the other Trustees. Then, the Sponsoring Company split into two – I would say that this caused the biggest impact to the Scheme in its 100-year history!

Then in November 2020, we traded a multi-billion-pound longevity swap – which is a very complex derivative product used to help reduce the longevity risk the scheme has. The Trustees went on a journey to evaluate whether we should trade the product, selecting who we should trade with and reviewing if the terms were fair etc. A challenging but ultimately, very rewarding process!

That does sound busy and challenging! So that’s the last four years, but what are you looking forward to being involved with over the next four years?

Well, the obvious priority is ensuring that members are more aware of ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) investments. Members increasingly want to know where their money is invested, and the impact of that – so we need to ensure this is done in an understandable and engaging way.

However, as discussed previously, we need to continue to keep our eyes open to potential risks on the horizon to the Scheme.

In the last few months, inflation has become exceptionally high – so this could potentially have an impact on members’ savings. We need to ask ourselves some questions about this – is this the new normal? Is this a temporary thing? The rise in inflation is here now and we need to understand the impact this has on the Scheme and its members and communicate this clearly and effectively.

Before you leave, perhaps you can give us an idea of what you like to do when you’re not working at M&G and being a Trustee?

I have two small children (two and six years old), so as you can imagine, they keep me very busy!

I also took up tennis during lockdown. I recently also started coaching my six-year-old son’s football team – so that keeps me on my toes!

One of my friends is a DJ on our local radio station (Central FM 103.1) and I sometimes suggest ideas for segments on his weekend show – in fact, my two sons are used on the station’s promotional Facebook page!

I also support St Johnstone football club – an interesting fact for you, they are the only professional football club in the UK with a ‘J’ in their name!

Thanks for your time today, Stephen – we look forward to speaking to you again during your next four years tenure as Trustee!