Pensions & Investments' WorldPensionSummit honored excellence in retirement across four categories in its 2017 Innovation Awards.
The awards, presented Thursday during the annual WorldPensionSummit conference in The Hague, Netherlands, recognized innovation in technology, communication, investment and plan design.
The winners are:
- United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund, New York, for excellence in innovation in technology. Paul Dooley, deputy CEO, collected the award on behalf of the pension fund, which was recognized for a number of new systems to replace a larger number of more fragmented data processing and member information services. These systems were created in response to criticism from members.
- Central Provident Fund Board of Singapore, Singapore, for excellence in innovation in communication. Irene Kang, group director communications group collected the award, which recognized the fund's proactive approach to participant engagement. The fund has recognized the growing importance of the individual in understanding and getting involved with their savings. The fund's #ICanAdult campaign focused on millennial employees, generating more than 2 million engagements on social media and increasing its Instagram following by almost 200%.
- National Employment Savings Trust, London, for excellence in innovation in investment. The plan's bespoke climate change strategy was recognized by judges as a good example of large asset owners using their influence and purchasing power to draw unique solutions from money managers. Executives also incorporated the investment into their default fund, showing a further commitment to putting climate change into the mainstream of its investment thinking. John St. Hill, deputy chief investment officer, collected the award on behalf of the multiemployer plan.
- Amundi Global Servicing for excellence in innovation in plan design. The award, collected by Christian Lemaire, global head of retirement solutions at Amundi on behalf of the multi-employer cross-border plan, recognized the management of complexity within the plan. It is compliant with domestic regulations and tax law, and is available to sponsors from seven European jurisdictions and has a section for employees in other parts of the world. In some cases the provider has reduced clients' retirement costs by approximately one-third.
Additionally, the awards program's 12 judges recognized a number of finalists in each category:
- Government Service Insurance System, Manila, finalist in technology.
- Kiwi Wealth Limited, Porirua, finalist in the communication category.
- Transport for London Pension Fund, London, runner up in the investment category.
- Natal Joint Municipal Pension/Provident Funds, Natal, South Africa, finalist in plan design.
The awards were presented by Don Ezra, P&I Advisory Board member and former co-chairman, global consulting at Russell Investments; Nikki Pirrello, group associate publisher at P&I; and Christopher J. Battaglia, CEO of the WorldPensionSummit and vice president and group publisher of P&I.
Other judges were Manuel García Huitrón, senior consultant labor markets and social security division at Inter-American Development Bank; Lloyd Komori, former senior vice president of risk management at the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, Toronto; Mai Lam, director of international retirement at American Express; Terry McCredden, director at UCA Funds Management; Ton van der Linden, Benelux business services manager and treasurer at ExxonMobil; Alwin Oerlemans, head of pension strategy at APG; James Redgrave, director of programming at Pensions & Investments; Harry Smorenberg, founder of the WorldPensionSummit; and Errol Stoové, honorary president at ISSA.
