July 1, 2025
An Audience With
My Career with Jo Thistlewood
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Written By: Jo Thistlewood |
After 25 years living on the Isle of Wight, Jo Thistlewood is moving onto the mainland in her new role at the helm of the Royal County of Berkshire Pension Fund. She shares how she is settling into the role at a time of significant industry change
As someone relatively new to the Royal County of Berkshire Pension Fund, how does your experience help you make decisions that are clear, fair, and focused on the long-term needs of pension members?
The Isle of Wight Council has the smallest fund in the UK in terms of assets under management. I had a really small team and that meant I had to be very hands-on in almost all aspects of the fund. The pension industry changed a lot in my 16 years working for the Isle of Wight Council – honestly, it feels like it’s changed a lot in the past six minutes – and I developed a real ability to learn and think on my feet.
My focus at the moment is making sure that we provide our committee members with all the information they need, the background behind our decisions, and the advice we’ve received. We’re trying to make everything as easy to understand as possible in quite a complex field, so that the committee members can do their jobs and we can do ours. I’ve got an amazing team supporting me – administrators, communications, payroll, technical, finance and a deputy head of pension fund – all of whom have been incredibly supportive.
What are the biggest challenges you see in pensions governance today, and what are your plans to tackle these at Berkshire?
Just the sheer pace of change. We have so many consultations and new requirements coming up, and the biggest challenge in the industry is simply finding the time to understand each change and plan for it, so that we can make sure both we and our committee members have the right knowledge to do our jobs.
At Berkshire, we’ve just commissioned a knowledge assessment tool – a 20-minute survey to identify knowledge gaps among committee members and create a training plan to tackle them. We also need a business plan that’s a living, breathing, document that actively guides our priorities.
With knowledge, training and planning – and ideally some guidance from government about what the LGPS’s top priority should be – we may be able to manage the pace of change. I know a lot of people in the industry simply want a period of stability to do the tasks of day-to-day pension management and catch up with all the changes that have already been announced.
How do you think the roles of LGPS stakeholders will change in the next few years, especially with the focus on pooling?
We’re seeing a real change in the expectations of committee members. For a long time, pensions were interesting because they allowed committee members to get involved in understanding asset classes and markets. There were obvious selling points – going into London, meeting with investment managers. A lot of that glamour has been stripped out as the work has become more streamlined, but there was still the question of manager selection, which many committee members still found really interesting.
With implementation being fully delegated to pools, committee members’ focus will shift to being much more about investment performance rather than investment selection. That’s a much more administrative role – asking how the pool made its decision and what are its governance processes, rather than making the decisions themselves.
That change will take away the last glamorous part of the job and replace it with admin and governance. Pension fund committees used to be concerned about 80% of the time with investments, and 20% with governance and administration – that balance will be flipped on its head. I think it will be a real struggle to attract new committee members with that job description.
It will become a much more altruistic role. We will have to work hard to raise awareness about the LGPS, raising its status to reflect the fact that it’s a huge benefit of public sector employment and an important financial security net for public servants living in each electorate. Many of those public servants are voters, and committee members should think of them and the good they can do.
With responsible investing becoming more important, how does the Berkshire Pension Fund include environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors in its investment decisions?
We’re currently refreshing our responsible investment policy – defining our statements, beliefs, values and priorities, and also learning how to do that within the context of our pool. We know that there needs to be a degree of overlap between our responsible investment policy and those of our partner funds if Local Pensions Partnership Investments (LPPI) has any hope of implementing them.
Reviewing our approach includes understanding the potential financial impact of exclusion (divestment from assets that don’t fit our ESG criteria), as well as member support for such actions. It’s about understanding how we can take our local beliefs into implementation through the pool, and considering the outcomes of those decisions for real-world impact and our portfolio.
LPPI, as a well-established pool, has a framework shaped by its responsible investment experts. We’ve been able to take advantage of the work they have already put in, looking at the responsible investment standards embedded in the funds LPPI has available and working collaboratively to see how they fit with our own policies and priorities.
Are there any exciting projects or initiatives at Berkshire that you’re working on?
It’s not trendy to say, but we are working really hard to make sure we are fit for purpose, following best practice and compliant. The review of our responsible investment policy is part of that, as is the triennial valuation, which will be my first at Berkshire. I’ll be considering all new investment structures, new actuarial services, new advisers – new everything. I’m very excited about that.
We’re also currently working with LPPI on our local investment priorities and how to fill out the Berkshire investment sleeve. We’re looking at some interesting opportunities in real estate, which may be able to support small employers in the area. LPPI has been great at conducting due diligence and making sure the opportunities fit within our structure and risk-return profile.
What are your goals for the next couple of years at Berkshire, and how will you measure whether you’ve been successful?
Our primary focus is our funding level, and hopefully the triennial valuation will show improvements there. That will also include looking at the stability of contributions from our employers, as well as reviewing our investment strategy and performance to make sure both are up to scratch. Our aim is to be fully funded by 2040.
Our other priority is to tackle recruitment and retention in our team. We’re not far from London and it’s difficult to compete with the London councils, which makes it difficult to recruit experienced LGPS staff. We’re focused on career development, making sure there’s a clear career path for new talent and that they are suitably rewarded. I would love to have standardised job descriptions across the LGPS, so we could benchmark our recruitment against other funds and make sure we’re following best practice to stay competitive.
What advice would you give to someone who’s starting a career in pension fund management?
Working at the LGPS is a public service, done for the good of the people. You will learn a wide range of skills, so be interested in what you’re doing. I learn more each year than I did the last, and that just keeps going up. There is always something new to learn, which keeps the job interesting and exciting.
Finally, remember that you don’t need to know everything; you just need to know people with different skillsets to yours. Networking is important, relying on others, and knowing that everything you’ve learned personally and professionally is an asset in this role.
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