Personality of the year

This award (voted for by our readers) aims to recognise those individuals that have truly made their mark in the European pensions space in recent years. The winner will be announced at the European Pensions Awards gala dinner on 3 July 2025 at the London Marriott Hotel, Grosvenor Square. Book your table here.

VOTE HERE

European Pensions Personality of the year 2025: Meet the candidates

Lisa Brüggen, Executive Director, Netspar and Professor of Financial Services, Maastricht University
Lisa Brüggen is the Executive Director of Netspar, the Network for Studies on Pension, Aging and Retirement; Professor of Financial Services at Maastricht University; and Endowed Professor of Retirement Communications and Decision Support at Tilburg University. She is an internationally recognised expert in retirement communication, decision support, and financial wellbeing. As Director of Netspar, she bridges academic research and practical applications in the pension sector to improve communication and member engagement. Her research has been published in leading scientific journals and has earned several prestigious awards and grants.

Rosanne Corbett, Director, Muse
Rosanne Corbett is a Director and owner of Muse and a governance and risk management specialist. She leads the governance and risk management business line and is an experienced board facilitator, leading and facilitating workshops and strategic planning. She is a regular speaker at events and panel discussions. Rosanne leads on a range of client projects covering governance and trustee effectiveness, risk management, outsourced pensions management, master trust selection exercises, administration change projects and adviser reviews. Rosanne joined Muse Advisory in 2010. Before that, she worked at Mercer, firstly in their International Benefits Consulting business where she worked with multinational companies on developing and implementing global governance and risk management frameworks and global benefit strategies. She then specialised in UK pensions governance and risk management in Mercer’s retirement business, working with companies and pension scheme trustees, before joining Muse.

Joe Craig, Development Lead, Quietroom
Joe Craig is a communication specialist, a best-selling author and screenwriter. Since Joe joined Quietroom in 2017, he has worked on and developed communications strategies for pension schemes, investment firms, insurers and other financial institutions, big and small. Joe moved from the content team to the relationship side of Quietroom. You’ll find him across the industry connecting people and ideas. He’s often on stage at industry events discussing how to make complicated or difficult messages more meaningful to more people.

Ian Gordon, Partner, Pinsent Masons
Ian is a deeply experienced pensions lawyer who together with advising both employers and trustees is increasingly in demand as a professional independent trustee. He has advised on a plethora of high-profile pension cases over the years. He qualified as a solicitor in 1981 as a private client lawyer, although he soon found himself transformed into a corporate lawyer. Being familiar with trusts from his private client days, anything which said “Trust Deed and Rules” was swiftly pushed onto his desk for him to deal with. From these modest beginnings Ian steadily built up the firm’s pension practice to become pre-eminent in the Scottish market. Ian’s practice ranges from documenting pension schemes, agreeing funding plans, resolving disputes through both the Pensions Ombudsman and the courts, negotiating the pensions aspects of corporate transactions, to winding schemes up, dealing with section 75 debts, and engaging with the Pensions Regulator and the Pension Protection Fund. His contribution to the development of Scots law on pensions is evidenced by his involvement in most of the leading Court of Session pensions cases. Even after a more than four-decade long career, Ian’s passion and mental sharpness are undiminished. His definitive work, “Battling with Courage,” remains a pivotal critique of the important Courage case, underscoring his enduring influence on pensions law.

Petra Hielkema, Chair, EIOPA
Petra Hielkema is the Chairperson of EIOPA and has been leading the Authority since September 2021, following her appointment by the European Council on 27 May 2021 after confirmation by the European Parliament on 18 May 2021. In 2025 Petra is chairing the Joint Committee (the role rotates between the ESA Chairs). In that capacity she is also deputy Vice Chair of the ESRB Steering Committee and the ESRB General Board in 2025. Petra was appointed as Vice Chair of the IAIS Executive Committee in December 2024. Besides that, she is the Champion of the IAIS Fintech Forum. Prior to this role Petra was Division Director of Insurance Supervision at De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB, the Dutch Central Bank) as well as Alternate Member of the EIOPA Board and Chair of the EIOPA Policy Committee. Petra joined DNB in February 2007 as a policy advisor, contributing to the development of Solvency II. In 2013 she became Head Insurance Policy and in 2015 she was appointed as Head of the DNB Expert Centre for Fit & Proper assessments. In February 2017 Petra started as Director of Payments and Market. Prior to joining the Dutch Central Bank fulfilled several roles working in Central Asia.

Paul Kitson, UK Pensions Consulting Leader, EY
Paul Kitson leads a team of over 100 actuaries, investment consultants, governance professionals and data scientists. With a career spanning over two decades, Paul has been at the forefront of some of the UK’s largest and most innovative pension transactions and strategy projects. He is often sought after for his insights and is a commentator and presenter on pension-related topics. Additionally, Paul serves as an Actuarial Expert Witness and an Independent Longevity Specialist. Pensions are at the forefront of retirement and intergenerational wealth challenges. Paul is proud to have supported clients in managing their pension offerings for employees. He has helped safeguard the legacy of their longstanding commitments. He has also created innovative structures that can reallocate excess assets beyond what is needed for sustaining the established legacy pensions of senior generations, to improve the retirement benefits for the younger demographic. With a challenging future ahead, with potential pension gaps looming for the next generations, Paul is dedicated to delivering better outcomes for pension members, which, in turn, benefits sponsors and the wider society. 

Bobby Riddaway, Founder, Trustee, Sustainability Working Group
Bobby Riddaway is Managing Director of HS Trustees and a Professional with over 30 years’ experience in pensions and investments. He founded and chairs the recently formed Trustee Sustainability Working Group, a cross industry working group aiming to improve sustainability practices and policies. He is currently Chair of Trustees on the DB Scheme of a London based firm of Lawyers and on a small hybrid DC scheme in the process of wind-up. He is a regular speaker on DB, DC and ESG/ Stewardship issues and is looking to assist both the industry and his Pension Schemes develop in these areas. He is also currently an asset owner member of the AIMSE Europe council and past Chair of the ACA Investment Committee. During his career Bobby has worked with some of the largest and smallest pension schemes in the UK across all areas. He is an actuary by profession and has worked as both an Investment Consultant and a With-Profit Actuary.

Paul Torsney, Head of Pensions in Ireland, Law Debenture
Prior to joining LawDeb, Paul Torsney spent 14 years with Willis Towers Watson, working as a Director and Consulting Actuary. His responsibilities included advising companies and trustees on all aspects of their pension provision as well as being involved in a wide range of specialist knowledge areas. Particular areas of focus included scheme actuary functions, assisting trustees in wind-up projects and developing solutions to meet the challenge of increasing governance and risk management requirements arising from IORP II and related regulations. Well versed in all aspects of account management, Paul was also the office expert in accounting for employee benefits under Irish, International and US GAAP and a member of the settlement solutions team with a focus on bulk annuity transactions. He is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries in Ireland and the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and a Chartered Enterprise Risk Actuary (CERA). He is the current Chair of the Pension Committee and a member of the Council of the Society of Actuaries in Ireland.