Team

Douglas is an entrepreneurial actuary, who provided the original inspiration for what we now know as Club Vita. His actuarial career spans thirty years: before focusing on longevity risk, Douglas advised trustees and corporate sponsors of final salary pension funds on funding and risk management issues.

Today, Douglas remains a hands-on leader to Club Vita, focussing his creative streak on the next opportunity for innovation and on sharing the benefits of Club Vita in Canada. 

Douglas is also a passionate advocate for the benefits of joined-up, enterprise risk management techniques. You can read his thoughts on how to apply ERM to longevity here. 

Away from the office, Douglas enjoys gardening, skiing and cycling. 

Steven has led the design and development of Club Vita’s longevity informatics tools from the inception of the Club, having developed his skills in the field of liability-driven investing. He has a passion for developing new insights, and an encyclopaedic knowledge of all things longevity related.  

Steven’s time is primarily spent improving our leading-edge longevity solutions; including responsibility for leading a team of statisticians and actuaries in analysing predictors of longevity and the emerging trends in later life mortality within Club Vita. 

Steven is a prolific contributor to longevity debates within the UK actuarial profession via academic papers, publications and seminar presentations. He has recently co-authored, with Douglas Anderson, a chapter on longevity risk management for the Palgrave Handbook of Unconventional Risk Transfer.

Steven is a keen cyclist and runner, but much of his time is currently spent clambering up a climbing frame with his young son and the family dog. 

Andrew has been a key member of the team from the birth of Club Vita.  He has played an invaluable role in modernising longevity risk management techniques, using his rare ability to translate complex actuarial concepts into simple, digestible, messages.  

Andrew’s previous life as a pensions actuary has endowed him with a rich knowledge of the range of different benefit structures, such as the rules for awarding ill-health retirement.   This knowledge is now helping schemes interpret longevity analysis and take action, thereby improving security for members’ benefits.   

Andrew is a regular speaker at conferences, has written articles and authored papers on longevity, and is a long standing member of CMI committees and working parties.

Outside work, Andrew's three young sons take up much of his time. When he's not chasing after his children, he enjoys running ‘ultra-marathons’ and is a keen amateur cook.

Mike is the creative technology guru who joined the founding team and immediately showed us how to get the most out of intelligently designing our database, which we now know as VitaBank. His expertise enables Club Vita’s statistical insights and operational efficiency.  Mike started programming in 1976, earnestly reminding our enthusiastic youngsters that he has been at it for more than 40 years.  

Before joining Club Vita, Mike honed his skills in the finance industry for 20 years and prior to that in IT for manufacturing and retail. Little did he know that he would become an expert in life existence checking techniques.  

Mike’s outside interests include curling and sailing.

Steve guides all our new members through the initial on-boarding process, answering any question you may have. He is our resident guru on data protection.  

Before taking on the role of Membership Secretary Steve spent much of his time presenting the Club Vita findings to members – a role he continues to perform for many of our members.

Outside of work Steve is an amateur lumberjack. 

Conor has specialised in analysing longevity patterns for over 10 years, working with a wide range of pension schemes, insurers and reinsurers.

Conor is responsible for ensuring that the analytics members receive remains fresh and up to date. He has developed and maintains many of our longevity modelling tools. 

Outside of work Conor is a keen hockey player. 

James is responsible for our VitaCurves survival model.  He leads the annual re-calibration review process and develops the underlying statistical software.  James works closely with Steven Baxter and Conor O’Reilly to identify new insights from Club Vita’s data.

James has recently qualified as an actuary and is now enjoying weekends free of studying by playing the piano, reading and trying to keep (relatively) fit by playing football, golf and squash.

Erik helps existing and potential pension scheme supporters of Club Vita get the most out of its capabilities.  Erik also facilitates our Friends of Club Vita discussion group on LinkedIn. 

Erik has over 6 years’ pensions consulting experience having transitioned into the wonderful world of actuarial science from his early career activity as a pure mathematician.

At the weekend (mainly in the summer), Erik enjoys juggling in the park and is a former British street performing champion.

Nick is an experienced longevity risk specialist, providing analysis to support decision-making by pension schemes, insurers and reinsurers. His background is in pensions and he is a qualified actuary with over 10 years of pensions experience and has previously held a Scheme Actuary certificate.

Nick spends much of his time out meeting Club members, providing trustee presentations on the latest Club Vita findings.

In his spare time, Nick is a keen cricketer – and is a former world champion at ice cricket.

Elaine works with Club Vita clients to help them get the most from our range of models and services, ensuring that the insights we gain from the Club are fully transferred to client teams. With a background in artificial intelligence and systems biology she brings a diverse range of skills to the team.

Outside work, Elaine is a keen scuba diver and yogi and spends most of her spare time planning her next far-flung holiday to explore coral reefs. 

Richard follows emerging developments and innovations in the world of health and technology, and regularly shares relevant snippets with Club Vita supporters on Friends of Club Vita on LinkedIn.  

Richard is also Editor of The Actuary magazine, a board member of the Health & Care practice at the Institute & Faculty of Actuaries, and also a member of the actuarial profession’s working party on Risk Management in a Digital World.

Richard enjoys exploring all the new and pop-up cultural experiences that London has to offer with friends, including immersive theatre and secret dining clubs. 

Ailsa supports Club Vita’s new ventures by overseeing all significant our projects and innovations. She is an actuary with over 10 years of experience in the life and financial services industry, especially in the areas of new structures and products. She has a particular interest in innovation in the longevity risk trading market and in long-term care for the elderly.

At weekends, Ailsa escapes from the office to go hillwalking in the remoter parts of highlands of Scotland.    

Siobhan is a part-qualified actuary who joined our team from Heriot Watt University.  She supports clients on a wide range of longevity-related assignments including experience analysis and longevity trend research and application. 

She leads on quality assurance and provides support to Matthew and Kirsty in their processing of data received from Club Vita members. 

Outside of work Siobhan balances studying for her actuarial exams with regular trips to the gym. In the small window between exams Siobhan enjoys travelling and going to music festivals.

Chuyi is our newest recruit having recently joined the team after completing a Masters in Astrophysics. 

Chuyi works closely with James Maloney on the statistical calibration of the VitaCurves model.

In her spare time, Chuyi likes to read, doodle and play badminton.

Matthew leads our team processing and analysing the data received from Club members. He works closely with pension scheme administrators to help ensure that the process of providing data to Club Vita is as simple as possible.

Matthew has experience in both third-party and in-house defined benefit pensions administration prior to joining Club Vita.

Matthew also plays acoustic guitar in his spare time. 

Kirsty is an experienced longevity analyst. She works closely with a number of our schemes with the most challenging data histories to ensure that they receive the best possible insights from the data. 

Kirsty joined Club Vita team in its formative years, bringing a wealth of pension administrator experience from Aon and Scottish Mutual.

Kirsty is kept busy after work and at the weekends with her horse Gem.

Amanda works closely with a number of our schemes, processing member data and producing annual reports which provide our schemes with the latest insights from our data set. 

Amanda has a number of years’ experience in third-party pensions administration prior to joining Club Vita.

Amanda loves to travel and is always planning her next holiday. 

Fraser works closely with a number of our schemes, analysing member data and creating annual reports to provide our schemes with the latest insights from our data set. 

Fraser had over 15 years’ experience in third party defined benefit administration prior to joining Club Vita.

Fraser enjoys music and is currently learning to play the bagpipes.

Maria provides valuable support to the longevity analysts in the preparation of Club Vita reports and also performs finance administration and document management for the Club.

Maria is an avid hillwalker and can often be found ‘bagging Munros’ at the weekend.

Karen advises Club Vita on its contracts and data protection responsibilities, enabling straightforward onboarding of new subscribers.

Karen previously advised Standard Life.  Her team bring experience from across financial services and other industries and include members of the Association of Pension Lawyers. 

Away from work, Karen is a keen diver.