Scottish Widows Workplace Savings Podcast

It's CEO time

Yes, kicking off the 2025 series of the Scottish Widows Workplace Savings Podcast, Robert Cochran is joined by Scottish Widows CEO Chira Barua. They discuss Chira's first 18 months in role and his big plans for 2025 and beyond.
The discussion includes - views on adequacy, digitising pensions, gamifying financial experience, Mansion House Reforms, Chira's love of the guitar and empowering individuals to take control of their own financial future.

Master Trust Unpacked

In our final podcast of 2024, Robert Cochran, our Innovation and Engagement Specialist is joined by our very own Master Trust Lead, Sharon Bellingham.
Sharon shares her invaluable experience and insights, on a journey that takes us from Mansion House and the Secondary Market, through to DE&I and what matters most to our members.

Pension Attention Season 2024

Over 60,000 employees have taken part in the Scottish Widows RetireWell Pension Education sessions this year with a big boost for Pay Your Pension Some Attention.
In this episode, Robert Cochran is joined by Stuart Hopley to discuss exactly what pension scheme members are asking about their pensions, whilst delving into the success of the main Pension Attention campaign too.

Women and Retirement Report 2024

The 2024 Women and Retirement report highlights the progress made over the past 20 years in narrowing the gender pension gap.
This podcast reviews the key milestones reached in the past two decades, delves into this year's findings, and explores why further action is essential to fully close the gender pensions gap.

Financial Wellness – a Talk Money Week special

In this podcast, Robert is joined by two Scottish Widows colleagues, Rachel Proudfoot and Chris Smart, as they examine the world beyond workplace pensions.
 
In this episode, they discuss financial wellness, financial resilience, and some of the ways that young people, vulnerable customers, and policyholders alike can manage their finances.
 

Pensions Dashboard(s)

In this special, Robert Cochran is joined by ‘Mr Pension Dashboard’ Richard Smith, who has travelled the length of Europe by train analysing all that European pension dashboards have to offer.
For the younger perspective, he is also joined by 20-something Oliver Webster as they discuss what the latest announcements from the government mean for pension dashboards– and just how big a revolution for pension engagement the dashboards promise to be.

Graeme Bold - doing good things at scale

In this episode, Robert Cochran is joined by Graeme Bold who has led the Workplace Savings Business at Scottish Widows for 5 years and overseen a digital revolution at Scottish Widows - growing the business to over £100 Billion of assets - whilst delivering best in class digital tools for scheme members and employers. We discuss his 5 years at Scottish Widows, his hopes for the next 5 years, pension dashboard and of course his love for Pension Engagement Season - he even dons the t-shirt.

Bringing our Responsible Investments and Stewardship Report to Life

When you're the caretaker for £181 Bn of funds from 8.3 million insurance, pensions and investment customers, it’s both a massive responsibility and also an opportunity to make a difference. That's what we're discussing today with Eva Cairns, Head of Responsible Investment at Scottish Widows, and Adam Paterson, Investment Director.
We’ll cover highlights from the 2023 Responsible Investment report, including our stewardship activities, investment strategies and the positive impact we’ve achieved.
Really excellent insight - and I also learned about SDG's - and that children are learning this at school!
 
Full report link https://adviser.scottishwidows.co.uk/assets/literature/docs/61305.pdf

Retirement Report at 20

In this episode I'm joined by Pete Glancy to review the 20th Scottish Widows Retirement Report. We look back at 20 years of this landmark report - I spread a bit of pension love and happiness through some of the really good stories in the research - Pete brings us back down to earth explaining the plight of those struggling towards a tough retirement.  Full report here
https://adviser.scottishwidows.co.uk/assets/literature/docs/retirement-report-2024.pdf

Can you gamify pensions?

Can you gamify pensions?
Of course you can! Just like learning, health, fitness and other areas of your life, gamification techniques are being applied to encourage better outcomes.
In this fascinating podcast I'm joined by real experts designing gamification into the Scottish Widows Pension experience.