The Professional Investment Podcast

Welcome to the Professional Investment Podcast! This podcast is targeted at people involved in the professional investment industry – in particular, those who are involved in how large institutions, such as pension schemes and insurance companies, allocate their billions. We will be talking to chief investment officers, head of sustainability and the consultants, pension schemes and insurance companies responsible for generating retirement wealth. And our audience are those involved in the professional investment chain.

The Professional Investment Podcast is a business podcast hosted by Charlotte Moore, with 51 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Charlotte Moore hosts The Professional Investment Podcast, a business show with 51 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Episode #2

  How insurers are investing in the UK – with Ciaran Mulligan, CIO of M&G Life

  Sep 22, 202631 minS7

  Ciaran Mulligan, CIO of M&G Life, is our guest on the latest episode of The Professional Investment Podcast. He chose Professional Pensions’ story that insurers invest £22.8bn in UK productive assets since pledge in 2024 as his news story of the week. Investing in the UK must meet M&G Life’s fiduciary duty. When the right assets can be found, these assets not only provide the returns required but can also improve the economy and society. Ciaran explained he runs two books of business – a with-profits fund as well as an annuity book. These can be invested in different ways. The with-profits book has less stringent requirements than the life business. M&G has long history of investing in real assets and allocates to both infrastructure and real estate. While most are fixed income investments, there are some equity assets too. The firm’s asset management arm facilitates many of those investments, but the life business also works with third-party managers. Ciaran talked in detail about two investments in M&G’s portfolio – Durham-based Pragmatic Semiconductor as well as Manchester’s Arndale shopping centre. Investing in tangible assets like these is helpful in building trust with life and with-profit beneficiaries, he added. Finally, we discussed how M&G Life invests to ensure the worst climate-change and AI predictions don’t come to fruition." -- Ciaran Mulligan is Chief Investment Officer for M&G Life and responsible for the 80 strong Life Investment Office (LIO) and the management of over £159bn of assets on behalf of our Life Company. His remit spans strategic asset allocation, manager selection, mandate design, product design and ensuring that LIO delivers robust long term investment outcomes for our clients. Ciaran has been with the Life Investment Office for over ten years, having first joined M&G in 2015 as Head of Manager Oversight. Before joining M&G, he worked as an investment consultant to UK pension schemes and as a Fund of Funds portfolio manager. His earlier career included senior research and portfolio management roles at Buck Consultants and Investment Solutions, where he led global research and managed fixed income strategies #PensionsPodcast #ValueForMoney #PrivateMarkets #DCPensions #ScottishWidows

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  The Professional Investment Podcast

  Benchmarking consequences – with Mithesh Varsani, head of investment solutions at Scottish Widows

  Sep 15, 202633 min

  Mithesh Varsani, head of investment solutions at Scottish Widows, is our guest for the first episode of series seven of The Professional Investment Podcast. He chose MandateWire’s ‘Are Australia’s pension funds stuck in a performance testing loop?’ as his news story of the week. This article raises interesting questions for UK policy makers as they put together the value for money framework. This will operate a traffic-light system based on how a scheme performs. There are questions as to whether such a performance metric should be a permanent feature or retired after an initial period to allow weak performers to be weeded out. This would give greater flexibility to the remaining schemes. We talked about how different parts of The Pension Scheme Act will influence industry behaviour. Will the scale requirements push scheme to embrace more low-cost investments to win market share? And will this work against value for money which aims to improve net returns? Another key policy initiative is to encourage pension schemes to invest more in UK productive finance. But if VFM encourages investment herding, this might act against allocating to private assets. Like other DC providers, Scottish Widows is grappling with the need to provide members with a retirement income. The final part of our discussion focused on what private assets could be incorporated at this part of the member journey to allow them to remain invested in growth. Chapters: 00:00 Welcome to Series 7 with Mithesh Varsani 00:51 News of the Week, Australia's Performance Testing Loop 04:53 UK Policy Lessons, Value for Money and Pension Reform 09:04 The Traffic Light Risk, Avoiding a Vanilla Market 13:06 Balancing Scale with Genuine Member Value 16:18 From Policy to Portfolio, Investment Strategy in Practice 20:48 Private Markets, Building the To and Through Glide Path 28:17 New Frontiers, Liquid Alternatives and Diversification Mithesh joined Scottish Widows in January 2025, as Head of Investment Solutions, focused on understanding evolving customer needs across our Workplace, Advised and D2C channels engaging with market participants, translating these into outcomes to develop innovative investment solutions. He joined from Mobius Life, where, as Chief Investment Officer, he spent 15 years playing an instrumental role in building an innovative, market-leading business, focused on bespoke investment solutions for a broad range of investors. Mithesh brings a breadth of expertise across strategic research, asset allocation, and portfolio management, combined with deep experience in designing and implementing sophisticated investment strategies. He is a CFA Charterholder and graduated with a First Class Honours in Mathematics with Economics. He has a strong track record of understanding client needs and partnering with asset managers and stakeholders to address complex investment challenges, delivering solutions that drive better outcomes and create long-term value. A proven innovator in both the DB and DC marketplace, Mithesh has led the development of industry-firsts spanning from structured derivative solutions, private markets to sustainable assets. #PensionsPodcast #ValueForMoney #PrivateMarkets #DCPensions #ScottishWidows

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  Episode #10

  The Best of Series Six: The Professional Investment Podcast

  Aug 13, 202620 minS6

  Watch or listen to the best of series six of The Professional Investment Podcast. This series we cover how the insurance industry will invest the forecast £550bn it will receive from closed DB schemes. We have a guide to the Pension Schemes Bill as well as how to reshape the regulator. Portfolio construction is unpacked including how to improve longevity and the advantages of dynamic debt allocation. We explore whether schemes can suffer from diseconomies of scale. Finally, we talk about how to tackle climate change risk effectively. ABOUT THE HOST: Charlotte Moore is an award-winning journalist and founder of Moore Squared Communications. She has spent almost two decades writing about how the UK’s largest investment organisations allocate their capital for a number of different specialist magazines including Professional Pensions, IPE and MandateWire. She started this podcast to increase understanding of how and why the UK’s £3 trillion pensions industry invests its members’ capital to provide the best possible retirement. https://lotsmoore.co.uk/ #InvestmentConsulting #LGPSFunds #HymansRobertson #ResponsibleInvestment #InvestmentStrategy

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  Episode #8

  Combating climate change risk – with Naomi Clark, head of investment product management for USSIM

  Jun 15, 202630 minS6

  Naomi Clark, head of product management for USSIM, is our latest guest on The Professional Investment Podcast. She chose the FT’s story that wild temperature swings are becoming the new normal as her news story of the week. Naomi explains how even small temperature variability will create big challenges not only for our health but also for the economy. She noted that article’s emphasis on the economic impacts of climate change echo the concerns of USS. She explains the scheme recently worked with the University of Exeter to produce different climate scenarios which highlighted both the economic damage of climate change and the benefits of action. This work led USS to pursue an agenda of systemic change – working with other asset managers to build alliances to lobby the UK government for policy change. But it’s not enough to make domestic changes – even if the UK had the most forward-thinking climate change policy, the world would still burn without global action. That’s why Naomi was recently in Singapore to meet with internation asset owners and persuade them to lobby their governments for change. We discussed how company engagement remains important even if USS has recognised systemic change will really move the dial. And that portfolio diversification is also important, especially for a universal asset owner. Finally, Naomi asked other asset owners to work with USS to bring about the systemic climate change we need. Now is the time to be bold, she said. ⸻ ABOUT THE GUEST: Naomi has responsibility for oversight and implementation of investments USSIM, including the selection and implementation of external and internal managers and mandates, the implementation of the defined contribution product, and the implementation of responsible investment. Additionally, Naomi has shared responsibility for Investment Advice provided to the trustee. Naomi joined USSIM from JP Morgan as Business Development Manager running front office projects across the scheme, she subsequently became the LDI & Treasury Manager, with responsibility for the external LDI mandate. Following that Naomi focused on strategy solutions provision for the scheme within the Strategy Co-ordination team, helping to implement the scheme’s Reference Portfolio before taking responsibility for the design and implementation of the new DC Product. Naomi graduated from Loughborough University with a degree in English Literature and subsequently gained a first-class degree in Finance from Oxford Brookes University, additionally holding the ACCA & IMC qualifications. ⸻ ABOUT THE HOST: Charlotte Moore is an award-winning journalist and co-founder of Moore Squared Communications. She has spent almost two decades writing about how the UK’s largest investment organisations allocate their capital for a number of different specialist magazines including Professional Pensions, IPE and MandateWire. She started this podcast to increase understanding of how and why the UK’s £3 trillion pensions industry invests its members’ capital to provide the best possible retirement. 🔗 https://mooresquaredcommunications.com/the-professional-investment-podcast/ Chapters: 00:00 Introduction and DC Megafunds Debate 04:00 Scale, Diseconomies, and UK Productive Finance 08:00 Fund of Funds, Private Equity Routes, and Fee Management 11:30 Co-Investment, Secondaries, and Private Asset Classes 15:00 Internal vs External Investment Management 19:30 Green Infrastructure and Renewable Energy Investment 23:00 Sustainability, Net Zero Targets, and Climate Pragmatism 26:30 Policy, Industry Reactivity, and Closing Thoughts #EnergyTransition #ClimateRisk #PensionInvesting #ESGInvesting

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  Episode #7

  Can pensions schemes suffer diseconomies of scale? – with James Lawrence, CIO of Smart Pension

  Jun 11, 202630 minS6

  James Lawrence, CIO of Smart Pension, is our guest for episode six of series six of The Profession Investment Podcast. He chose Professional Pensions story that there’s no guarantee DC megafunds will lead to higher returns. We discuss how there is currently a tendency to think bigger is always better in pensions schemes. But any investment professional knows size can also hinder investment returns – there are good reasons asset managers gate funds at certain sizes. If asset owners want to invest in smaller companies and smaller asset managers, one solution is to build third-party fund of funds who can select those specialist asset managers. Fees are obviously an important consideration in this scenario as private assets are already more expensive and fund of funds add an extra layer of fees. Kept a lid on these costs is vital. James unpacked the different ways asset owners can invest in private equity and the different pros and cons of primary and secondary investing as well as co-investing. We broadened the discussion to different types of private assets and where they belong in a DC portfolio before diving into a debate about whether asset owners should be thinking about building internal teams to invest in private assets or use third-party asset managers. We discussed the resources and time needed to build an internal team and whether this would ever be as effective as an asset manager given asset owners can pay less and don’t have the same track record. Finally, James talked about how Smart Pension is investing in green infrastructure which led us to debate how sustainable investing and net zero is evolving. ⸻ ABOUT THE GUEST: James has over 12 years' experience in the pensions industry, mainly in consulting and investment management. At Smart Pension, James is the Chief Investment Officer and responsible for building and overseeing the investment solution. Prior to joining Smart James worked at Mercer, managing the investment proposition for Mercer Workplace Savings in the UK DC workplace delegated business. ⸻ ABOUT THE HOST: Charlotte Moore is an award-winning journalist and co-founder of Moore Squared Communications. She has spent almost two decades writing about how the UK’s largest investment organisations allocate their capital for a number of different specialist magazines including Professional Pensions, IPE and MandateWire. She started this podcast to increase understanding of how and why the UK’s £3 trillion pensions industry invests its members’ capital to provide the best possible retirement. 🔗 https://mooresquaredcommunications.com/the-professional-investment-podcast/ Chapters: 00:00 Introduction and DC Megafunds Debate 04:00 Scale, Diseconomies, and UK Productive Finance 08:00 Fund of Funds, Private Equity Routes, and Fee Management 11:30 Co-Investment, Secondaries, and Private Asset Classes 15:00 Internal vs External Investment Management 19:30 Green Infrastructure and Renewable Energy Investment 23:00 Sustainability, Net Zero Targets, and Climate Pragmatism 26:30 Policy, Industry Reactivity, and Closing Thoughts #PensionProtectionFund #UKPensions #PensionsPolicy #RetirementIncome #ProfessionalInvestment

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