Smart Pension has appointed Raj Mody as its new chair of trustees and targeted £10bn in assets under management by next year.
Mody will take over on 1 September from Andy Cheseldine, who has chaired Smart’s trustee board since 2017.
He is a former global head of retirement and pensions at PwC, and has held several senior executive positions in the pensions, governance and technology spaces over a 30-year career.
He left PwC at the end of last year and has since become chair of the JLL UK Pension Scheme.
One of the new chair’s first priorities will be “overseeing current acquisitions and new business”, said Smart UK chief executive officer Jamie Fiveash, with the aim of reaching £10bn in assets under management by the end of 2026.
“This, alongside a rapidly changing and consolidating market, makes us incredibly excited for the years ahead,” Fiveash said.
Smart Pension currently has approximately £6bn in assets under management, with 1.5 million members and more than 70,000 employers.
It has been one of the most acquisitive master trusts in the market, taking on the Options Workplace Master Trust last year and the Crystal Master Trust in 2023.
In 2022, it acquired the Ensign Master Trust – the auto-enrolment vehicle for the Merchant Navy Officers’ Pension Scheme – and has also onboarded Welplan, Corpad and the Corporate Pensions Trust, among others.
Mody said: “It is a privilege to be appointed chair of Smart Pension’s master trust board. Over the course of my career, I have seen firsthand the role technology can play in helping deliver long-term value for savers across the world. I look forward to supporting Smart Pension in its ongoing ambitions to innovate and improve retirement outcomes for its growing membership.”
Fiveash also thanked Andy Cheseldine for his service as trustee chair, saying: “Throughout Andy’s tenure, he has steered the scheme through some key milestones, such as our regulatory authorisation from the Pensions Regulator in 2019.
“Andy is one of the true leaders in our industry, and I’m tremendously grateful to him for his stewardship and years of work with the Smart Pension master trust board and wider team at Smart Pension.”
Cheseldine added: “I’m confident that the Smart Pension Master Trust will continue to grow, building on its cutting-edge technology offering to deliver greater scale and value to provide market-leading outcomes for its members.”
