Punter Southall adds longevity swap exec to head pension de-risking

Punter Southall, the pension and actuarial consultancy, has hired an experienced executive with significant longevity swap and buyout expertise to head up the firm’s growing pension de-risking and risk transfer efforts.

Colette Christiansen, previously at Towers Watson, has been appointed  as Principal and Head of De-risking Solutions with effect from 30th September.

During her time at Towers Watson, Christiansen led a number of large or complex longevity swap transactions and pension buyouts. Before that she was part of Mercer’s financial strategy Group responsible for longevity risk transfer and pension de-risking solutions. As well as her considerable consulting experience, Christiansen was also partner at Pension Insurance Corporation responsible for longevity hedging.

Christiansen commented on her appointment; “I am delighted to join the Punter Southall team, with their reputation for excellent client service, thought leadership and innovative technology. I look forward to working closely with the client teams who have all the right tools in place to deliver innovative and cost-effective de-risking solutions to clients with schemes of all sizes.”

John Batting, Punter Southall’s Chief Executive Officer, added; “We are delighted that Colette joins us at a time when there is so much change in the pensions world offering us real scope to offer innovative de-risking solutions. Working alongside our existing de-risking specialists and deploying our best of breed technology platform, Punter Southall can help clients measure, monitor and manage risk in a way that best suits their needs and budgets.”