The Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association has announced that Emma Douglas will become its new chair, helping to ensure that the PLSA fulfil its aim to help everyone achieve better income in retirement. 

Douglas has chaired the PLSA’s Policy Board since 2018, and will start her role of chair later this year at the PLSA’s Annual General Meeting. She will initially serve for three years with the possibility of it being extended by up to a further three years, succeeding Richard Butcher, whose four-year tenure ends at the PLSA’s AGM. 

“The PLSA is a leading voice within the pensions industry and I am extremely proud to be appointed as the PLSA chair,” says Douglas. “I am looking forward to ensuring that members’ interests continue to be strongly represented by the Association as we tackle the post-pandemic future for the pensions and savings industry.” 

With her new role, Douglas is stepping down from her role as PLSA policy board chair, creating a vacancy for a “highly interesting and rewarding” role as Douglas described. 

Outgoing chair Butcher says these announcements are always “bittersweet”.

“I will look back on my time with great pride having been in the role through some of the industry’s most challenging times, perhaps none more challenging than that of the impact Covid-19,” he said. “None of this would have been possible without the fantastic PLSA team and I am hugely grateful to them for their hard work and commitment.” 

Douglas was selected by a sub-committee of the Board after a process that included advertising the role to all PLSA members. Chief executive Julian Mund says he looks forward to working closely with Douglas, and also commends Butcher for his “dedication” to the pensions industry.

Douglas was most recently head of DC at Legal & General Investment Management and will soon take on a new role as managing director of workplace savings at Aviva. She will take on her new role of PLSA chair at the PLSA’s AGM meeting on Thursday 14 October 2021.