ben fowler
ben fowler
Founder and Managing Director
Ben has more than 20 years’ experience of managing and consulting on UK and international pension arrangements. He joined the Vestey Group in 2001 and led their highly successful long-term strategy to transfer more than £500m of pension liabilities to the regulated insurance market with a series of bulk annuity transactions.
In 2015, with the support of the Vestey family, Ben established Western Pension Solutions with the purpose of helping other family businesses de-risk their legacy pension arrangements and provide highly effective pension arrangements for current and future generations of employees.
Ben continues to hold senior management positions for Vestey Holdings, including strategic HR and reward roles for the Group’s international food businesses. He is also the Non-Executive Chairman of K3 Advisory, a specialist bulk annuity broking business and a Fellow of the Pensions Management Institute.
An active member of the family business community, Ben is the co-founder of the Heritage Library, a collection of books that celebrate the history and heritage of family-owned firms in the UK and overseas.
Esmé Johnson
Esmé Johnson
Consulting actuary
Esmé is a qualified actuary with seven years’ experience. She joined Western Pension Solutions in December 2021 from British Airways where she acted as an internal consultant on BA’s two defined benefit pension schemes for three years, balancing the competing objectives of trustees, the sponsor, members and advisers.
Prior to BA, Esmé spent four years at EY in their corporate consultancy team providing pensions advice to pension scheme sponsors of differing sectors and sizes.
Esmé specialises in pensions accounting disclosures, communications, modelling and project management.
Esmé is based in Shrewsbury.
Greg Morris
Greg Morris
Director
Greg is an experienced pension scheme actuary and has advised on pension funding, risk, and cost management for over 25 years. He has acted as Scheme Actuary for schemes ranging from £10m to £200m and provided corporate advice to many clients.
While working for Deloitte and KMPG, Greg’s innovative approach to pension scheme funding and managing risk has contributed to the improved financial stability of the pension schemes and their sponsors. Greg joined Western Pension Solutions in 2024 from Isio.
Greg is based in Birmingham and covers the Midlands region, bringing his experience in all areas of pension strategy to family businesses, including scheme funding, liability management, benefit change exercises and risk transfers.
He is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries.
Tayla Richards
Tayla Richards
Executive Assistant
Tayla is an Executive Assistant with over 10 years of experience providing senior level executive support. She joined Western Pension Solutions in October 2022 with a background working in a variety of industries, from insurance to design. Tayla is based in the London office and her role involves supporting the Managing Director, Ben Fowler, with all administrative duties.
Spencer Thomas
Spencer Thomas
Senior Manager
Spencer is a qualified actuary with more than 25 years of experience in a wide range of sectors, providing pensions advice to scheme sponsors and trustees.
Spencer is a specialist at using various valuation systems and designing bespoke models, which are skills he utilises in helping sponsoring employers understand and manage their pension commitments and accounting disclosures.
He joined Western Pension Solutions in November 2021, having previously worked as Director and Chief Actuary at PensionsWatch and for 20 years at PwC. During his time at PwC, Spencer was a regional expert in accounting for pensions and he filled a national technical role.
Ben Vickers
Ben Vickers
Senior Manager
Ben is a qualified actuary with eight years of experience, providing pensions advice to both trustees and sponsors of differing sectors and sizes.
He joined Western Pension Solutions in August 2019, having previously worked at EY and more recently PwC. During this time, Ben helped to support both trustees and sponsoring employers manage their pension commitments covering liabilities from £2m to over £1b. This support included the implementation of liability management exercises and scheme design changes, funding strategy and valuation assistance, transaction of insurance solutions and the design and application of journey plans to help set and meet targets.
Through the skills Ben has developed, together with his wide-ranging experience, he is in a strong position to provide actuarial advice and support family owned businesses in designing and implementing strategies for their pension arrangements that reflect their values and targets.
