Experience your family can rely on
A specialist team of advisers, actuaries and support staff, working exclusively with family businesses and other businesses that share similar values and culture. Our office is in London, but our team is based right across the UK, working closely with these businesses wherever they are.
Ben Fowler
Ben founded Western Pension Solutions in 2015.
Ben has more than 30 years' experience managing and advising family businesses on their UK and international pension arrangements. He joined the Vestey Group – a fourth-generation, family-owned global food and farming business – in 2001, where he led a long-term strategy to de-risk and transfer more than £500m of pension liabilities to the regulated insurance market. Building on this success, and with the Vestey family's support, Ben established Western Pension Solutions to help other family businesses manage their legacy defined benefit pension arrangements. He also co-founded K3 Advisory, which became the market-leading independent bulk annuity specialist, before a successful exit in 2025.
Ben's commitment to the family business sector is rooted in a first-hand understanding of how family ownership shapes business decisions, and specifically in relation to pensions. He provides strategic oversight across every client relationship, ensuring WPS's advice reflects the long-term, multi-generational thinking that family businesses need.
Specialist areas: Helping family firms align their pension strategy to their ownership and business strategy.
Tayla Richards
Tayla joined Western Pension Solutions in 2022.
Tayla is an Executive Assistant with more than 10 years' experience providing senior-level executive support, gained across a variety of industries including insurance and design. Tayla supports the team with all administrative duties, drawing on her broad background to keep the team's diaries, correspondence and day-to-day priorities running smoothly. Tayla's experience across different sectors gives her a versatile, adaptable approach to executive support, and she is a key point of contact for the smooth running of the WPS office.
Specialist areas: Diary and correspondence management; cross-industry administrative experience; executive and stakeholder support.
Ben Vickers
Ben joined Western Pension Solutions in 2019.
A qualified actuary with a career now over 15 years, having previously worked at EY and, more recently, PwC, he has supported sponsoring employers and trustees with pensions liabilities ranging from £2m to over £1bn, covering liability management exercises, scheme design changes, funding strategy and valuation work, insurance transactions and journey planning. Having also served as a Trustee, Ben understands both sides of the table. He takes a holistic view of the businesses he advises, looking beyond the numbers to see how a pension scheme fits within a client's wider commercial goals and family values, and is particularly skilled at combining that understanding with technical rigour and clear, practical advice.
Specialist areas:
- Pensions strategy within family business
- Liability management and governance
- Insurance and de-risking transactions
Esmé Goulton
Esmé joined Western Pension Solutions in 2021.
A qualified actuary with over 10 years' experience gained initially at EY, then in-house at British Airways and now in boutique pensions advisory to family businesses, she brings a broad perspective on managing risk across corporate and family-owned schemes. Esmé specialises in pensions strategy, scheme funding and governance, member communications and pensions accounting, with particular expertise supporting family businesses as they navigate pensions issues alongside wider succession planning. She works closely with trustees and sponsors, with a particular intuition for translating complex funding and governance decisions into communications that make sense to trustees and sponsors alike.
Specialist areas:
- Funding strategy and valuation discussions
- Governance and member communications
- Project management for insurance and wind-up
Spencer Thomas
Spencer joined Western Pension Solutions in 2021.
A qualified actuary with more than 30 years' experience advising scheme sponsors and trustees across a wide range of sectors, Spencer previously spent 20 years at PwC – including as a regional expert in accounting for pensions and in a national technical role – before serving as Director and Chief Actuary at PensionsWatch. Modelling is his key strength: he specialises in designing bespoke valuation models that help sponsoring employers understand and manage their pension commitments and accounting disclosures, drawing on a depth of technical understanding and an exceptional eye for detail built over decades of experience.
Specialist areas:
- Bespoke valuation modelling
- Pensions accounting disclosures
- Liability management
Specialist strategic support
Alongside our core team, we're supported by an Advisory Board of two specialist actuaries. Rather than working day-to-day with clients, their focus is strategic: they work closely with us on the broader pensions strategy we build for the family businesses we advise, bringing an additional layer of experience and perspective to the decisions that matter most.
Julian Lyons
An actuary with 25 years' experience, Julian has advised employers, trustees and business owners on pension funding, risk management and strategic decision-making. He previously worked at HSBC and LCP before joining Western Pension Solutions in 2016. During his career he has developed extensive experience across pension scheme funding, corporate transactions, risk transfer, endgame planning, and endgame execution.
Julian is recognised for pairing sharp strategic thinking with pragmatism: whatever the complexity of a client's pensions challenge, he has a reputation for finding a workable way through it. Drawing on experience advising both trustees and sponsoring employers, he helps organisations navigate complex pensions challenges while keeping sight of wider commercial objectives and long-term outcomes.
As a member of the Advisory Board, he provides independent insight, challenge and strategic oversight to support the continued development of the firm.
Specialist areas: Strategic pensions consulting; scheme funding; corporate transactions; risk transfer, endgame planning, and endgame execution.
Greg Morris
An actuary with more than 30 years' experience, Greg has advised on pension funding, risk and cost management for scheme sponsors and trustees, acting as Scheme Actuary for schemes ranging from £10m to £200m. He previously worked at Deloitte, KPMG and, most recently, Isio, where his innovative approach to funding and risk management helped improve the financial stability of schemes and their sponsors.
Greg is exceptionally well connected across the pensions industry, known for bringing together trustees, employers and advisers around a shared solution. He has a particular talent for cutting through complexity swiftly, translating technical funding and risk issues into clear, actionable choices for stakeholders at every level, from boardrooms to scheme members.
As a member of the Advisory Board, Greg brings rigorous technical challenge on scheme funding and risk, drawing on his scheme actuary experience and extensive network to help ensure the advice we give our clients reflects best practice from across the wider pensions market.
Specialist areas: Scheme funding and risk management; liability management and benefit change exercises; risk transfer and de-risking strategies.
Employer Engagement
As we bring Collective Defined Contribution (CDC) pensions to family businesses, our Employer Engagement team leads the client relationships and the wider conversation with employers navigating this new landscape.
Colin Haines
Colin joined Western Pension Solutions in 2026.
Colin is a qualified actuary and has worked in the pensions industry for over 30 years. He joined from The Pensions Regulator, where he was a Senior Advisor. He has previously set up and run a family-owned business, been a partner and EMEA Chief Commercial Officer at other pension consultancies, worked for the sponsor of one of the UK's largest pension schemes, and had international secondments to Sweden and the Netherlands.
He joins Western Pension Solutions at a time of huge change in UK pensions, including the launch of CDC plans, the new Pension Schemes Act and the Pensions Commission report. Colin will lead our client-facing work in the CDC area as well as develop the wider team. His focus is on helping clients achieve better pension outcomes for employees, navigate all the new legislation, and see pension assets invested responsibly to support economic growth.
Specialist areas: Leading client relationships; pensions advice; CDC pensions; UK & international.
Iain Clarke
Iain joined Western Pension Solutions in 2026.
Iain joins in a senior business development role. He has more than 25 years' experience in the asset management industry, having built his career on securing retained mandates for strategic M&A – experience he'll now bring to growing CDC employer engagement across the market.
His specialist knowledge spans the alternative asset management sector, with a strong sustainable investment theme running through many of the transactions he has led. He is a passionate advocate for CDC pensions, and believes deeply in what the model can do for family businesses and their people.
Earlier in his career, he spent nine years with one of London's foremost buy-side search firms, preceded by five years at a London recruitment consultancy, where he placed senior investment and distribution professionals across asset and wealth management. He started out in investment banking, having graduated with a degree in Financial Services.
Specialist areas: Building lasting relationships with family businesses and introducing them to the CDC pension model.
