Altmann scoops Pensions Personality of the Year Award

The award – presented at a gala dinner at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel last night – was decided by votes cast by attendees on the evening and by more than a thousand PP readers who took part in voting before the event.

Altmann, a campaigner for pensions justice, pensions and investment expert, investment banker and economist, beat two other shortlisted nominees – Barnett Waddingham partner Adrian Waddingham and Hewitt senior actuary Kevin Wesbroom – for the accolade.

Over the past few years, Altmann has tirelessly campaigned on behalf of tens of thousands of occupational pension scheme members who lost out as a result of scheme wind-ups.

Before going into the City, Altmann was an academic, working and publishing on the topics of UK pension policy, occupational pension provision and retirement. She worked and published in the UK and at the National Bureau of Economic Research at Harvard University. She has a PhD degree in Economics from LSE and was a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard.

Altmann managed institutional investment portfolios for 15 years, including pension funds, insurance funds, unit trusts and global currency portfolios.

She ran the international equities operation for Chase Manhattan Bank’s international investment department in London, and was a director at Rothschild Asset Management, and then at NatWest Investment Management, responsible for global equity fund management and global investment strategy.

She now works as an independent policy adviser. She was a consultant to the Treasury and Paul Myners, on the Myners Review of Institutional Investment in 2001, and advised the Number 10 policy unit on pensions issues.

Altmann is non-executive director of the London School of Economics, chair of its investments committee, a governor of LSE and of the Pensions Policy Institute and trustee of the Age Employment Network. She is also a member of the Lord Chancellor’s strategic investment board, advising on investments of over £5.5bn.