September 17 | Roadmaps to Retirement 2025: Global Lessons and Paths Ahead

Mike Ambery

Retirement and Savings Director, Standard Life

Having joined Phoenix Group at the end of February 2024, Mike is the Retirement and Savings Director across the Phoenix Group business. He is responsible for Thinking Forward, which provides insights, debate, and the broader platform for thought and direction across Standard Life. As a Consumer Spokesperson, connecting topical and future savings and pension issues for both the consumer and press is a top priority, with learnings from a global perspective being applied.

Mike previously worked with Hymans Robertson as a Partner and Head of firm-wide proposition for 17 years, most recently overseeing the DC Master Trust consolidation for a number of high-profile corporate clients.  He also advised on both M&A as well as creating one of the leading UK independent benchmarking tools on the provider market.

Jeffrey Brown

Professor, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Jeffrey R. Brown is the Larry Gies Family Chair in Business at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Jeff is an economist who has published extensively on topics related to lifelong financial security, including annuities, long-term care, Social Security, public and private pensions, and individual financial decision-making. He is the former Director of the NBER Retirement Research Center and the University of Illinois Center for Business and Public Policy. He earned his Ph.D. in economics from MIT, his MPP from Harvard, and his BA from Miami University in Ohio. From 2015-2024, Jeff served as Dean of the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he also served as a professor of finance since 2002.

Since 2009, Jeff has served as a trustee for TIAA and currently chairs the Risk and Compliance Committee. He previously served on the governing board for the Center for Audit Quality, as a Senior Economist with the White House Council of Economic Advisers, as an Economist on the President’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security, as a Presidential appointee to the Social Security Advisory Board, and as a member of the 2015 Social Security Technical Panel. Prior to graduate school, Jeff served as a Brand Manager at the Procter & Gamble Company.

Kelly Hahn

Head of Retirement Research, Vanguard

Kelly Hahn is head of retirement research in Vanguard’s Investment Strategy Group. Her focus is on improving people’s retirement outcomes through examining saving and investing behaviors and the surrounding retirement ecosystem. She leads a dedicated research team that studies retirement planning, savings, spending, and access, with the goal of providing solutions and education that enhance people’s chances of achieving retirement success. Her areas of expertise include retirement readiness, defined contribution plans, multi-asset solutions, and investor education.

Kelly joined Vanguard in 2023 from JPMorgan Asset Management, where she led outcomes-driven retirement research that harnessed behavioral insights from massive consumer and defined-contribution administrative datasets. Earlier in her career, she was an investment banker at Goldman Sachs and a consultant at BearingPoint and Arthur Andersen.

Kelly earned an M.B.A. in finance from Columbia Business School and a B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Michael Kreps

Principal, Retirement Services Chair, Groom Law Group

Michael Kreps is chair of Groom’s Retirement Services group, and he works with a wide variety of clients on complex retirement and health plan issues.  His firsthand experience with the legislative and regulatory process gives him a perspective that is often instrumental in helping clients develop and implement effective compliance and advocacy strategies.

From the 111^th through the 114^th Congresses, Michael served as the Senior Pensions and Employment Counsel for the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.  He managed all aspects of the Committee’s retirement agenda and had primary staff responsibility for pension legislation, including the pension investment provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the funding stabilization and Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation reform provisions of the MAP-21 Act of 2012, the Pension Relief Act of 2010, and the CSEC Pension Flexibility Act. He also led the Committee’s oversight of regulatory activities involving employee benefit plans.

Michael serves as external general counsel for the Committee on Investment of Employee Benefit Assets (CIEBA) and is on the Executive Committee of the Defined Contribution Institutional Investment Association (DCIIA).  He is a graduate of the George Washington University Law School (JD with honors), the University of Colorado (with distinction), and the Sorensen Institute Political Leaders Program.

Guy Opperman

UK Pensions and Financial Inclusion Minister (2017-2022)

Guy Opperman served four Prime Ministers and was a member of parliament from 2010 – 2024. He is the United Kingdom’s longest-serving Pensions and Financial Inclusion Minister, serving from 2017 – 2022. 

He was formerly an amateur steeplechase jockey, a lawyer, worked in the family engineering business, and then was the Member of Parliament for Hexham in Northumberland from 2010 – 2024. Guy also held roles in the Home Office, Treasury, and Transport departments. He was responsible for the rollout of Defined Contribution Workplace Pensions to 8% earnings in the United Kingdom, the creation of Collective Defined Contribution Pensions, the reform of Defined Benefit, and much more. 

Since leaving politics in 2024, Guy works as a consultant and adviser in the world of pensions, finance, and employee benefits. Guy has worked since December 2024 as an advisor to Smart Pensions, and for a variety of other corporates or countries setting up retirement solutions.

Thomas Root

Associate Dean, Academic Affairs and Associate Professor of Finance, Zimpleman College of Business, Drake University

Thomas Root holds four degrees including a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Kansas. He has been teaching finance in the Zimpleman College of Business at Drake University since 1999. He has received the Graduate Teaching Award and the College of Business Research Award. He published in many academic journals such as Quarterly Journal of Finance and Accounting; Journal of Business and Behavioral Sciences; International Business: Research, Teaching and Practice; International Research Journal of Applied Finance; Managerial Finance; Energy Economics; Journal of Financial Education; and International Review of Financial Analysis.