Aoifinn Devitt: This episode is supported by PIMCO, a global leader in active fixed income with deep expertise across public and private markets. PIMCO invests their clients’ capital in income and credit opportunities that span the liquidity spectrum, leveraging their decades of experience navigating complex debt markets. Their flexible capital base and deep relationships with issuers have helped them become one of the world’s largest providers of traditional and alternative investment solutions at a valued financing partner. Visit pimco.com to learn more. What does the study of chemistry and chemical bonds have to do with the world of investing and connecting with the ultimate beneficiaries of all of this work? Hear from our next guest how she implements this in a thought-leading strategy around sustainable investing, impact investing, local impact, and so much more.
Jennifer Devine: I’m Aoifinn.
Aoifinn Devitt: Devitt, and welcome to the 50 Faces Podcast, a podcast committed to revealing the richness and diversity of the world of investment by focusing on its people and their stories. I’m joined today by Jennifer Devine, who is head of Wilshire Pension Fund and a thought leader in the field of sustainable investing. Welcome, Jennifer. Thanks for joining me today.
Jennifer Devine: Thank you very much for having me.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, let’s start with your background. We’ve known each other for many years, going back to your time at Hampshire Pension Fund. Can you tell us where you studied and how you ended up pursuing a role in pensions?
Jennifer Devine: Well, I did actually a largely irrelevant degree in chemistry, and at the end of that, I didn’t want to carry on blowing up things in the lab, so I went to the careers service and they recommended accountancy. And after training in that, I was not satisfied at all working in an accountancy practice. Just working excessive hours, just really so the partner could earn a massive bonus. That didn’t motivate me at all. So decided to move over. There was a role on offer at Hampshire working in the pension fund team that just seemed like a really good fit to me. I didn’t know anything about investments at the time, but I could see it was a really sort of intriguing area. And I felt that I could then sort of use my financial skills and actually also make a difference at the same time by helping to secure the financial futures of loads of hardworking public servants. That was very appealing. To me.
Aoifinn Devitt: And already we’re getting to the mission, which has come through very clearly in your work in the LGPS. So, so we’ll definitely come to that. But first, I just want to go back to your origins in chemistry, because I think that often we think these paths are relevant, but often there’s either a scientific knowledge that comes from that, there’s a method to hypothesis testing, etc. And now that you’re so focused on sustainable investing and the net zero commitment that you have and some of the technologies behind that. Have you found that you’ve drawn upon any of your chemistry knowledge at all in some of this evolution of investing?
Jennifer Devine: I’m sorry to disappoint you, but in the length of time since I studied it, I’ve forgotten all of it. But you are right, there is a link. I think a lot of people who do science degrees do then sometimes end up in sort of financial services and things like that. I think sometimes it sounds like a bit of a weird comparison, but I think that the world of investments can be a little bit like inorganic chemistry. When you’re looking at the periodic table and all the different trends and things, there’s lots of competing factors working out why an element might behave in the way that it does. And I think that asset classes can be a bit like that too. There’s all sorts of different moving parts. And so I think not having that sort of clear-cut view of things, but trying to take different viewpoints on how, why things might turn out the way they do, definitely appeals to that scientific part of my brain.
Aoifinn Devitt: And then of course, translating all of that complexity to something that can be easily understood, I think is one of your absolute strengths, or you or whoever is covering the communications division at Wiltshire Pension Fund, because that’s, I think, one of the best ways of communicating an investment belief and approach. And let’s just get to that now. So how would you say your investment beliefs have evolved, and when did they start to embrace so wholeheartedly sustainable investing?
Jennifer Devine: So I think that that would probably be since I’ve been working for Wiltshire Pension Fund. I think before, when I was part of a team, I wasn’t leading on the strategies, although I was deeply interested in the role that the different portfolios played. I didn’t have that same sort of oversight role, but coming to Wiltshire, I was taking over the investments, being responsible for the whole strategy, just really starting to think about what the fund’s trying to deliver. The LGPS, it’s an open defined benefit scheme, taking on new members now. You know, they might be 18 years old joining the scheme now, it’s still open, they’re going to be around. So our investment horizon is really, you know, looking out 100 years plus. We’re still going to have to be here delivering returns. As well, with all of the public sector organisations that are employers of the scheme, they’ve come under such an immense amount of pressure financially, and with the cost of living crisis, the members too. I think really trying to invest in a way that delivers a sustainable financial future for the fund is so important. We really want the contributions the employers pay to be stable and affordable. There are times when you think they might want a cut in it. I think what they really want is stability, knowing how they can plan their finances, and that’s really important to them. With the long-term investment horizon, you can then really tap into sustainable themes, take advantage of those opportunities, invest in things, not just like making quick trades, but really for the long-term. And that’s when as well, more global things like the issues like climate change and biodiversity really start to become more important as well. Really need to protect the investments from those risks of being overexposed to companies maybe that aren’t prepared to transition and behave in a better way. So it’s about managing those risks, but also there are so many opportunities that come out of that, and that’s where it’s really, really exciting. We see lots of really exciting opportunities to invest in things that will not only help drive the transition, but also benefit from it as well.
Aoifinn Devitt: And of course deliver that return that as an open scheme you need. And we’ll get to maybe some of the opportunities in a minute, but could you just set the scene for us a bit about Wilshire Pension Fund in terms of its size, funding level? The maturity of the scheme, maybe cash flow profile?
Jennifer Devine: Yes, I can. So we are about £3.3 billion of assets at the moment. We’ve got roughly 85,000 members, and they work for 180 different employer organisations. So it’s quite a complex scheme. We’re very well funded at the moment. Basically, our discount rate that calculates our funding level is based on gilt yields. So where they’ve gone up more recently, the present value of our liabilities has come down, and I think that makes us look artificially better funded perhaps than we really are. So it is healthy, but perhaps it looks extra healthy at the moment. And we’ve still got cash coming in. We have a slight cash surplus from our dealings with members, but I think looking into the future, that is something that is going to change. And it’s something that we’re trying to be quite wary of, maybe in the sort of 3 to 5 year kind of time horizon that things might change for that. And we’ll need to be focusing more on income generating assets, but for now it’s looking quite healthy.
Aoifinn Devitt: And I certainly think that’s very prudent to look at that funding level today as being perhaps a slightly artificial phenomenon, easy come, easy go, especially as interest rates look to be heading downwards next. And then how does that translate if we were to look at that sort of pie chart in our heads of asset allocation and going round the wheel in terms of equities, fixed income, alternatives, etc.? What’s your asset allocation on a broad level?
Jennifer Devine: Well, it’s obviously evolved an awful lot over the last 5 years. So it was you something, know, just to go back a few years, it was sort of more simplistic. Simplistic in the past, and I think we really have— well, we still really do embrace simplicity. We want the pension fund committee to be able to understand everything that we do, so we don’t want to introduce lots of complex sort of equity protection type things that they would struggle to monitor. So it needs to be very understandable to them, but we’ve made it not more complex, but maybe just more interesting, for lack of a better word. So rather than relying purely on the traditional things and having sort of assets in there like diversified growth funds and stuff, we’re doing more diversification through the types of things that we invest in. So looking at more impactful assets and things like that, at more private markets. So it’s built up a lot more in that area over the last few years. We do still hold a lot of equities, but lots more now in real assets and also portfolios that have more of an outcome-driven objective rather than it just being purely financial returns. It’s a dual mandate.
Aoifinn Devitt: So let’s dig into that dual mandate a little bit and talk about some of the local and impact investments that you have carried out, as well as some of those contributing, as you said, to this energy transition. To your net zero targets and to ultimately to sustainable investing future. Can you walk us through some of those opportunities? And I will note also that anyone can follow these, and that’s how I picked up on them, through your fantastic LinkedIn posts, which are often accompanied by pictures, onsite visits, and simple case study translations of what you do. So I think getting back to that, maybe avoidance of complexity, but focusing on communication, very much, I think, a leadership role in that respect. Any opportunities that come to mind, maybe recent ones that have excited you?
Jennifer Devine: Oh yeah, there’s so much, it’s hard to pare it down. And thank you for your comments about our communications as well. We’re really keen to build on that and give our members like a sort of a real understanding and pride in what their pension fund money is being invested in. And I think that ties in nicely with some of the more impact-generating assets as well. Those are the ones that are more sort of real to people. So we’ve been spending some time over the last couple of years building up our affordable housing portfolio. It’s not focused super locally, just into the Wiltshire backyard, although some of the assets are in there, because we wanted to make sure that the capital could get you deployed, know, faster. We didn’t have to want to wait or end up with too concentrated a portfolio. So we’ve taken sort of a balanced approach to it, and it’s UK-focused rather than just being in Wiltshire. But that’s been fantastic, and even seeing the manager’s views on that portfolio evolve over the time we’ve been building it up has been great, really seeing the link between how more energy-efficient homes are better homes for people to live in, but ones that will sell faster and get us a better return as well. So it’s just all sort of quite a nice virtuous circle of making things better for everybody. And that has really helped inform our philosophy to impact investing as well. We don’t identify the impact sort of necessarily first. We want to get a certain type of return, and then by investing in these types of properties, That is completely integral to the investment case, the impact that they’re generating. So by investing in homes that are meeting a demand— there’s a shortage of these sorts of homes, it’s meeting a demand, people really want to get into them, there’s long queues, they’re good quality homes— and that means they get sold faster and we get better returns. So it really works for everybody. So that’s been fantastic. But also more recently as well, we’ve been building out our climate opportunities portfolio, which is something I’m really proud of. So that’s a multi-asset portfolio. We’re investing in all sorts of different things, covers everything from listed equities. So in companies that are sort of best placed to benefit from the transitions with a manager that’s got a real sort of academic backing to their investment approach. That’s really exciting. We’re investing in emerging market transition debt. We’re investing in climate tech venture capital. We recently made an enormous commitment to a fund that we built with some other LGPS funds in the Southwest to invest in renewables in the Southwest region, and we’re going to be heading out next next week to visit one of those solar farms, which we’re really pumped about, and you’ll be able to read about that soon on LinkedIn. And then finally, we’re going to be doing some nature, nature-positive investments in there as well. So I’m really, really excited about those.
Aoifinn Devitt: And what kind of response have you had when you talk about these climate-positive investments, and then you also communicate them with case studies in a way that investors can understand? How does that land with your beneficiaries and with the other stakeholders?
Jennifer Devine: I think it’s landing really well. We had a really positive committee meeting recently where the members were looking at some of the recent case studies that will be going in our upcoming climate report, and you could really feel the pride that they had that their investment decisions had led to these really positive investments. I think that’s pretty fantastic to have that level of buy-in, and the members do find it interesting too. I think sometimes LGPS funds or other funds in general can come up with criticism from their members, what are you doing on climate? And I really think getting out there, getting ahead of that and telling people what you’re you’re doing can really help show that you’ve got nothing to hide and you really are sort of trying to do positive work to drive through improvements.
Aoifinn Devitt: Could not agree more about being on the offense essentially rather than the defense, which is always better to positively show what you are doing because it’s often those things get overlooked. And one of the last pieces of the ESG kind of, as it was pyramid, might be diversity and inclusion. And our industry, this is something this podcast focuses on, I know there’s now an Asset Owners Charter whereby we perhaps are playing a little bit of catch-up to some of your peers in the US, etc., some of whom have led with a diversity mandate and they have grids and disclosures required, etc. How do you feel about the level of diversity in the investment industry anyway, and I suppose at the managers that you work with?
Jennifer Devine: I think that it’s still an ongoing issue that we need to do a lot about. I think you only have to go for a walk through the City of London at lunchtime and you see Well, I’m not going to go into detail, but you see the core demographic that you would expect to see working in the investment industry. But you know, that, there are a lot of fantastic people coming up from all sorts of different backgrounds. And I think what’s the most important thing is just the representation. So, we want to get our stories out there, women in the industry and other minorities, they need to just sort of be making themselves visible, making themselves heard, and showing people that different viewpoints are really, really important and can lead to better outcomes. And there is a place for people in the industry. We did some nice work on this recently as well. There was International Women’s Day and we really wanted to highlight the pensions gender gap, but we also shared some stories as well. We put out some stories from different managers in our teams, different female leaders, to show people that, you know, no matter what your background, you can sort of find your niche in the world of pensions and investments.
Aoifinn Devitt: That was a beautiful piece, again on LinkedIn. And as I said too, I think at the time it almost brought tears to my eyes. It was just so beautiful in celebrating, I think, every piece of this intricate workings that goes to delivering a pension, and then celebrating people who maybe don’t often come to the fore. And I suppose the other thing to note in the LGPS is the high percentage of beneficiaries who are women. And I think that’s important because one of the things that can get lost sight of as we move to ever-increasing consolidation of the industry, and maybe moving away from the ultimate beneficiary as we move things away from local councils, is that accountability piece, and I suppose that constant remembering who this is done for. So I think that linking both your staff to the beneficiaries is very powerful.
Jennifer Devine: Yeah, it’s really important. Yeah, you’re right, there’s an enormous number of women in our scheme. I think it’s something like 80%, and a lot of them are part-time workers as well. And through taking their time out with their families and things like that, they’ve really fallen behind in terms of how much pension benefits they have earned. And I think it’s just important that they’re aware of that. And we do encourage them to sort of really get connected to their financial future. That’s the phrase that we’re using at the moment to try and encourage them to log on, see what they’ve got. Is it enough for you? Are you aware of what you’re saving? And are you aware of what an amazingly important benefit the pension actually is?
Aoifinn Devitt: Uh, the other thing that you do that I think is quite innovative is in your staffing side. One of the key constraints in local government are resources. And what I notice you’ve done, and some of the, the power behind this phenomenon of your communications piece, are how you perhaps, I think it’s a part-time programme or a programme whereby someone who’s also a student can work with you and build their career that way.
Jennifer Devine: Yeah, we really do try and accommodate all sorts of different things. And that’s one of the things that I found amazing when I moved to work at Wiltshire was the amazing flexibility in hybrid working. Like, I still had relatively small children at the time. The youngest one had just started school. I wouldn’t have been able to do this job without the ability to work from home and be flexible. And I really want to promote that for everybody within the team. As well. We have lots and lots of flexible working arrangements, and it enables us to have people in the workplace who wouldn’t otherwise be there, and then we really get to benefit from their skills too.
Aoifinn Devitt: And in this podcast series and previous ones, we speak a lot about public service and some of those, suppose, the frustrations that come from the pace at times, or the governance burden, setbacks, challenges. Throughout your career, have there been any such setbacks or challenges that you’ve learned lessons from that you can share here?
Jennifer Devine: There’s been lots of things. Yeah, I think the biggest challenge that I have experienced, as cheesy as it’s going to sound, is being a woman in this workplace has probably been the biggest challenge. There’s been lots of times where I feel like I haven’t really been heard within the room and stuff like that. So I feel that now I’m in a position where I can be heard more, would just really encourage other people to make your voices heard and put yourself forward. I mean, there’s been lots of other challenges too. I think that’s probably been the longest enduring one.
Aoifinn Devitt: Hopefully one where there will be light at the end of the tunnel, but, you know, certain factors won’t change in that respect. And any high points that you can talk to over the course of this career so far?
Jennifer Devine: Yeah, I think the biggest high point has been the ability to just really crack on with what we’re doing at Wiltshire and really just take it to the next level. I’ve had so much support and encouragement to do that in this organization, and when I think about where we’ve come just over the last few years— we didn’t even have, you know, a net zero target at the beginning. We were being good stewards of of our capital, but we weren’t really thinking so much about all of the different work that we could do and really taking the approach forward. And over this time, we have been really lucky to win a couple of awards for our approach to responsible investment. Those were fantastic evenings. It was brilliant to bring the team up. Everyone was just so overjoyed and proud of themselves. And the feeling that it was such a team effort as well was just so rewarding.
Aoifinn Devitt: Again, some other great coverage of that on LinkedIn. So that’s been wonderful to see. Was there any mentor or sponsor for you over the course of your career? Some people have them, some people don’t.
Jennifer Devine: Yes, absolutely. And you may have met him yourself. There’s a chap called Nick who used to be my boss when I was previously at Hampshire, has just been the best advocate for me. Like, I feel he really, really pushed me. He obviously saw something in me that I didn’t at the time, and he’s just really pushed me to grow. And he’s still here for me now. We still meet up for lunch every month or so, and he’s always got good tips for me and things like that. I feel He’s real like work dad for me, you know, it’s just really nice to have someone on your corner and like sort of push you to do better in the workplace. I think that’s really important. And we’ve got really nice schemes for that sort of stuff at Wiltshire as well. One of the benefits of being part of the wider council is that we have access to all these sort of, you know, mentor and coaching schemes and things. And I really think that people should open their minds and like engage with that sort of stuff, get fresh perspectives.
Aoifinn Devitt: And I want to also call out another great, maybe I wouldn’t say necessarily work dad, but certainly a major source of support for me was John Pittum at Hampshire County Council. I’m not sure if you ever overlapped, but he was definitely the spark capital behind kind of a nascent consulting firm that I had back around 2006, 2007, a huge supporter. And I’ll never forget that. And I think that you are carrying that baton by being an important source of spark capital for many of these emerging sustainable investing solutions. So I think that goes on. I’m sorry, many people will consider you the same way I consider John. So, so thank you for that. My last question is around any advice, creed, motto, word of wisdom, advice for your younger self, anything from that collection of ideas that you can leave us with in terms of your career and maybe advice for others.
Jennifer Devine: Yeah, I think that when I was first starting out in the workplace 20 years ago, I remember my mum saying to me at the time, like, never turn down any opportunities for learning. And that has just rung in my ears for the last 20 years, and I would never turn down any opportunities for learning. I think it’s so important. When you’re learning things, you’re changing, you’re doing new things, you’ve got fresh ideas, like it brings that motivation and that drive to continuously improve. So I would say that to everybody, yeah, my younger self again, and everybody out there, like, don’t turn down any learning.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, watching your transformation in the industry has been a great privilege, and I’m going to bring it back to chemistry because not only do we have catalysts here, you are a great catalyst for change in the industry and great examples of that given, as I said, on the LinkedIn page, which I keep referring to, which I will link to in the show notes. And the last thing also that I’m gonna get back to chemistry is we talk a lot about bonds in chemistry, and I think you are creating these bonds between the ultimate beneficiary, other stakeholders, their money, and the impact it is having. And creating that connection, as you call it, which leads to better engagement, is one I think of the most formidable and strong bonds that you can create. So thank you so much for being an advocate as you are and for sharing your insights here with us.
Jennifer Devine: Oh, thank you so much. Thank you for having me.
Aoifinn Devitt: I’m Aoifinn and David, thank you for listening to the 50 Faces podcast. If you liked what you heard and would like to tune in to hear more inspiring investors and their personal journeys, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice, and all views are personal and should not be attributed to the organizations and affiliations of the host or any guest.
Aoifinn Devitt: This episode is supported by PIMCO, a global leader in active fixed income with deep expertise across public and private markets. PIMCO invests their clients’ capital in income and credit opportunities that span the liquidity spectrum, leveraging their decades of experience navigating complex debt markets. Their flexible capital base and deep relationships with issuers have helped them become one of the world’s largest providers of traditional and alternative investment solutions at a valued financing partner. Visit pimco.com to learn more. What does the study of chemistry and chemical bonds have to do with the world of investing and connecting with the ultimate beneficiaries of all of this work? Hear from our next guest how she implements this in a thought-leading strategy around sustainable investing, impact investing, local impact, and so much more.
Jennifer Devine: I’m Aoifinn.
Aoifinn Devitt: Devitt, and welcome to the 50 Faces Podcast, a podcast committed to revealing the richness and diversity of the world of investment by focusing on its people and their stories. I’m joined today by Jennifer Devine, who is head of Wilshire Pension Fund and a thought leader in the field of sustainable investing. Welcome, Jennifer. Thanks for joining me today.
Jennifer Devine: Thank you very much for having me.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, let’s start with your background. We’ve known each other for many years, going back to your time at Hampshire Pension Fund. Can you tell us where you studied and how you ended up pursuing a role in pensions?
Jennifer Devine: Well, I did actually a largely irrelevant degree in chemistry, and at the end of that, I didn’t want to carry on blowing up things in the lab, so I went to the careers service and they recommended accountancy. And after training in that, I was not satisfied at all working in an accountancy practice. Just working excessive hours, just really so the partner could earn a massive bonus. That didn’t motivate me at all. So decided to move over. There was a role on offer at Hampshire working in the pension fund team that just seemed like a really good fit to me. I didn’t know anything about investments at the time, but I could see it was a really sort of intriguing area. And I felt that I could then sort of use my financial skills and actually also make a difference at the same time by helping to secure the financial futures of loads of hardworking public servants. That was very appealing. To me.
Aoifinn Devitt: And already we’re getting to the mission, which has come through very clearly in your work in the LGPS. So, so we’ll definitely come to that. But first, I just want to go back to your origins in chemistry, because I think that often we think these paths are relevant, but often there’s either a scientific knowledge that comes from that, there’s a method to hypothesis testing, etc. And now that you’re so focused on sustainable investing and the net zero commitment that you have and some of the technologies behind that. Have you found that you’ve drawn upon any of your chemistry knowledge at all in some of this evolution of investing?
Jennifer Devine: I’m sorry to disappoint you, but in the length of time since I studied it, I’ve forgotten all of it. But you are right, there is a link. I think a lot of people who do science degrees do then sometimes end up in sort of financial services and things like that. I think sometimes it sounds like a bit of a weird comparison, but I think that the world of investments can be a little bit like inorganic chemistry. When you’re looking at the periodic table and all the different trends and things, there’s lots of competing factors working out why an element might behave in the way that it does. And I think that asset classes can be a bit like that too. There’s all sorts of different moving parts. And so I think not having that sort of clear-cut view of things, but trying to take different viewpoints on how, why things might turn out the way they do, definitely appeals to that scientific part of my brain.
Aoifinn Devitt: And then of course, translating all of that complexity to something that can be easily understood, I think is one of your absolute strengths, or you or whoever is covering the communications division at Wiltshire Pension Fund, because that’s, I think, one of the best ways of communicating an investment belief and approach. And let’s just get to that now. So how would you say your investment beliefs have evolved, and when did they start to embrace so wholeheartedly sustainable investing?
Jennifer Devine: So I think that that would probably be since I’ve been working for Wiltshire Pension Fund. I think before, when I was part of a team, I wasn’t leading on the strategies, although I was deeply interested in the role that the different portfolios played. I didn’t have that same sort of oversight role, but coming to Wiltshire, I was taking over the investments, being responsible for the whole strategy, just really starting to think about what the fund’s trying to deliver. The LGPS, it’s an open defined benefit scheme, taking on new members now. You know, they might be 18 years old joining the scheme now, it’s still open, they’re going to be around. So our investment horizon is really, you know, looking out 100 years plus. We’re still going to have to be here delivering returns. As well, with all of the public sector organisations that are employers of the scheme, they’ve come under such an immense amount of pressure financially, and with the cost of living crisis, the members too. I think really trying to invest in a way that delivers a sustainable financial future for the fund is so important. We really want the contributions the employers pay to be stable and affordable. There are times when you think they might want a cut in it. I think what they really want is stability, knowing how they can plan their finances, and that’s really important to them. With the long-term investment horizon, you can then really tap into sustainable themes, take advantage of those opportunities, invest in things, not just like making quick trades, but really for the long-term. And that’s when as well, more global things like the issues like climate change and biodiversity really start to become more important as well. Really need to protect the investments from those risks of being overexposed to companies maybe that aren’t prepared to transition and behave in a better way. So it’s about managing those risks, but also there are so many opportunities that come out of that, and that’s where it’s really, really exciting. We see lots of really exciting opportunities to invest in things that will not only help drive the transition, but also benefit from it as well.
Aoifinn Devitt: And of course deliver that return that as an open scheme you need. And we’ll get to maybe some of the opportunities in a minute, but could you just set the scene for us a bit about Wilshire Pension Fund in terms of its size, funding level? The maturity of the scheme, maybe cash flow profile?
Jennifer Devine: Yes, I can. So we are about £3.3 billion of assets at the moment. We’ve got roughly 85,000 members, and they work for 180 different employer organisations. So it’s quite a complex scheme. We’re very well funded at the moment. Basically, our discount rate that calculates our funding level is based on gilt yields. So where they’ve gone up more recently, the present value of our liabilities has come down, and I think that makes us look artificially better funded perhaps than we really are. So it is healthy, but perhaps it looks extra healthy at the moment. And we’ve still got cash coming in. We have a slight cash surplus from our dealings with members, but I think looking into the future, that is something that is going to change. And it’s something that we’re trying to be quite wary of, maybe in the sort of 3 to 5 year kind of time horizon that things might change for that. And we’ll need to be focusing more on income generating assets, but for now it’s looking quite healthy.
Aoifinn Devitt: And I certainly think that’s very prudent to look at that funding level today as being perhaps a slightly artificial phenomenon, easy come, easy go, especially as interest rates look to be heading downwards next. And then how does that translate if we were to look at that sort of pie chart in our heads of asset allocation and going round the wheel in terms of equities, fixed income, alternatives, etc.? What’s your asset allocation on a broad level?
Jennifer Devine: Well, it’s obviously evolved an awful lot over the last 5 years. So it was you something, know, just to go back a few years, it was sort of more simplistic. Simplistic in the past, and I think we really have— well, we still really do embrace simplicity. We want the pension fund committee to be able to understand everything that we do, so we don’t want to introduce lots of complex sort of equity protection type things that they would struggle to monitor. So it needs to be very understandable to them, but we’ve made it not more complex, but maybe just more interesting, for lack of a better word. So rather than relying purely on the traditional things and having sort of assets in there like diversified growth funds and stuff, we’re doing more diversification through the types of things that we invest in. So looking at more impactful assets and things like that, at more private markets. So it’s built up a lot more in that area over the last few years. We do still hold a lot of equities, but lots more now in real assets and also portfolios that have more of an outcome-driven objective rather than it just being purely financial returns. It’s a dual mandate.
Aoifinn Devitt: So let’s dig into that dual mandate a little bit and talk about some of the local and impact investments that you have carried out, as well as some of those contributing, as you said, to this energy transition. To your net zero targets and to ultimately to sustainable investing future. Can you walk us through some of those opportunities? And I will note also that anyone can follow these, and that’s how I picked up on them, through your fantastic LinkedIn posts, which are often accompanied by pictures, onsite visits, and simple case study translations of what you do. So I think getting back to that, maybe avoidance of complexity, but focusing on communication, very much, I think, a leadership role in that respect. Any opportunities that come to mind, maybe recent ones that have excited you?
Jennifer Devine: Oh yeah, there’s so much, it’s hard to pare it down. And thank you for your comments about our communications as well. We’re really keen to build on that and give our members like a sort of a real understanding and pride in what their pension fund money is being invested in. And I think that ties in nicely with some of the more impact-generating assets as well. Those are the ones that are more sort of real to people. So we’ve been spending some time over the last couple of years building up our affordable housing portfolio. It’s not focused super locally, just into the Wiltshire backyard, although some of the assets are in there, because we wanted to make sure that the capital could get you deployed, know, faster. We didn’t have to want to wait or end up with too concentrated a portfolio. So we’ve taken sort of a balanced approach to it, and it’s UK-focused rather than just being in Wiltshire. But that’s been fantastic, and even seeing the manager’s views on that portfolio evolve over the time we’ve been building it up has been great, really seeing the link between how more energy-efficient homes are better homes for people to live in, but ones that will sell faster and get us a better return as well. So it’s just all sort of quite a nice virtuous circle of making things better for everybody. And that has really helped inform our philosophy to impact investing as well. We don’t identify the impact sort of necessarily first. We want to get a certain type of return, and then by investing in these types of properties, That is completely integral to the investment case, the impact that they’re generating. So by investing in homes that are meeting a demand— there’s a shortage of these sorts of homes, it’s meeting a demand, people really want to get into them, there’s long queues, they’re good quality homes— and that means they get sold faster and we get better returns. So it really works for everybody. So that’s been fantastic. But also more recently as well, we’ve been building out our climate opportunities portfolio, which is something I’m really proud of. So that’s a multi-asset portfolio. We’re investing in all sorts of different things, covers everything from listed equities. So in companies that are sort of best placed to benefit from the transitions with a manager that’s got a real sort of academic backing to their investment approach. That’s really exciting. We’re investing in emerging market transition debt. We’re investing in climate tech venture capital. We recently made an enormous commitment to a fund that we built with some other LGPS funds in the Southwest to invest in renewables in the Southwest region, and we’re going to be heading out next next week to visit one of those solar farms, which we’re really pumped about, and you’ll be able to read about that soon on LinkedIn. And then finally, we’re going to be doing some nature, nature-positive investments in there as well. So I’m really, really excited about those.
Aoifinn Devitt: And what kind of response have you had when you talk about these climate-positive investments, and then you also communicate them with case studies in a way that investors can understand? How does that land with your beneficiaries and with the other stakeholders?
Jennifer Devine: I think it’s landing really well. We had a really positive committee meeting recently where the members were looking at some of the recent case studies that will be going in our upcoming climate report, and you could really feel the pride that they had that their investment decisions had led to these really positive investments. I think that’s pretty fantastic to have that level of buy-in, and the members do find it interesting too. I think sometimes LGPS funds or other funds in general can come up with criticism from their members, what are you doing on climate? And I really think getting out there, getting ahead of that and telling people what you’re you’re doing can really help show that you’ve got nothing to hide and you really are sort of trying to do positive work to drive through improvements.
Aoifinn Devitt: Could not agree more about being on the offense essentially rather than the defense, which is always better to positively show what you are doing because it’s often those things get overlooked. And one of the last pieces of the ESG kind of, as it was pyramid, might be diversity and inclusion. And our industry, this is something this podcast focuses on, I know there’s now an Asset Owners Charter whereby we perhaps are playing a little bit of catch-up to some of your peers in the US, etc., some of whom have led with a diversity mandate and they have grids and disclosures required, etc. How do you feel about the level of diversity in the investment industry anyway, and I suppose at the managers that you work with?
Jennifer Devine: I think that it’s still an ongoing issue that we need to do a lot about. I think you only have to go for a walk through the City of London at lunchtime and you see Well, I’m not going to go into detail, but you see the core demographic that you would expect to see working in the investment industry. But you know, that, there are a lot of fantastic people coming up from all sorts of different backgrounds. And I think what’s the most important thing is just the representation. So, we want to get our stories out there, women in the industry and other minorities, they need to just sort of be making themselves visible, making themselves heard, and showing people that different viewpoints are really, really important and can lead to better outcomes. And there is a place for people in the industry. We did some nice work on this recently as well. There was International Women’s Day and we really wanted to highlight the pensions gender gap, but we also shared some stories as well. We put out some stories from different managers in our teams, different female leaders, to show people that, you know, no matter what your background, you can sort of find your niche in the world of pensions and investments.
Aoifinn Devitt: That was a beautiful piece, again on LinkedIn. And as I said too, I think at the time it almost brought tears to my eyes. It was just so beautiful in celebrating, I think, every piece of this intricate workings that goes to delivering a pension, and then celebrating people who maybe don’t often come to the fore. And I suppose the other thing to note in the LGPS is the high percentage of beneficiaries who are women. And I think that’s important because one of the things that can get lost sight of as we move to ever-increasing consolidation of the industry, and maybe moving away from the ultimate beneficiary as we move things away from local councils, is that accountability piece, and I suppose that constant remembering who this is done for. So I think that linking both your staff to the beneficiaries is very powerful.
Jennifer Devine: Yeah, it’s really important. Yeah, you’re right, there’s an enormous number of women in our scheme. I think it’s something like 80%, and a lot of them are part-time workers as well. And through taking their time out with their families and things like that, they’ve really fallen behind in terms of how much pension benefits they have earned. And I think it’s just important that they’re aware of that. And we do encourage them to sort of really get connected to their financial future. That’s the phrase that we’re using at the moment to try and encourage them to log on, see what they’ve got. Is it enough for you? Are you aware of what you’re saving? And are you aware of what an amazingly important benefit the pension actually is?
Aoifinn Devitt: Uh, the other thing that you do that I think is quite innovative is in your staffing side. One of the key constraints in local government are resources. And what I notice you’ve done, and some of the, the power behind this phenomenon of your communications piece, are how you perhaps, I think it’s a part-time programme or a programme whereby someone who’s also a student can work with you and build their career that way.
Jennifer Devine: Yeah, we really do try and accommodate all sorts of different things. And that’s one of the things that I found amazing when I moved to work at Wiltshire was the amazing flexibility in hybrid working. Like, I still had relatively small children at the time. The youngest one had just started school. I wouldn’t have been able to do this job without the ability to work from home and be flexible. And I really want to promote that for everybody within the team. As well. We have lots and lots of flexible working arrangements, and it enables us to have people in the workplace who wouldn’t otherwise be there, and then we really get to benefit from their skills too.
Aoifinn Devitt: And in this podcast series and previous ones, we speak a lot about public service and some of those, suppose, the frustrations that come from the pace at times, or the governance burden, setbacks, challenges. Throughout your career, have there been any such setbacks or challenges that you’ve learned lessons from that you can share here?
Jennifer Devine: There’s been lots of things. Yeah, I think the biggest challenge that I have experienced, as cheesy as it’s going to sound, is being a woman in this workplace has probably been the biggest challenge. There’s been lots of times where I feel like I haven’t really been heard within the room and stuff like that. So I feel that now I’m in a position where I can be heard more, would just really encourage other people to make your voices heard and put yourself forward. I mean, there’s been lots of other challenges too. I think that’s probably been the longest enduring one.
Aoifinn Devitt: Hopefully one where there will be light at the end of the tunnel, but, you know, certain factors won’t change in that respect. And any high points that you can talk to over the course of this career so far?
Jennifer Devine: Yeah, I think the biggest high point has been the ability to just really crack on with what we’re doing at Wiltshire and really just take it to the next level. I’ve had so much support and encouragement to do that in this organization, and when I think about where we’ve come just over the last few years— we didn’t even have, you know, a net zero target at the beginning. We were being good stewards of of our capital, but we weren’t really thinking so much about all of the different work that we could do and really taking the approach forward. And over this time, we have been really lucky to win a couple of awards for our approach to responsible investment. Those were fantastic evenings. It was brilliant to bring the team up. Everyone was just so overjoyed and proud of themselves. And the feeling that it was such a team effort as well was just so rewarding.
Aoifinn Devitt: Again, some other great coverage of that on LinkedIn. So that’s been wonderful to see. Was there any mentor or sponsor for you over the course of your career? Some people have them, some people don’t.
Jennifer Devine: Yes, absolutely. And you may have met him yourself. There’s a chap called Nick who used to be my boss when I was previously at Hampshire, has just been the best advocate for me. Like, I feel he really, really pushed me. He obviously saw something in me that I didn’t at the time, and he’s just really pushed me to grow. And he’s still here for me now. We still meet up for lunch every month or so, and he’s always got good tips for me and things like that. I feel He’s real like work dad for me, you know, it’s just really nice to have someone on your corner and like sort of push you to do better in the workplace. I think that’s really important. And we’ve got really nice schemes for that sort of stuff at Wiltshire as well. One of the benefits of being part of the wider council is that we have access to all these sort of, you know, mentor and coaching schemes and things. And I really think that people should open their minds and like engage with that sort of stuff, get fresh perspectives.
Aoifinn Devitt: And I want to also call out another great, maybe I wouldn’t say necessarily work dad, but certainly a major source of support for me was John Pittum at Hampshire County Council. I’m not sure if you ever overlapped, but he was definitely the spark capital behind kind of a nascent consulting firm that I had back around 2006, 2007, a huge supporter. And I’ll never forget that. And I think that you are carrying that baton by being an important source of spark capital for many of these emerging sustainable investing solutions. So I think that goes on. I’m sorry, many people will consider you the same way I consider John. So, so thank you for that. My last question is around any advice, creed, motto, word of wisdom, advice for your younger self, anything from that collection of ideas that you can leave us with in terms of your career and maybe advice for others.
Jennifer Devine: Yeah, I think that when I was first starting out in the workplace 20 years ago, I remember my mum saying to me at the time, like, never turn down any opportunities for learning. And that has just rung in my ears for the last 20 years, and I would never turn down any opportunities for learning. I think it’s so important. When you’re learning things, you’re changing, you’re doing new things, you’ve got fresh ideas, like it brings that motivation and that drive to continuously improve. So I would say that to everybody, yeah, my younger self again, and everybody out there, like, don’t turn down any learning.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, watching your transformation in the industry has been a great privilege, and I’m going to bring it back to chemistry because not only do we have catalysts here, you are a great catalyst for change in the industry and great examples of that given, as I said, on the LinkedIn page, which I keep referring to, which I will link to in the show notes. And the last thing also that I’m gonna get back to chemistry is we talk a lot about bonds in chemistry, and I think you are creating these bonds between the ultimate beneficiary, other stakeholders, their money, and the impact it is having. And creating that connection, as you call it, which leads to better engagement, is one I think of the most formidable and strong bonds that you can create. So thank you so much for being an advocate as you are and for sharing your insights here with us.
Jennifer Devine: Oh, thank you so much. Thank you for having me.
Aoifinn Devitt: I’m Aoifinn and David, thank you for listening to the 50 Faces podcast. If you liked what you heard and would like to tune in to hear more inspiring investors and their personal journeys, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice, and all views are personal and should not be attributed to the organizations and affiliations of the host or any guest.
