Interview – Nest


INTERVIEW – LIZ FERNANDO


“We have cash coming in every day of the week, which creates a challenge.”


The deputy chief investment officer of workplace pension provider Nest speaks to Mona Dohle about moving from DB to DC, having to invest £400m a month, how to avoid being a forced seller and why she is keeping her eye on the unions in Germany.


You joined Nest from USS. Was that a big cultural shift? I joined Nest at the end 2020, so I have just hit my 18 month anniversary. It is a different set up, and not just because I moved from defined benefit (DB) to defined contribution (DC). At USS, we managed the assets in-house, while Nest is fully outsourced. That is quite a change in terms of team size and roles. The dynamic is very different. At USS I managed listed equities, but within a maturing DB scheme you are


12 | portfolio institutional | September 2022 | issue 116


fighting to stand still, in absolute assets under management (AUM) terms as the scheme is de-risking into fixed income securities and selling equities. In con- trast, Nest has a positive cashflow coming in all the time. It’s also quite nice after 20 years of running money to not be con- stantly on Bloomberg watching the mar- kets or reading statements at seven in the morning because you need to know what is happening in your portfolio. It’s nice to step back from that.


When I joined USS, it had a small team


and with a small team you have to roll your sleeves up and get on with it. So I have covered pretty much every asset class to a greater or lesser extent over my career. For example, I once had to cover for the bond manager when she was on maternity leave because back then we only had one bond manager.


That’s hard to imagine now. Yes, and the fixed income team is much bigger now but back then it broadly involved me watching a screen and telling


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