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Investment Board

Meet the board of USS Investment Management Limited (USSIM)

Meet the board of Directors of USS Investment Management Limited – a subsidiary of Universities Superannuation Scheme Limited that looks after the investment and management of the scheme’s assets. Between them, they hold a wealth of investment, financial and operational expertise that helps ensure the smooth governance of the company.

  • Group Chief Executive Officer

    Carol Young

    Carol became Group Chief Executive Officer in September 2023. Carol’s career spans over 20 years across in-house and consulting roles and includes a decade as an investment consultant. Prior to joining USS, Carol was the Director of Reward & Employment at Natwest Group. She led the teams responsible for Reward, Pensions, Benefits, performance management, core HR employment policies, Employment Law, Industrial Relations, Business Acquisitions and Disposals and HR regulatory work. This included the flexible benefits programme for more than 60,000 colleagues, and DB and DC pension arrangements for around 300,000 members (over c.£55bn liabilities) worldwide. Carol is a CFA Charterholder and has served as independent trustee on a number of boards. She is a non-executive director of the PLSA and has chaired PLSA policy councils and the CBI pension panel.

  • Chair

    Sarah Bates

    Sarah was appointed as Chair of USS Investment Management Limited on 1 September 2021 and has been a Director since 28 June 2021. Sarah was also a member of the Universities Superannuation Scheme Limited’s Investment Committee from 2013 and stepped down on 31 August 2021. Sarah has nearly 40 years' experience in the financial sector rising to senior executive roles in asset management (including joint Chief Investment Officer and Chief Executive Officer roles of Invesco’s UK institutional business), before starting a 20-year career as a director, trustee and Chair of various financial sector firms and pension schemes. Sarah has been a director and Chair of a FTSE 100 company (St James’s Place), and several other financial organisations including the Association of Investment Companies, JP Morgan American Investment Trust, Witan Pacific Investment Trust plc and Merian Global Investors. Amongst her current roles, Sarah is Chair of Polar Capital Technology Trust, Senior Independent Director of Alliance Trust plc, Senior Independent Director of the Worldwide Healthcare Trust and within pensions, Sarah is Chair of the John Lewis Partnership Trust for Pensions, and Chair of the BBC Pension Scheme’s internal asset manager. Sarah is a co-founder of The Diversity Project (a cross-company initiative championing a more inclusive culture within the Savings and Investment profession) and an Ambassador for Chapter Zero (a community of directors with the aim of promoting crucial UK boardroom discussions on the impacts of climate change).
  • DIRECTOR - INDEPENDENT

    Alain Kerneis

    Alain became a Director of USS Investment Management Limited and Universities Superannuation Scheme Limited on 24 January 2022. He’s also a member of the Investment Committee and the Remuneration Committee.. Alain is an investment and governance specialist with over 20 years of experience in managing portfolios on behalf of pension schemes, and in mitigating market, operational and regulatory risks. Since his transition from an executive career, Alain has built a diverse portfolio of non-executive director and investment advisory roles in the pension, private wealth and retail markets. He is non-executive director and Chairman of the Board of a family office. He is non-executive director and Chairman of the fund governance committee at T Bailie Fund Services, a firm that acts as an Authorised Fund Manager in the UK retail fund market. Alain was also an advisor to the in-house investment team of the National Grid UK Pension Schemes (2019-2021). Prior to his board career, Alain was co-Head of Investments for BlackRock’s Client Portfolio Solutions and responsible for the oversight and the performance of £75bn of client assets in EMEA. Before his time at BlackRock, Alain spent 14 years at Goldman Sachs in various senior roles in asset management and investment research. Alain grew up in rural Brittany before moving to Paris to train as a scientist. He was awarded a doctorate at AgroParisTech in 1994 for his work on the modelling of drinking water quality in distribution networks.
  • Director - Independent

    Chris Rowlands

    Chris joined the USS Investment Management Limited board in 2015. He began his career at Barclays Bank, before joining Arthur Andersen as a Corporate Finance Partner. He also spent almost 20 years with the 3i Group, where he was business leader for Asia and for Europe. Since giving up his Executive role, he led the review of the UK SME access to equity (the Rowlands Review) for HM Treasury and was a member of the Breedon Review of UK SME debt financing. He has served as Deputy Chairman of the Principality Building Society, Chair of the Investment Committee at Finance Wales and a Non-Executive with Hermes GPE.
  • Head of Private Markets (USS Investment Management Limited)

    Mike Powell

    Mike joined USS Investment Management Limited in 2006 to form the Alternative Assets programme and joined the board in 2015. Mike has overall responsibility for the Private Markets Group and is Chair of the Private Markets Investment Committee which approves investments within Private Markets. Mike graduated with a First Class Honours degree in Economics from Warwick University and is an Associate of the UK Society of Investment Professionals (UKSIP).
  • Chief Executive Officer (USS Investment Management Limited)

    Simon Pilcher

    Simon was appointed Chief Executive of the wholly-owned investment management subsidiary of Universities Superannuation Scheme Limited (USS Investment Management Limited) in October 2019 to lead the team who manage the assets of USS, for both DB and DC sections of the scheme, investing across both Public and Private Markets. The majority of USS’s investments are managed in-house and USSIM has responsibility for selecting and overseeing third-party managers where these are used. USSIM is also the principal investment advisor to the scheme.

    Simon started his career in asset management in 1987 at Morgan Grenfell before moving to Prudential in 1998, a year before it acquired M&G Investments. At M&G Prudential, he led the Fixed Income and Alternatives businesses for two decades before being asked to become Chairman of Real Estate with a combined team of over 500 employees and around £160bn in assets. He was also a member of the Executive Leadership Team. During his tenure at M&G Prudential, Simon championed innovation and pioneered new products in Europe, for example: Leveraged Finance, Infrastructure Private Equity, Commercial Mortgage Lending and, more recently, Specialty Finance and Impact Investing.

    He has a degree from Cambridge University.

  • Director - Independent

    Tony Owens

    Tony joined the USS Investment Management Limited board in 2015. Tony was previously the Director of Operations, Strategy and Finance at Scottish Widows Investment Partnership Limited (SWIP). He joined SWIP from their parent company, Scottish Widows, where he was the Director of Strategy, Planning & Monitoring. Before this, he was a Consultant for Blas Corporate Finance and an Adviser at Rutherglen Capital in Sydney. Tony has held senior positions at Martin Currie Investment Managers, in the BBC, Bertelsmann Group in Munich and New York, and LEK Consulting.