Speaker profile: Mel Duffield

Mel was appointed USS’s Chief Pensions Strategy Officer in October 2024. She leads the functions focused on pension strategy and engagement – including Strategy and Insight, Proposition, Member and Employer communications, Stakeholder Support, Sector Engagement and Technical Policy. Before joining USS in 2015, Mel was Deputy Director at the Pensions Policy Institute (PPI), an independent research charity focusing on pensions and retirement savings issues, and prior to that Head of Research and Strategic Policy at PLSA. Mel started her professional career in the UK civil service, working as a senior economic advisor at HM Treasury, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education. Mel is also a Governor and Board Director for the Pensions Policy Institute, a Board Director for the International Centre for Pensions Management, and a serving magistrate in Hertfordshire.