Paul Thornton biography

Paul Thornton is Managing Director of the Pensions Advisory team at Gazelle Corporate Finance Limited, providing advice on financing pension shortfalls to pension trustees, sponsoring employers and private investors. He is an adviser to PensionDCisions, which provides an investment performance benchmarking service to sponsors and members of DC pension schemes, and he is a member of the independent With Profits Committee of Prudential Assurance.

Until June 2006, Paul was a Consulting Actuary in Watson Wyatt Limited, the European arm of Watson Wyatt Worldwide. He was Senior Partner of Watson Wyatt LLP from May 2001 until July 2005. As the Senior Partner he was Chairman of the European Partnership Board, having been Chairman of the UK firm's Management Committee from 1995 to 1997, and Chairman of the Board overseeing Watson Wyatt's European operations from 1996 to 1999. He served on the Watson Wyatt Worldwide Board of Directors from November 2000 until January 2006.

Paul joined Watson Wyatt (formerly R Watson & Sons) in 1974, qualifying as a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries in 1975 and becoming a Partner of the firm in 1977. Paul has experience of advising large pension arrangements both at a national and international level and was Scheme Actuary to the BT Pension Scheme, which is the largest private sector pension fund in the UK . He is a member of the "Committee of Wise Actuaries" appointed in connection with the Pension Reserve Fund of the European Patent Office.

He has written professional papers on Scheme Design, Bulk Transfers and Realistic Funding Assumptions as well as other pension topics, and has spoken at OECD and World Bank conferences in addition to participating in meetings of the OECD Private Pensions Working Party and the International Organisation of Pension Supervisors on behalf of the International Actuarial Association.

Paul was President of the Institute of Actuaries , the professional body for actuaries in the UK , from July 1998 to July 2000, having been Chairman of the Pensions Board of the Faculty and Institute of Actuaries from 1994 to 1996 and Chairman of the Association of Consulting Actuaries from June 1997 until June 1998. He is currently a member of the Disciplinary Appointments Committee and of the International Committee of the UK Actuarial Profession.

Paul was Chairman of the Pensions Committee of the Groupe Consultatif of European Actuaries from October 1999 until October 2005, Chairman of the Committee of the International Actuarial Association dealing with Pensions and Employee Benefits from December 1995 until December 2005 and has been a member of the Executive Committee and Council of the International Actuarial Association.

Paul holds an Honours degree in Mathematics from Oxford University.