Meet the team
Get in touch with our team today to discuss a potential de-risking transaction for your defined benefit pension scheme.
With experience working with trustees and employers, we're here to help you ensure that your scheme's future is secure.
Paul Bowker - Director of BPA Solutions
Paul leads Bulk Annuities, individual annuities, and Equity Release funding at Royal London.
Paul is a qualified actuary with over 20 years’ experience in defined benefit pensions and life insurance. Over the last 4 years, Paul has been responsible for the growth in Royal London’s individual annuities proposition as well as our bulk annuity market entry. Paul has held several senior roles at Royal London, including responsibility for 5 million policies in our Long-Standing Customer book.
Before Royal London, Paul worked at Willis Towers Watson, Royal Liver Assurance and Mercer.
Frankie Borrell - Head of BPA Origination
Frankie leads our Bulk Annuity Origination team.
Frankie is a qualified Actuary with 15 years of experience in the bulk annuity market, across both insurers and consultancies. Most recently he was Head of Risk Settlement at Cardano, where the team led the brokering of the £4.8 billion buyout of the Boots Pension Scheme.
Prior to that he worked at three bulk annuity providers across eleven years, most recently at Legal & General where he sat on the pension risk transfer leadership team.
Matt Lendon - Head of BPA Pricing
Matt leads our Bulk Annuity Pricing team which is responsible for the production and modelling of Bulk Annuity pricing activity.
Matt is a qualified actuary with over 20 years’ experience in defined benefit pensions and life insurance. His experience includes 9 years working in pricing and proposition development for bulk annuities at both Legal & General and Scottish Widows. This included development of pricing systems and oversight of management adjustment compliance, in addition to technical and commercial pricing.
Costas Yiasoumi - Head of BPA Operations
Costas leads the operations and administration teams for our Bulk Annuity business.
Costas is a qualified actuary with over 30+ years’ experience, much of which has focused on pension risk transfer. His positions at financial institutions have involved advising trustees boards of UK defined benefit schemes and their corporate sponsors, leading and implementing many bulk annuity transactions with insurers.
Prior to Royal London, Costas held senior executive roles leading teams responsible for the delivery of pension risk transfer products. In addition, Costas has chaired various groups for the UK actuarial profession.
Phillip Sturgess - BPA Commercial Director
Phil is responsible for the strategic delivery of our Bulk Annuity proposition.
Phil is a qualified actuary with over 20 years’ experience in the life insurance market, including 13 years in roles directly related to bulk annuities. He was previously Director of DB Commercial at Just where he was responsible for Pricing, Proposition Development and Reinsurance Structuring for the bulk annuity business unit and managed a team of around 35. He was also part of the team that set up the bulk annuity provider Lucida and held roles in pricing, longevity and reporting before supporting the sale and transition to Legal & General.
James Nicholls – BPA Implementation and Operations Strategic Lead
James leads the Royal London BPA Implementation team, where he's responsible for all post-sale services, ensuring that pension schemes are safely onboarded and that our clients receive an exceptional experience.
James is a chartered accountant and has specialised in the implementation and operation of Pensions Risk Transfer transactions since 2015. In his previous role at Capita, James worked as the Account Director for BPA clients and was responsible for overall account performance.
Prior to this, James held a leadership role in the Standard Life BPA team and was responsible for post-sale client services and operating model optimisation.
Ryan Geraghty – BPA Implementation Manager
Ryan joined Royal London at the beginning of 2025. He has been working in the bulk annuity industry since 2019, specializing in the onboarding of bulk annuity transactions for both insurers and third-party administrators.
In his previous role at Equiniti, Ryan managed the onboarding and implementation of scheme buyouts onto the Administrator platform. Prior to that, he was part of the BPA team at Standard Life, where he helped define their operational processes and led the transition of several pension schemes to live buy-in.
Origination team
Our Origination team lead the management of our buy-in transactions and our relationships with consultancies and trustees.
Baljit Khatra - BPA Origination Lead
Baljit is a qualified actuary with over 15 years of experience in DB pensions, and over 10 years specialising in working with trustees and corporates on pension risk transfer strategy, broking and execution. He has worked in the risk transfer teams at both Mercer and Hymans Robertson, and brings this client-side experience into his role at Royal London. Baljit joined Royal London in 2023 to help build the bulk annuity business ahead of entering the market.
Beatrice Male - BPA Origination Lead
Bea is a qualified actuary who has originated and led transactions in the bulk annuity sector since 2018. She’s also got significant experience launching new insurance products and streamlined solutions in the bulk annuity market. Prior to joining Royal London in 2024, Bea worked in Legal & General’s Client Solutions and New Business teams. Bea started her career in life insurance consulting, working at Willis Towers Watson and Milliman UK.
Mark Sharkey - BPA Origination Lead
Mark is a qualified actuary who has worked with defined benefit pension schemes and risk transfer transactions since 2015. Prior to joining Royal London in 2024, he worked in Hymans Robertson’s Club Vita business as Head of Pension Strategy, Global. In this role, Mark worked closely with a wide range of pension schemes, consultancies and (re)insurers participating in the UK and North American pension risk transfer markets.
Moin Patala - BPA Origination Lead
Moin is a qualified actuary with over 18 years of experience in the life insurance sector, across both insurers and consultancies. Since joining Royal London 15 years ago, Moin has held senior roles across Finance, Risk and Audit. Moin moved to the bulk annuity team in 2023 and most recently has led the execution of multiple buy-ins. Before Royal London, Moin worked at PWC and Royal Liver Assurance.
Victoria Smith - BPA Origination Manager
Vic joined the BPA Origination team at Royal London in early 2025. Vic has been working with defined benefit pension schemes and their sponsors since 2018. She has been involved in brokering bulk annuity transactions for over five years, working on deals ranging in complexity and size, from £10m to £2bn. Vic started her career at LCP and prior to joining Royal London worked as a Risk Transfer Specialist at Aon.
Tom Hill – BPA Origination Manager
Tom is a qualified actuary with over seven years of experience working with trustees of defined benefit pension schemes to manage their liabilities and endgame preparations. Prior to joining the BPA Origination team at Royal London in 2025, Tom was part of the Risk Transfer Team at Barnett Waddingham. In this role, he was involved in brokering a range of bulk annuity transactions from under £1m to £2bn.