Charles Counsell OBE

Commissioner and Senior Independent Director

Charles has been a Board member of Government Arm’s Length Bodies since 2011, first as Executive Director of Automatic Enrolment (AE) at The Pensions Regulator (TPR), then as Chief Executive of the Money Advice Service (MAS) and then as Chief Executive of The Pensions Regular (TPR).

As CEO of TPR, Charles developed TPR’s new corporate strategy that puts the pension saver at the heart of what TPR does, shifting the focus from a Defined Benefit scheme focus. He delivered TPR’s first Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy and Climate Change strategy, both focused on driving change in TPR and across the Pensions Sector and led the modernisation of TPR’s IT estate and starting the transformation of TPR to become a data led digital organisation. This included introducing a Digital, Data and Technology Directorate.

At MAS, Charles successfully led the organisation through the period of merger with two pensions bodies leading to the creation of the Money and Pensions Service.

As Executive Director of AE at TPR, he worked closely with The Department for Work and Pensions to deliver AE, which has been hailed as a huge social reform success. Charles was awarded an OBE for services to workplace pensions reform.

Throughout his career, his roles have focused on setting up and delivering large change programmes requiring significant stakeholder relationship engagement: initially in the private sector (23 years, including 17 as a consultant) and latterly (12 years) in senior public sector appointments.