Senior management team

Meet the senior management team at Wesleyan

Mario Mazzocchi

Group Chief Executive

Mario became Wesleyan Group CEO on 1 August 2019, having served as Chief Operating Officer since he joined Wesleyan in December 2018. He moved from Lloyds Banking Group where his most recent role was Chief Operating Officer for their Insurance and Wealth Division.

Previous roles in the Group included Managing Director of the Financial Planning and Retirement business line at Scottish Widows, Chief Operating Officer for the Commercial Banking Division, Operations Director of Asset Finance and Head of Brand for the Group.

Before working at Lloyds, Mario gained extensive experience in different industries, markets and sectors, including marketing, sales and strategy.

Jon Welsh

Chief Risk Officer

Jonathan joined Wesleyan in 2015. Since then, he has held several leadership roles, including Head of Actuarial and With Profits Actuary. He was appointed as Chief Risk Officer in 2021 and is now responsible for Wesleyan’s risk and regulatory activity.

Jonathan is a qualified actuary with a wide breadth of Risk Function and operational experience. Before joining Wesleyan, Jonathan previously held senior Actuarial positions with NFU Mutual and KPMG.

Jonathan is an active participant in industry bodies and working parties, which has influenced regulatory change within the industry.

Gillian Cass

Chief Financial Officer

Gillian joined Wesleyan as Chief Financial Officer in October 2020. She has over 20 years of financial services experience.

Most recently, Gillian was CFO of Customer Savings and Investments, and Operations at M&G plc. Gillian held a number of senior finance roles at Aviva, including Director of Global Finance Operations, Chief Accounting Officer of Aviva Investors and Chief Accounting Officer of the UK Life business.

Gillian also spent 13 years with PwC in both the UK and Australia, working in audit, transaction services and risk assurance across financial services.

Gillian is responsible for Wesleyan's Company Secretary, strategy, culture and communications teams.

David Stewart

Chief Operating Officer

David became Wesleyan’s Chief Operating Officer in August 2019. Before this, he held the role of Technology and Transformation Director.

He moved from Lloyds Banking Group where he held a range of roles across the group over a 10-year career, rising to Chief Operating Officer for the Group Operations Division. Prior to Lloyds, he worked in a variety of commercial and general management roles.

As COO, David has Group-wide responsibility for Change and Transformation, IT, Cyber, Data, Customer Operations and Supplier Management.

James Needham

Chief Product Officer

James joined Wesleyan in 2010 and has held several leadership roles, including Head of Financial Reporting and Chief Actuary. In 2020, he was appointed as Chief Product Officer.

James is responsible for Wesleyan's actuarial activity and oversees the Society's product development and performance, identifying ways to improve customer outcomes. He is a financial reporting expert and has presented at a number of actuarial conferences.

Martin Lawrence

Director of Investments

Martin joined Wesleyan in 1995 as an Investment Analyst. In 2001, he became a Fund Manager. Over a period of 20 years, he managed several Wesleyan funds, including the With Profits Fund until December 2020.

Now, as Director of Investments, Martin is responsible for overseeing the management of all Wesleyan funds, as well as our in-house Investments department. This includes our Fund and Property Managers, Analysts, and Sustainable Investment (SI) Team.

He is also a Director of Wesleyan Unit Trust Managers Ltd.

Lisa Perkins

Director of HR

Lisa joined Wesleyan in 2017 as a Senior Business Partner, managing the HR Business Partnering team. She then became Head of HR in 2020, and Director of HR in 2021.

Lisa is responsible for the People Strategy at Wesleyan, leading a team of around 40 HR professionals to deliver a range of HR Services. This includes Performance Management, Organisational Design and Transformation, Reward and Recognition, Employee Value Proposition, Attraction and Retention, Learning and Development and HR Shared Services.

Lisa has worked in HR for the last 25 years within the professional services sector. She has also held the role of independent consultant and spent most of her early career at Lloyds TSB Bank in a variety of HR Business Partner and HR Manager positions.

Nathan Wallis

Chief of Staff

Nathan joined Wesleyan in 2016 as Head of Strategic Communications and was promoted to the role of Chief of Staff in 2020.

He leads Wesleyan’s internal and external communications functions and also our corporate social responsibility activity. This includes oversight of funding through the Wesleyan Foundation.

Prior to joining Wesleyan, Nathan worked in communications, media relations and marketing roles across multiple sectors including at public services firm Amey plc, part of the Ferrovial Group, Lloyds Banking Group, HBOS and Highways England.

Prior to moving into communications, Nathan was a Product Manager with expertise in the specialist mortgage sector.