Saturday, November 2, 2024

Meet the top female entrepreneur ‘making Britain investable again’

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Tracy Blackwell, boss of the multi-billion pound firm Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC), can’t remember how many times she’s watched her favourite movie Gone with the Wind, yet the blockbuster’s Scarlett O’Hara character certainly still resonates.

“Growing up as a female there weren’t many strong role models, so to see a movie like that and a woman who takes her life into her own hands is really powerful,” says Blackwell.

Born to a teenage single mother in the US state of Illinois, Blackwell has lived in the UK for well over 30 years. In June, she was recognised for co-founding and growing PIC into a FTSE 100-sized business, one that takes on unwanted final-salary obligations from firms and secures retirement incomes for 350,000 people.

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The Veuve Clicquot Bold Woman judges also noted PIC’s asset portfolio of £50bn — with more than £13bn invested to revitalise Britain’s infrastructure, including the largest urban regeneration project in the Wirral.

This follows her ascent into asset management and a male-dominated environment, via a spell living in Malaysia, part-time jobs including as a magician’s assistant, and business school before a decade with Goldman Sachs. She left the industry entirely in the early 2000s due to a negative culture and spent a few years at home in Norfolk, where she lives with her husband and son.

One of her former Goldman colleagues, the late Danny Truell, who later fronted the investment division of the Wellcome Trust, then called her to say he was looking at starting a business with his brother. “I said ‘No, I’m not working in London, full-time or for you two,” smiles Blackwell, a keen sailor.

New Vic, pictured right, is PIC’s first Build to Rent project to complete, repurposing a key area adjacent to Manchester Victoria train station. Photo: Getty · Mark Waugh

“If you had told me in 2006 that, 18 years later, we would have a £50bn balance sheet and employ 600 people … it is a bit surreal where we have got to.”

So, what persuaded her to enter the pensions business? “I saw the maths of it and it was so obvious and compelling,” says Blackwell, who took over as CEO in 2015 from her chief investment officer role.

“The UK has the second largest savings sector in the world. Of that, defined benefit (DB) pension schemes, which are mostly closed [over 70%], are £1.5tn. When people talk about why pension funds don’t invest in equities it is because they are all closed and shouldn’t be investing it.

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“If we have £1.5tn moving from DB into insurance and we are using that money to invest in the real economy, it will become a much bigger driver of the economy.”

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