Sarah Bates has over 40 years of experience in the investment and wealth management, pensions and charity sectors.

Sarah is Senior Independent Non-Executive Director of Alliance Trust plc. She is also Chair of Universities Superannuation Scheme Investment Management and Chair of the BBC Pensions Investment Ltd and an Independent Investment Committee member of the BBC Pension Fund. She is also a Senior Adviser to Lansons PR.

Previously, Sarah was Chair of St James’s Place plc and the John Lewis Partnership Pension Fund, and Senior Independent Non-Executive Director of World Healthcare Trust plc. She has also been Chair of Polar Capital Technology Trust plc, of Merian Global Investors (taken over by Jupiter Asset Management), the Association of Investment Companies and of 6 other organisations, including charities, a pension fund and investment companies.

In the charity world, Sarah has previously been Chair of the Kings Corner Project (a small youth charity), a Trustee of the Liver Group Charity, Chair of the Investment Panel at St Joseph’s Hospice and a lay adviser to the Royal College of Surgeons Investment Committee.

Sarah started her career as a retail analyst, then became a fund manager at Invesco and worked her way up to the position of Joint Chief Investment Officer and CEO of Invesco’s institutional business in the UK. She was also one of the co-founders of the Diversity Project, and set up the Diversity Project Charity, of which she was Chair.