Our Team

Craig Lough

PRINCIPAL

Craig Lough is an actuary specialising in the field of general insurance. He began his career at Melville Jessup Weaver before working in Australia and then the UK. During his time away he worked for a large London consulting office as well as multinational insurance companies both in Australia and the UK. Craig’s broad array of experience includes valuation, basis setting, auditing, process improvement, and exposure to IFRS and USGAAP.

Ben Trollip

PRINCIPAL

Ben Trollip is an actuary specialising in providing investment consulting advice to superannuation schemes, charitable trusts, and other institutional investors. He provides advice on a wide array of investment matters including the development of investment objectives, strategic asset allocation, manager selection and monitoring, and asset/liability modelling. In addition, he advises on issues such as currency hedging policy, asset rebalancing policy, and governance issues. Ben began his career Melville Jessup Weaver before moving to our alliance partner, WTW, where he worked within the Sydney based manager research team. In this role, Ben researched investment managers in Australia, Asia, Europe and the USA. He was intimately involved in setting WTW’s research view and working with clients in selecting and developing investment mandates to suit their needs. Ben has assisted clients ranging in size to over $40 billion in assets under management. Ben has written papers on a range of topics including Centralised Portfolio Management and Small Cap Equities, and has presented on topics such as Smart Beta.

Jeremy Holmes

PRINCIPAL

Jeremy Holmes is an actuary specialising in general insurance. His experience includes a wide variety of work for our New Zealand clients as well as some time working for a Lloyd’s insurer in London. Jeremy is interested in pricing and profitability analyses for general insurers or anyone interested in getting a better understanding of their products’ performance. He also undertakes insurance liability valuations, reviews and ad-hoc projects.

Chris Sissons

PRINCIPAL

Chris Sissons is an actuary specialising in superannuation and life insurance. He originally started with MJW in 2011 working primarily in Superannuation and Employee Benefits. Chris re-joined MJW in 2022 after three years working at Resolution Life where he was involved in a range of activities including, group pricing, experience investigations, IFRS valuations, solvency calculations, and risk management. His life insurance experience also includes model development for a full range of contemporary life insurance products, along with valuation of traditional products and reinsurance calculations. In the superannuation practice area, he provides a range of advice to both superannuation schemes and employers regarding benefit design, actuarial valuations, member communications, superannuation legislation, IAS19 and FASB accounting valuations and other actuarial issues. He has also undertaken several ad hoc projects including unit price error correction and reviews of various calculators for public and private sector entities.

Steve Grant

PRINCIPAL

Steve Grant heads up our superannuation administration team. He started at Melville Jessup Weaver in 2000 as an actuarial analyst and moved into the administration space as the business grew. Steve has experience with the administration of defined benefit schemes, defined contribution schemes and KiwiSaver schemes. In recent years he has overseen a number of smooth transitions of administration services to Melville Jessup Weaver. Steve’s expertise extends to compliance under the Financial Markets Conduct Act for each of the schemes administered and for a few in-house administrators who have out-sourced this function.

David Chamberlain

PRINCIPAL

William Nelson

Investment Consultant

William is an actuary who has been providing investment consulting services for 15 years, having joined MJW in 2011. William has broad experience providing advice to a variety of institutional investors such as superannuation schemes, charitable trusts and inheritance funds. He provides advice on all aspects of investment consulting, including asset/liability modelling, SIPOs, the development of investment objectives, strategic asset allocation and manager selection and monitoring.

William is skilled in complex investment modelling processes, such as savings projections tools in the context of the New Zealand regulatory environment. He plays a key role in developing and maintaining MJW’s capital markets model, which provides forecasts for future investment return and risk.

Marcella Lau

Actuary

Marcella specialises in general insurance and data analytics. She joined MJW in 2012 and has qualified as an actuary. Her experience includes maintaining and developing the technical models to estimate NHC Toka Tū Ake’s insurance liabilities; developing models to estimate employers’ workplace injury liabilities under the Accredited Employers Programme; and supporting Jeremy and Craig in various data analytics and general insurance projects.

In addition to regular valuation work Marcella also works closely with some large clients to provide ongoing support in terms of one-off analyses and advice on issues facing management. In these cases familiarity with the data systems and knowledge of past business transformations have been fundamental in providing timely and appropriate support.

Tyler Bond

Investment Consultant

Tyler is an actuary with seven years’ industry experience, rejoining MJW this year having spent two years working for Raymond James (Charles Stanley) in London. At Raymond James, Tyler led the quant function of the central research team. During this time Tyler developed models and internal tools to analyse and manage investment portfolios, helping investment managers make decisions.

Tyler was heavily involved in the management of the Charles Stanley central guidance portfolios with over $2 billion in assets under management. He also worked with the Charles Stanley Fiduciary Management team, helping develop investment de-risking glide paths, and carrying out asset/liability modelling.

Varin Malhotra

Senior Analyst

Varin specialises in general insurance and investments. He joined MJW in 2025 after working for three years at Finity Consulting and is close to finishing his actuarial exams. Varin’s experience in general insurance includes valuations and reserving work for numerous insurers in both New Zealand and Australia, as well as solvency calculations and full-year reporting. This includes work across a range of industries, including large general insurers with a similar suite. In addition to his work in the general insurance space, Varin also has experience working in the investments space, including producing investment policy documentation, writing papers to assist in investment decision-making, and regular reporting and financial commentary.

Ben Niu

Actuarial Analyst

Ben specialises in general insurance and data analytics. He joined MJW in 2022 and has been progressing through the actuarial exams. Ben has spent much of his time implementing and running catastrophe models, both for earthquake risks and flood risks. He has also been instrumental in maintaining our website scraper tools which enable us to benchmark domestic insurance premiums in New Zealand.

Ben has also assisted in carrying out valuations of workplace injury liabilities for large employers, industry statistical collection, and liability valuations for mutuals and not-for-profits. He also helps maintain industry surveys on insurers’ performance and solvency, as well as drafting quarterly reports on the industry. Ben has been instrumental in our work with the RBNZ improving data quality.

Prior to joining MJW, Ben worked with a rental agency to help develop pricing tools for rental vehicles, hotels and cruise pricing.

Flynn Lakeman

Actuarial Analyst

Karen Vernon

Plan Manager

Karen Vernon is a member of our Administration team, providing member, pensioner administration, and secretarial services to trustees of superannuation schemes.  Karen has more than 30 years’ superannuation administration experience specialising in complex defined benefit and hybrid legacy schemes as well as KiwiSaver Complying funds.

Robert Gibney

Plan Manager

Robert Gibney is a member of our Administration team, providing member, pensioner administration, and secretarial services to trustees of superannuation schemes.  Robert has 18 years’ pension experience in the UK and has been involved in NZ pension schemes for a further 13 years.

Judy Fletcher

Plan Manager

Judy Fletcher is a member of our Administration team, providing member, pensioner administration, and secretarial services to trustees of superannuation schemes.  Judy has more than 30 years’ superannuation administration experience specialising in complex defined benefit and hybrid legacy schemes.