Ros Altmann steps down as head of Saga
SAGA boss Ros Altmann yesterday announced she was stepping down as director-general of the over-50s lobby, after two and a half years in the role.
The tireless advocate for pensioners, and fierce critic of quantitative easing (QE) said she had enjoyed her role, but wanted to spend more time in London – Saga is based in Folkestone.
“Saga has decided to restructure its presence in the advocacy and lobbying space and, after much careful thought, Ros Altmann is stepping down as Saga’s Director General,” the organisation said in a statement.
It said Altmann’s departure would be a “loss” for the firm.
Altmann said she was proud of the achievements she’d made since she took up the role in September 2010.
“I’m very proud of things I’ve achieved: changing the government’s views on the unfair increase in the women’s state pension age, pushing for the move back to an 120 per cent drawdown limit, and putting the problems of QE squarely on the maps,” she told City A.M.
But she would not rest on her laurels, she said, and planned to return to an independent advocacy and advisory role, a position she was in for 17 years before joining Saga. Chief among her aims is to get policymakers to reconsider QE, which she believes has failed.
Altmann rose to fame when she campaigned between 2002 and 2007 for the Allied Steel and Wire workers who lost their supposedly fully-funded pensions when the company went into administration. Her campaign succeeded when the government was, in 2008, found guilty by the Appeal Court of misleading the pensioners.
Altmann was also a consultant to the Treasury on the Myners Review on institutional investment. She is also a non-executive director at the London School of Economics.