Our Story
Meet the Michaels
Pension Matters brings together two independent retirement policy experts who believe New Zealand deserves a more open, evidence-based conversation about the future of retirement income.
Between them, Michael Chamberlain and Michael Littlewood bring decades of experience across actuarial science, retirement policy, financial services and research. Their aim is not to promote a particular political position, but to examine the assumptions, costs and consequences behind New Zealand’s retirement policies — and to encourage better-informed debate about what comes next.
Michael Littlewood is a retirement policy researcher with a long-standing interest in the design and effectiveness of pension systems. He was a co-founder of the Retirement Policy and Research Centre at the University of Auckland and has written extensively on retirement income policy in New Zealand and internationally.
His work focuses on questioning established assumptions and examining whether policies such as NZ Super and KiwiSaver remain appropriate as New Zealand’s population, economy and society change.
Michael Chamberlain is a consulting actuary with extensive experience in superannuation, investment and retirement savings. He was a co-founder of SuperLife, one of New Zealand’s early KiwiSaver providers, and has spent much of his career developing practical retirement savings solutions for New Zealanders.
His approach is grounded in actuarial analysis: looking beyond short-term political debate to the numbers, long-term costs and sustainability of retirement policy.
