Honorary Commendations 2016: Hall of Fame

Francesco Briganti is currently the CEO of the Employee Benefits and Welfare Institute (EBWI), a recently founded public affairs company based in Brussels. He also co-ordinates WPA the World Pension Alliance, which is a global private pensions platform. Until June 2016, Briganti was the Director of the European Association of Paritarian Institutions of Social Protection (AEIP), a support organisation representing 1,200 employee benefits providers in 19 countries.

In 2002, Francesco graduated in law at the University of Bologna and has studied and researched in France, Spain and Ireland. In 2006, he obtained a Master's degree in International Political Economy at the University of Kent. Over the years, he has studied and followed policies on:

EU competition law
Healthcare services
The obstacles and potential benefits in setting up cross border employee benefits within Europe
The legal aspects of setting up social protection plans at company and multi-employer level.

An avid conference speaker, he is also a member of the European Commission’s Pension Forum and was a member of the EU working group that sought to draft a code of good practice for pension funds.

He received a doctorate n March 2015 in EU law in EU law in which he discussed and researched how best to legally create a pan-European employee pensions plan.

Brian Hayes served as a member of Dail Eireann (Irish Parliament) from 1997-2002 and 2007-2014. He was Leader of the Opposition in Seanad Eireann (Senate) from 2002-2007. In 2011 Brian was appointed as Minister of State at the Departments of Finance and Public Expenditure & Reform, a position he held until his election to the European Parliament.

During his time as Minister of State, Hayes attended Eurogroup, ECOFIN and Budgetary Council meetings on behalf of the Irish Government. As Minister of State in Ireland he was responsible for procurement reform, public sector reform, the Office of Public Works and developing flood alleviation projects in Ireland.

Hayes was elected to the European Parliament in May 2014 for the Dublin Constituency. He is a full member of the Economics and Monetary Affairs Committee and a substitute member of the Development and Budget Control Committees. He is also a member of the European Parliaments delegation for relations with Iraq.

Upon retiring in 216, Claus Skadhauge had been Head of Communication and International Affairs for 35 years at PKA – Denmark’s leading pension provider for employees in the health care and social service sector.

He also played a leading role in the Danish pension industry’s co-operation on communications, where his input was key in the development of the Danish tracking service award-winning Pensionsinfo (see IPE Outstandiing Industry Contribution 2011) and the online comparison tool Facts on Pension.

Skadhauge also applied his knowledge and skills internationally, most visibly in the TTYPE project, the European-wide pensions tracking service. He was PKA’s central co-ordinator in co-operation between Dutch Pension provider PGGM and PKA, where his ability to focus on similarities rather than differences was a key driver.