Nikki Trip: Making haste to achieve broad prosperity

February 24, 2025

_{This interview was originally written in Dutch. This is an English translation.}

She ended up in the pension sector by accident, but is now fully committed to encouraging more boldness in boardrooms to striving for broad prosperity, with attention to social, human and natural capital. Financial Investigator spoke with Nikki Trip, Sustainability Expert and on her way to becoming a pension fund director.

By Lies van Rijssen

'Like many others, I ended up in this sector by accident. I was enrolled in an interdisciplinary program in Maastricht, with a focus on psychology and climate. Those were the subjects I wanted to graduate in. Then the corona pandemic broke out. My thesis supervisor quit. Professor Harry Hummels was willing to add me to his student group halfway through the thesis process, so that I could still graduate. His condition: my thesis had to be about retirement. I knew nothing about it; the subject was completely foreign to me. However, I did have an affinity with behavioral economics and finance and I had followed several modules in that area. When I started working on Hummels' research 'Pension is more than just your monthly paycheck', I became fascinated by the relationship between general prosperity and pensions. Pensions turned out to be much more than just a huge bag of money that you can invest: from the 'broad prosperity perspective', you can offer people a lot of extra value through their pensions.

I am very interested in the fact that the pension sector is currently in a transition period, also from a sustainability perspective. If a transition is so fundamental and so systemic, something can really change. It is not just about a different pension system, but also about new ways of investing, a different kind of risk management, and completely different communication. I decided to study for a Master's in Global Business and Sustainability to learn more about sustainability and get the facts straight. The study focused on that broad perspective of prosperity: the interaction between people, the environment and the financial sector. Here I found the substantive support I had been looking for to dare to work in this sector without a financial background. In the midst of economists, econometricians and lawyers. A behavioral scientist is cut from a different cloth, but can make a very responsible contribution from their own perspective.

From the 'broad welfare perspective', you can offer people a lot of extra value through their pensions.

We must use this transition period to turn things around for the better for current and future generations, here and elsewhere. To set out a sound long-term vision and arrive at changes that are as fair, as future-proof and as impactful as possible. Administrators are faced with decisions whose effects they will no longer experience themselves. They need courage to make decisions about these issues. And that is precisely what is lacking in my view, in my opinion because not all perspectives are represented in the boardrooms that are needed to make good decisions. Not having a position or not making a decision is also a choice that has an impact on the future. I would very much like to help muster that courage, together with a diverse group of people. Including with established administrators. Together, we must ensure that the transition period is used optimally.

When we talk about diversity in the boardroom, I also see the introduction of the Wtp as an 'equalizer'. No one has any experience with how the Wtp works yet. Even administrators who have worked under the FTK for 15 years or more are starting a new chapter. Everyone has to build up knowledge about the new system and how it works. So it's the perfect time to appoint new and young administrators too. People who enjoy the transition, who get energized by it, who are looking forward to it! There is a whole contingent of young potential board members who are keen, but they rarely end up in board positions. I am disappointed that some pension funds are asking the Dutch Central Bank to approve that board members who have already completed two terms can fulfill an extra term because of the transition. Why all the inflexibility and the constant appeal to experience? The pension sector needs fresh energy, especially now. Including from people outside the sector: a biologist, an anthropologist, people with a completely different background. Bring in those different perspectives. Be open to them. It can bring you an incredible amount. At the same time, I also understand where this inflexibility is coming from. Pension fund administrators already have so much on their plates and are bombarded with information. As an advisory member of a pension fund's investment advisory committee, I experience this too.

A social debate is needed to determine how we can properly achieve broad prosperity.

With so much information, so much to do and the feeling of an 'echo chamber', reactive management is lurking. The difference with assertive management is the space for vision formation. When there is time and space for this, administrators can bring different perspectives together and make choices for the long term based on a vision. I would like to challenge the sector, especially now, to take that space.

Sustainability, broad prosperity, how can we achieve these? I would like to share my ideas on this. We have all decided that money represents a certain value and is useful for acquiring other things of value. But money is still far too often the only value we look at. There is also 'social capital', 'human capital' and 'natural capital'. These values are rarely taken into account in pricing. A felled tree usually has a higher monetary value than a tree that is still standing, producing oxygen for us and storing CO₂. The approach of only looking at financial value is deeply flawed and has effects that do not serve us at all. We can factor these other values into the prices, but there is another way: we can report on social capital, human capital and natural capital from the perspective of general prosperity and show pension participants how much of these different values we have created in their name. Financial value, but also social capital, human capital and natural capital. This is what we call broad prosperity. A public debate is needed to determine how we can achieve this.

The financial sector is hardly using this new way of thinking. These issues are not even being addressed in economics courses. I would like to apply tools that help steer the course towards broad prosperity from boardrooms, together with current directors with a transformative mindset and talented young and new directors. This way, we can include broad prosperity as a guiding perspective in the management process.

Why all the inflexibility and the constant appeal to experience? The pension sector needs fresh energy, now more than ever.

The broad welfare perspective still needs to penetrate and take root. There is still much to be done. I feel the urgency and I will not wait until I am older, until the so-called natural moment to become a director. The time to start working on change and putting my shoulder to the wheel is now. I am working on becoming a pension fund director and at the same time trying to exert influence in more informal places by further exploring the story of broad prosperity and trying to get others on board.

The most important moment in my career so far has without a doubt been my introduction to the pension sector. Without the corona pandemic, I probably would not have had that introduction. It has taught me many things that I would never have thought of on my own. I have become aware that the pension sector is a very dynamic field. I also lead an active life. This is evident from my chairmanship of a number of foundations that I have set up myself and that allow me to speak out. For example, to politicians.

We must use this transition period to turn things around for the better for present and future generations, here and elsewhere.

I was raised with a strong sense of justice. When I see a group being treated unfairly, I feel very uncomfortable. I am highly motivated to tackle injustice, but also to work towards sustainability. By 2024, the earth's temperature will have risen by 1.5 degrees. Climate change is already costing lives and this will only get worse towards 2100. The more we exceed that 1.5 degrees, the more severe the effects will be. I find this terrible, nothing less, and I cannot sit back and wait. I am taking action by starting to talk about it within my foundations, where I motivate others to get to work on the subject. Also within JIIP, Jongeren in Institutioneel Pensioen (Young People in Institutional Pensions), where young people in the pension sector come together. Where I cannot get others on board, I take action myself by raising the issue in relevant places. Through my job at AF Advisors, I advise pension funds on sustainable asset management. I also do volunteer work and am active as a speaker to challenge and inspire people. The fact that I can convert my drive into action and also the enthusiasm of others I meet give me a perspective for action. I gratefully make use of this.

Where my drive to become a pension fund director comes from is clear to me. But until I am, I will work in other places. Waiting is not an option.

I like listening to podcasts, such as Ecosophy by Marnix Kluiters, for example. And I also like listening to audio books. I am currently re-immersing myself in books that I only partly read during my studies, such as Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, one of the founders of behavioral economics. I have learned so much and seen so much in practice that I wonder how I would reevaluate such a book now. What should be compulsory reading for everyone, in my opinion, is 'The Good Ancestor' by Roman Krznaric: how can we look beyond our own generation? The cathedral builders of the past knew they would not live to see the completion of their work, yet they continued. I see this as a fine example of ultimate long-term thinking and good ancestral stewardship.'