To say that recent and planned developments are seismic would be to state – or rather understate – the obvious.

Under his stewardship, the society has transcended trusted tradition and moved into bold new strategic territory that combines heritage with ambition.

Last October saw the acquisition of pension and annuity in payment books of business from Fidelity International, a transaction that will see Scottish Friendly’s assets under management grow by more than £2 billion to more than £6.3bn – a pivot towards scale and capability enhancement that does not, though, compromise the firm’s historic mutual values that stretch back to its foundation in Glasgow in 1862.

And now the proposed merger with fellow mutual OneFamily announced in February represents a deal that will create one of the UK’s largest, bringing together more than 2.3 million members and nearly £10bn in combined assets under management.

It underlines how mutual societies can employ scale and relevance to demonstrate their continuing relevance in today’s highly competitive financial services marketplace.

“A merger with OneFamily joins organisations built on common values, organisations that put customers at the heart of everything we do and who care deeply about their colleagues and their communities,” says Mr McGee, who previously spent seven years in Edinburgh as chief financial officer of the UK unit of Dutch asset manager Aegon.

“By combining and leveraging our respective strengths, we can build on what we have already achieved and accelerate the delivery of our vision.”

These previous achievements have been significant and Mr McGee agrees that last year’s acquisition of Fidelity was “transformational” in terms of Scottish Friendly’s aims, almost doubling the size of its existing pensions business and is the fourth in a series since 2007 when Scottish Friendly bought Scottish Legal Life.

The deal saw the mutual acquiring more than 70 pension schemes from the US firm, with 40,000 policyholders. It sounds daunting – but he takes a reassuringly pragmatic view of the task when talking about how all these schemes will be integrated into Scottish Friendly’s technology platform.

He explains the trend of companies offloading pension liabilities: “For big corporates such as ScottishPower, Rolls-Royce and British Telecom, running pension schemes is not their main skill set, so transferring the assets and liabilities to a business that specialises in that area helps and simplifies their primary business.

“That shift has been going on for the past 15 years and it will continue as long as these assets and liabilities transfer out of non-insurance businesses to insurance businesses,” he says. “So, although Fidelity represented 70 pension schemes, we’re building data coming across from many individual customers into one product.”

The society is, then, building on the exponential growth in technology that has driven similar growth in the financial services sector. “I think the single biggest example is that people can invest via their smartphones,” he says.

“We now have an app that allows people to open and manage an ISA on their phone. Previously this was all done through the mail but the ease with which people can transact business, change what they’ve invested and update their details is phenomenal and is a massive improvement for our customers.”

Mr McGee joined Scottish Friendly in September 2021 as a non-executive director and became CEO in April 2022. His career in UK financial services includes working for Santander, Phoenix, Lloyds Banking Group and Aegon and his experience in finance, actuarial, commercial and strategic roles is a distinct advantage as he works alongside management to shape the integration plan until the merger with OneFamily completes in 2027.

Meanwhile, he’s committed to serving Scottish Friendly’s existing customers who he describes as “somewhat underserved by the wider market” and are generally those aged 50 or above – people who have accumulated reasonable savings and are either not able or willing to spend a lot of money on investment advice.

“They’re looking either to invest for themselves, their family or even grandchildren,” he says. “Helping to support that family unit is how we can differentiate ourselves.

“We know there’s a more specialist and higher-value sector of the market and that’s an area we are potentially looking forward to moving into – but our immediate priority is to continue to grow My Select, our award winning, Junior ISA (JISA) product and get the pensions book transferred across from Fidelity and build our own-brand pension. Then we will look at these further areas as opportunities.”

Sandy Begbie, the chief executive of Scottish Financial Enterprise, has frequently noted the problem of ‘unbanked’ Scots who remain at a distinct disadvantage and as an advocate for inclusion and diversity Mr Gee strongly concurs that more can be done in this area.

“Scottish Friendly – and I – are incredibly passionate about this area and over the past few years, we’ve partnered with several charities and recently with the Just Finance Foundation, which delivers teacher-led financial education programmes to primary schools in Scotland that help money make sense for young children.”

He’s committed to reducing complexity when it comes to focusing clients and the wider society on the awareness of finance.

“The biggest thing we can do to drive up social inclusion is making things simpler and easier to understand … helping support people in the moment, because many people can’t afford to go to a financial advisor. While education is important and will help that’s a longer-term challenge.”

When not addressing these professional demands Mr McGee has other competitive issues to address, including that of coaching youngsters at East Kilbride RR Youth Football Club.

“About 12 years ago, I turned up on a Saturday morning to watch my son play when he was five years old and someone asked me if I fancied helping out. I explained I was happy to – but given the demands of my job, not to expect too much.

“Well, within a year I was running that group and am still coaching the Mini Kickers. It’s a massive reset every Saturday morning to deal with some 30 four- and five-year-old kids and it certainly brings you back down to earth.”

He believes that performance is crucial to both sport professional life – as is the accompanying pleasure in teamwork and results. “I’ve worked in several organisations but happy colleagues mean happy customers and I’ve always felt that if you can get these two things to align, they feed each other,” he says.

“That’s what drives long-term performance. I’m committed to making Scottish Friendly a great place to work and one that delivers results to our customers every single day. Achieve that, and everything else will take care of itself.”