Practical LawConferences

Jai has gained extensive knowledge of the Share Registration industry having commenced his career at Ravensbourne Registration Services in 1988.  As a senior CRM until early 2017, Jai focused on all aspects of Client Development, Maturity and Retention, Opportunity Growth and Engagement whilst also managing some industry change projects including the implementation of FATCA and the CRS data collection / reporting requirements.

Since early 2017, Jai’s focus has turned from Relationship Management to regulatory change and implementation across Share Registration and Share Plan services as the Head of Industry at Shareholder solutions.  This role extends Jai’s network into the wider industry including our peers and market participants, Government, not to mention our issuer clients and other stakeholders.

Jai sits on various committees and forums including the ICSA Registrars Group and is a former Director and School Governor at ‘Farnborough Primary School’ – an Ofsted ‘Outstanding’ achieving school prior to its merging under a wider umbrella trust – prior to which Jai provided advice and assistance on all governance matters pertaining to the development of the school, its pupils and the local community.

As one of the founders of Safecall, Graham has been involved in the UK and European whistleblowing industry since its infancy. Since 1999, he has guided the business, taking it from a start-up to its current position as Europe’s leading provider of a speak-up hotline.

The founding principle of the business was that the quality of those handling the calls is exceptional, and Graham remains committed to that standard today.

During his tenure Safecall has achieved significant growth and has built a large and diverse client base from around the world. In his 19 years with Safecall, Graham has gained extensive experience of the speak-up landscape and has supported numerous organisations on their journey towards a better, more open and ethical culture.

Jay specialises in Board effectiveness, corporate governance, Board leadership development and strategic organisation development. He leads the UK’s Board Advisory Practice.

He has worked with over 120 private and public sector Boards in the previous 10 years. In addition to the Boards mentioned above he has undertaken independent effectiveness reviews at the Audit Commission, Sellafield Limited, a major NHS Foundation Trust (turnover in excess of £1 billion), a utility company and a property investment company.

He has led master classes on board effectiveness for FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 Non-Executive Directors.

Jay has published extensively – authoring over 35 articles on Board effectiveness and strategic leadership development – and is a regular key note speaker at national and international conferences. He has written guides on board effectiveness best practice (including best practice processes for undertaking reviews) for clients in the public sector.

Peter practises in a wide range of business crime and regulatory matters acting for individuals, companies and professional services firms. He also practises extensively in extradition, mutual assistance and general crime. Peter acts for clients in most of the recent SFO prosecutions and investigations including the Barclays Qatar, LIBOR, EURIBOR and the FX cases as well as several major international corruption cases such as Rio Tinto, GSK and ENRC. Financial Conduct Authority matters include insider dealing and market abuse and one of the first FCA high frequency trading cases. Peter has acted for many years in criminal tax evasion and cartel matters both cross border and domestic, and has advised in many other criminal and regulatory inquiries involving HMRC, the Competition and Markets Authority, the Health and Safety Executive, and the Environment Agency. He also acts in professional disciplinary cases, including cases brought by the Financial Reporting Council. Peter has acted for several high profile political figures in the UK and overseas in criminal investigations, including those relating to terrorism. He also acts in general criminal cases and advises on anti-money laundering and corruption compliance matters.

Sir Win Bischoff is Chairman of the Financial Reporting Council in the United Kingdom and Chairman of JP Morgan Securities plc.  He is a member of the International Advisory Board of Akbank TAS, Turkey.  Since 1983 he has served on the boards of 10 major public companies (5 in the UK, 3 in the US, 2 in Europe).

He was previously Chairman of Lloyds Banking Group plc (2009-2014). Sir Win has substantial experience of leading international committees and boards. His background spans a range of sectors, including banking and capital markets, finance and government regulation and public policy.  He was CEO and then Chairman of Schroders plc (1984-2000), Chairman of Citigroup Europe (2000-2009) and interim CEO and then Chairman of Citigroup Inc (2007-2009).

Sir Win was awarded a Knighthood in the New Year Honours List in 2000 for services to the banking industry, and an Honorary Doctorate in Science by City University, London in the same year.  In 2016 he was awarded a Non-Executive Director Lifetime Achievement Award.

Tim Black is Joint Managing Director at Black&Callow, the MBO team which bought the financial printing business of Imprima from its parent HAL Investments. With over 30 years’ industry experience, including the last 23 at Black&Callow (the new name for Imprima’s FP division), Tim has led sales teams in financial printing, virtual data rooms, and more recently iRoadshow and IPO Research Online. His clients include leading investment banks, brokers, law firms and globally listed companies. In the Corporate Reporting arena, Tim looks after clients such as Millennium & Copthorne Hotels, Dixons Carphone and numerous FTSE250 and AIM companies, applying Best Practice solutions to help them convey their best investment case.

David Blizzard is Group Company Secretary of BBA Aviation plc and is a member of the Executive Management Committee.  Prior to joining BBA Aviation, David spent nine years working at Barclays and six years with PwC.  He is a Chartered Secretary and Barrister.

As Managing Director of Company Secretarial services, Tracey leads the Company Secretarial team of 60+ across the London, Exeter and Krakow offices. Her role encompasses technical, financial and team management responsibilities. Tracey has successfully steered a number of secretariats through the IPO process for complex and high profile floatation, working on the Saga project as well as other FTSE 250 IPOs last year.

An experienced company secretary, Tracey has worked extensively on a diverse portfolio of main market and AIM companies, both UK and offshore domiciled. Tracey joined Capita Company Secretarial Services in July 2006. She began her career as a trainee company secretary at an investment house in 1999, providing in house and outsourced company secretarial services to premium listed investment companies.

JP Buckley heads the Data & Privacy team at national law firm Shoosmiths LLP, where he is a Partner.

He undertakes a wide range of information law work including data protection, cyber-security, e-commerce, direct marketing and freedom of information (FOI) – and has a range of clients in the retail, manufacturing & distribution, regulated financial services, technology and public sectors in the UK and EU/EEA.  A specific focus right now is providing practical and proportionate advice to organisations on compliance strategies, data reviews, risk assessments and training in relation to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which comes into effect on 25 May 2018.

JP’s recent experience includes advising a non-EU based company on their data privacy and procurement compliance regimes when entering into the EU market; designing training courses for a multi-national corporate to create a consistent global compliance approach (ensuring that teams working in even countries with little or no regulation are aware of the rules which apply elsewhere and are likely to impact their operations); and advising a data-rich UK services company on its e-commerce terms, direct marketing approaches and website compliance, co-ordinating all this to produce single form universally acceptable privacy policies and procedures.

Zoë joined the Group in February 2017 as Deputy Group Company Secretary, reporting to the Group Company Secretary.  She is also Secretary to the Remuneration Committee, reporting to Chair of the Remuneration Committee.

She is a qualified Solicitor and Company Secretary with 20 years broad financial services industry experience.  This experience has been gained in a range of businesses from magic circle law firm (Linklaters), to innovative start up (Salaam Halal Insurance) to multinational group (Hiscox) and most recently the FTSE 250 challenger bank, OneSavings Bank.  During her career, Zoe has led multidisciplinary teams across legal, company secretariat and compliance functions, both in the UK and abroad.

She has been an Associate of The Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators since 2005.

She was educated at The University of Birmingham and L’Institut d’Etudes Politiques, Aix-en-Provence.

Roger Burlingame is a partner at the disputes and investigations firm, Kobre & Kim. Mr. Burlingame’s practice concentrates on white-collar criminal defense, internal investigations and regulatory enforcement matters that involve the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He represents individuals and corporations in cross-border U.S. government investigations and at trial. Mr. Burlingame has in-depth experience with high-profile U.S. investigations into financial market manipulation, fraud, collusion and abuse, as well as Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) violations throughout Europe and Africa, money laundering and asset forfeiture, and the evasion of U.S. taxes in international tax havens.

Prior to joining Kobre & Kim, Mr. Burlingame served as Chief of the Public Integrity Section and Senior Trial Counsel in the Business and Securities Fraud Section as a prosecutor at the U.S. Department of Justice (as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York). In these roles, he led and supervised scores of white-collar criminal matters, including securities, corporate, tax, healthcare and accounting frauds, collusive market practices and bribery/FCPA investigations. Mr. Burlingame also led and oversaw mutual legal assistance treaty requests and extraditions.

Stephen is a Vice Chairman of Deloitte and leads our Executive Compensation Practice. He has almost 30 years’ experience in advising companies on all aspects of executive remuneration, including short and long term incentive design aligned with company strategy, package design for recruiting and departing executives, regulatory compliance and consultation with institutional investors.

Stephen is well known in the industry and has frequently spoken at conferences, is quoted in the media and has published numerous articles, thought pieces and books on executive compensation.  He has previously run executive compensation and human capital businesses across Europe and the US for other consulting firms.

Stephen has recently provided advice to a number of high profile clients including: Aviva, British American Tobacco, BT, Ericsson, HSBC, GSK, London Stock Exchange, Reckitt Benckiser, Santander and Standard Life.

Pamela is an expert in corporate governance and company law.  She has been a fellow of the ICSA: The Governance Institute since 1997.  She has held a variety of company secretary roles throughout her career.

She joined Rolls-Royce from Centrica plc, where she was head of secretariat.  Pamela’s previous roles also include group company secretary and a member of the executive committee at The Rank Group plc and company secretary & head of legal at RAC plc.

Rick has over 25 years’ industry-leading experience in Risk, Resilience & Crisis Management. He has been interim Group Head of Resilience & Crisis Management at two global banks and has supported and facilitated executive leadership teams in responding to crisis events including Pandemic, Mumbai Terrorist Attack, Share Price Crash and Hurricane Sandy. He has undertaken several high-profile Independent Post-Event Reviews examining the root causes and effectiveness of response to crisis events. He is a leading member of Deloitte’s Global Centre for Crisis Management, providing an integrated crisis service to some of the world’s largest organisations, covering crisis readiness, response and recovery. In the UK he is responsible for Regester Larkin by Deloitte which provides services in ‘live’ issue and crisis response, crisis communications, crisis readiness, organisational resilience, corporate security and strategic risks.

Daniel Danso serves as the Global Diversity Manager for Linklaters LLP.  During his tenure, the firm developed its first enhanced Global D&I Strategy and Action Plan, increased female representation at board to 42%, launched a global LGB&T initiative called Open 4 Business, and increased the Firm’s overall global D&I activity from 7 to 90 percent in three years.

He has experience of advising national and international companies in multiple industries, including media, the arts, travel, leisure, sports, and professional services as well as public and private third sector organisations across the UK.

Daniel wrote and produced the 2011 Workplace Equality Index (WEI) which is the UK’s only national external benchmarking tool dedicated to sexual orientation workplace equality. He was a judge for the Opportunity Now Global Awards for a number of years, and helped to start LGB&T rights organisations (similar to Stonewall UK) in Australia, the Republic of Ireland and advised on LGB&T initiatives in Asia through Community Business.

Daniel’s background is in Equalities Consultancy, training and social theory.  He holds a Master’s degree (MSc) in Gender and the Media from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in Women’s Studies and Sociology from The University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), an Associate of Arts (AA) Degree in English and Music, and an Associate of Science (AS) Degree in Political Science.

Daniel is a music lover and writes vocal arrangements for an ACappella choir that he sings with around London.

Toby Duthie is a founding partner of FRA and head of its UK and European offices. He has more than 20 years’ experience in financial analysis, complex financial modeling, investigations and compliance reviews. Fluent in English and German, Toby has particular expertise in multi-jurisdictional investigations, anti-bribery and corruption compliance testing, and specializes in matters of government enforcement in the UK and the US.
Toby has worked on a number of complex financial frauds and bribery investigations which have involved disgorgement and fine calculation analysis and modeling in a variety of jurisdictions, with the most recent including the Rolls-Royce £700m DOJ, SFO and Brazilian settlement.
As one of FRA’s founding partners, Toby was instrumental in developing the firm’s white-collar and regulatory defense services across Europe and has been integral in resolving such high-profile FCPA enforcement cases as Panalpina, Bonny Island LNG, and Oil-for-Food. He has worked on matters involving UK, Swiss, Dutch, and French regulators and has extensive experience calculating damages in FCPA enforcement actions. He has worked on three of the ten largest FCPA settlements.
A graduate with honors from University College London, Toby worked as a steel trader in Hong Kong and in the investment banking division of Deutsche Bank/Morgan Grenfell.

Nicholas Eldred is a consultant general counsel, advising companies on legal, regulatory and governance issues. A qualified solicitor, he has held general counsel & secretary roles at O2uk, the BBC and Christie’s. He is a former trustee of BBC Children in Need and was until recently chairman of the Public Service Broadcasting Trust. He is currently general counsel & secretary of the Architectural Association where he is leading a major governance review and has just joined the board of The Conversation UK.

Andrew joined Legal & General as a Company Secretarial Assistant from Hogg Robinson in 1987 where Andrew performed a number of roles within the Group Secretariat. In 1990, Andrew was appointed Company Secretary of the Financial Services businesses. In 1995, he was asked become Company Secretary for the Legal & General Investment Management business. During his time with Legal & General Investment Management Andrew built and ran a standalone Company Secretarial function and was company secretary to and launched a number of investment trusts. In 2002, Andrew returned to the Group Secretariat as Assistant Group Secretary and in 2006 he was appointed Deputy Group Secretary. In October 2011, Andrew was asked to return to the business and create a UK Secretariat team to provide Co Secretarial and Governance services to Legal & General’s Insurance, Retirement and Savings businesses. Andrew is a member of the ICSA Co Secs Forum.

Andrew holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Company Administration. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and member of the Chartered Institute of Management and Fellow of the Institute of Directors.

Debbie is Managing Director of Jordans Corporate Law, a law firm authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, UK.

She joined Jordans in 2013 and led the team in successfully obtaining one of the first alternative business structures in the UK, which enabled Jordans to provide legal services to its client base (which includes many professional intermediaries).

The acquisition of Jordans Corporate Law by Vistra, makes Vistra the first global corporate service provider with the unique capability of providing integrated legal solutions to its clients.

The law firm provides business law solutions – including corporate, commercial and employment advice, as well as complex corporate governance services. It has seen exponential revenue growth since its inception. Debbie will continue to drive maximum growth of legal and compliance services, and is keen to replicate the business law solutions model through the Vistra group locally and globally.

A qualified solicitor with more than 15 years’ corporate law experience Debbie’s career includes 10 years in the corporate and private equity teams with Eversheds LLP, an international law firm, in the Cambridge, Paris and London offices. Here she focussed predominantly on mergers, acquisitions and MBOs.  Debbie also spent three years on the senior management team as Head of Legal for Vertex Financial Services, a regulated BPO backed by US private equity. In her role, she helped fragment and sell various elements of the business.

Debbie is a regular speaker at internal and external seminars. She is a contributing author to company secretarial and legal publications and publishes many blogs and articles on corporate law and corporate governance.

Paul is Executive Director of the Corporate Governance & Reporting Division. Paul joined the FRC in 2004 as the Director of the Professional Oversight Board.

Seamus started his career as a Whitehall adviser and civil servant, becoming Private Secretary to John Gummer MP, Secretary of State for the Environment, and then Private Secretary to John Prescott MP, Deputy Prime Minister.

He moved into industry, as the Group Company Secretary and Director of Regulation at Anglian Water (later AWG) plc, and then as Head of Public Policy and Regulation at O2 plc (now part of the Telefonica Group).

Seamus became Policy Director at the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators (ICSA), where he

• authored a number of influential publications, including ICSA’s guidance on ‘Boardroom Behaviours’, and the UK Financial Reporting Council’s ‘Guidance on Boardroom Effectiveness’
• was responsible for the production of ICSA’s technical output, including its best-practice Guidance Notes on boards and directors
• created the research project which led to the Institute’s publication Building Trust Through Governance, exploring the scope for developing the company secretary individual and profession, and
• created ICSA’s annual Awards dinner

For the past 11 years, Seamus has run his own governance advisory business – Value Alpha Limited – working with boards, directors and company secretaries around the world to embed high-quality governance.   He created and oversees the Leadership Development Programme for company secretaries, a Programme of coaching, mentoring and networking dinners with guest company secretary speakers.

Seamus writes and speaks extensively on governance issues. He holds a Degree in Business Studies, and is an MBA and an ICSA Fellow.

Catherine joined the FRC in July 2013 as a Corporate Governance Policy Advisor with specific responsibility for the UK Corporate Governance Code. She has worked on a number of public consultations on the Code – on remuneration and then risk management ahead of the 2014 revision and more recently on audit related changes for the 2016 update. Currently, Catherine is a key member of the team undertaking the comprehensive review of the Code. This work has built upon the FRC’s culture project and succession planning research as well as incorporating the findings from the BIES Green Paper and Select Committee. Other areas of focus include overseeing the publication and writing the Corporate Governance section of the annual Developments in Corporate Governance and Stewardship report.

Catherine began her career at Bank of Scotland (later HBOS) as a graduate trainee and over the 13 years there worked in various departments, including Group Risk and Group Company Secretariat.

In 2009 she studied for an MA in Corporate Governance at Kingston University, where her dissertation was on the 2010 UK Corporate Governance Code changes. The MA also qualified Catherine as a Chartered Company Secretary. Prior to the FRC, she was Assistant Company Secretary at Aon.

David Jackson is Company Secretary at BP p.l.c., and has held that position since July 2003.  He is actively involved with the Board and its Committees in the development of corporate governance.  Previously he was General Counsel and Company Secretary at PowerGen from 1989 to 2002 were he was responsible for all legal matters relating to the PowerGen Group of Companies and all company secretarial matters relating to the Board its committees and their corporate governance.

Prior to that Mr. Jackson held a number of legal positions with Matthew Hall, AMEC, Chloride Group, Nestle UK and Barlow Lyde & Gilbert.

Mr. Jackson is a Director of BP Pensions Trustees Limited. He was previously Deputy Chairman of GC100, the Association of General Counsel and Company Secretaries of the FTSE 100 and was on the Advisory Committee of the UKLA.

Mr. Jackson has an LLB (Hons) from the University of Bristol.

Francis is an Executive Director in Willis Towers Watson’s FINEX Global, where he specializes in insurance for Directors & Officers (D&O) of companies. He joined Willis in 2010 and has 25 years of experience as a leading litigation lawyer specializing in professional indemnity, financial institutions and directors and officers liability in the London insurance market.

Michael is the COO of Link Market Services which is part of Link Asset Services.  Link Asset Services was previously known as Capita Asset Services until it was acquired by Link Group In November 2017.  Michael joined Capita Registrars in January 2007 after having spent 11 years with the Euroclear Group. Michael joined the Capita Registrars board in July 2007 and become Chief Operating Officer in March 2015. His current responsibilities include all operational functions including both regulated and non-regulated functions as well as industry matters and Link Market Services’ business transformation and service excellence strategy.

Prior to joining Capita, Michael worked for Chase Manhattan Bank and CRESTCo, which became part of Euroclear in 2002. At Euroclear, Michael was responsible for creating a harmonised corporate actions platform for the Euroclear group.  In addition to meeting this challenge in the Belgian, Dutch, French, Irish and UK markets, Michael was Chairman of the European Central Securities Depositories Association’s Working Group 5 and was also co-Chairman of the ISO 15022 Global Market Practices Group defining global market practice in relation to ISO 15022 and corporate actions.

Evie is the Chief Privacy Officer and Associate General Counsel, Global Digital, Privacy and Security for Mars Incorporated. In this position, she has responsibility for the creation, deployment and management of legal strategies and policies in the areas of data privacy, data protection, data breaches and digital media across the business globally. She leads and develops an effective results-focused team ensuring high engagement with stakeholders.

Evie is a lawyer with over 20 years’ legal experience. She is also a Chartered Company Secretary, a qualified marketer from the Cyprus Institute of Marketing (affiliated to the UK’s Chartered Institute of Marketing), a Fellow Privacy Professional (FIP) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Evie sits on the editorial Board of the International In-House Counsel Journal, is an active member of the International Association of Privacy Professionals, World Federation of Advertisers Digital Committee and AIM’s Digital committee. She has been repeatedly endorsed as a leading in-house lawyer by the outside legal press, was most recently named as the Technology, Media and Telecoms Lawyer of the Year by Chambers and Partners and prior to that, European IP Lawyer of the Year by WorldLeaders.

Evie previously held legal positions at Glaxo Welcome plc and Thorn EMI plc.

David Lawler is a Managing Director in Kroll’s Investigations and Disputes practice, based in London. David is a seasoned forensic accountant, with over 25 years’ experience helping multinational companies, financial institutions and their advisers identify, investigate and respond to complex financial issues. He is an expert in internal investigations and the use of analytics to highlight high-risk transactions and to put in place best-of-breed procedures and controls to stop problems recurring. He also has significant experience working with companies, regulators, prosecutors, and monitors on worldwide compliance, ABC, and AML matters, both reactive, and proactive. He is also an experienced expert witness and is recognised as one of the world’s leading consulting experts in the 2016 edition of Who’s Who Legal

Kevin Massie is the Corporate Counsel and Company Secretary for Tullow Oil plc, a FTSE 250 oil & gas company focusing on oil exploration and production in Africa.  Kevin joined Tullow in 2011 as a legal advisor in Tullow’s Cape Town office before relocating to London with the company in 2014.   Kevin advises Tullow on a wide range of issues including corporate governance, corporate finance, structuring, M&A and tax.  Prior to joining Tullow, Kevin was an associate at Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP in Canada and at Ashurst LLP in Dubai

Ben Mathews was appointed Group Company Secretary of HSBC Holdings plc on 1 July 2013.

Ben joined HSBC from Rio Tinto, where he had been Company Secretary since 2007, managing the dual listings in London and Sydney. Before that, he spent over five years with BG Group, the leading natural gas producer. He has extensive experience in international corporates, mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance and share listing across a range of companies. He qualified as a chartered company secretary with PricewaterhouseCoopers in London.

He graduated with honours in European Studies and French. After a period of postgraduate study he was elected as a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators.

Andrew is responsible for representing The Investment Association members interests as institutional investors on corporate governance and engagement matters. He has oversight of The Investment Association’s Institutional Voting Information Service (IVIS), corporate governance policy development and company consultations or collective engagement with the companies in which Investment Association members invest. Andrew joined The Investment Association in June 2014, through merger of the Investment Affairs division of the ABI with the IMA. He joined the ABI in 2005 as a Corporate Governance Analyst and was promoted to Head of IVIS in October 2011 and Head of Corporate Governance in January 2012.  Before joining the ABI, Andrew was a Socially Responsible Investment analyst at HSBC, having joined HSBC’s graduate scheme in 2001 after reading Economics at the University of Bath.

Claire-Marie joined Tate & Lyle as the Company Secretary in February 2017. Prior to that she held a number of roles, over a ten year period, in AstraZeneca, including Deputy Company Secretary and Asia Area Legal Director.  Claire-Marie qualified as a solicitor and started her career in private practice with the law firm, Eversheds.

Oliver Parry is corporate governance director for the UK market for Morrow Sodali. He has over ten years’ experience advising companies on strategic communications, corporate governance and company law. A specialist in financial services regulation, he has advised some of the UK’s largest financial institutions. Between 2014 and 2017 he served as head of corporate governance at the Institute of Directors as well as secretary to the Global Network of Directors Institutes (the “GNDI”). A former communications director at the UK’s audit and accountancy regulator, the Financial Reporting Council, he has also worked for leading financial services consultancies, Redleaf Polhill and Cicero Group. Before joining Morrow Sodali, he was head of investor communications at FTSE 250 company, Paysafe Group. He started his career working in British politics and has a degree in history from Newcastle University.

Kerry Porritt is Group Company Secretary of Keller Group plc, a position she has held since November 2013.  Kerry is Secretary to the Board and all of its Board Committees and a member of the Executive Committee.  In 2015 she was also appointed Group Ethics and Compliance Officer.

Prior to joining Keller, Kerry worked in various company secretarial roles within Hambros plc, Investec plc, Brambles Industries plc, Severn Trent plc and GKN plc.  She has also provided strategic advice and business development consultancy services to Board Intelligence, the board reporting specialists, and to Royal Mail Group, where she acted as a specialist advisor and led the development and delivery of Listing Rule, Disclosure and Transparency Rule compliance as part of the 2013 IPO.

She is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators and holds a degree in Law from Birmingham City University.

Deepa Raval is a Project Director in the Accounting and Reporting Policy Team at the Financial Reporting Council (FRC). Deepa leads the FRC’s Clear & Concise initiative and the annual reports work stream. A significant aspect of this is narrative and non-financial reporting.  This includes leading the work on the FRC’s Guidance on the Strategic Report as well as influencing developments in the broader corporate reporting agenda, in the UK, Europe and internationally.

Deepa takes a keen interest in initiatives aimed at making disclosures more effective and is the author of the FRC’s discussion paper ‘Thinking about disclosures in a broader context – a roadmap for a disclosure framework’.

Claire Robson has worked for Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity since February 2016 as their Head of Data Governance and Compliance.  Prior to that she spent eleven years in the Health Sector specialising in Information Governance.  Originally starting her career as a Company Secretary, qualifying with the ICSA in 2003, Claire first started specialising in Data Protection around 2000, implementing the Data Protection Act 1998.  She completed a specialist masters degree in Information Rights Law and Practice in 2008 and has qualifications in Computer Forensics and Information Security.  In December 2010, Claire had a Case Study Article published called “FOI Requests at an NHS Trust” in PDP’s Freedom of Information Journal.  In June 2017, Claire successfully completed the ICSA Charity Law and Governance Certificate.   Claire has wide and extensive knowledge within the field of information management and is leading GOSH Charity in their governance programme and GDPR implementation.

Mr. Sholem is counsel in Davis Polk’s Corporate Department, practicing in the London office.

His practice focuses on the supervision and regulation of banks, investment firms, insurance companies and asset managers, including in connection with new authorizations, changes of control, corporate governance and regulatory investigations. His practice has also included advising non-financial groups on the impact of new regulation, with a particular focus on market infrastructure.

Mr. Sholem also has extensive experience advising clients on developments in European Union laws, rules and policies affecting financial institutions.

Carol is a senior corporate partner and co-head of the firm’s Corporate Governance Advisory Team. She has extensive experience and technical expertise in corporate law, corporate governance and listed company regulation. Her role includes analysing new law and regulation and ensuring that the firm is at the forefront of corporate law and practice. Carol helps support organisations such as ICSA and GC100 on governance issues, participates in a range of industry working groups and is a well-known speaker on corporate governance matters. She is on the advisory board for Gore Browne on Companies and regularly contributes to other company law and corporate governance publications. Carol advises FTSE-listed and large private companies on all aspects of Corporate Governance law and regulation.

Sara is a Director in Deloitte UK with over 16 years experience in the fields of Strategic Risk, Crisis Management (including Cyber) and Simulation/ Wargaming in the public and private sector around the world.
She leads the Simulations and Wargaming as well as Strategic Risk Readiness practice and is globally recognised expert in scenario planning, simulation and business wargaming methodologies.

She has been the co-originator of the cyber simulations and war games offerings. And is facilitating and designing them regularly across sectors.

She also has a unique profile combining proven experience as an Academic (Lecturer and Visiting Researcher in France – Paris XI-, USA – Harvard & Texas A&M Universities- and UK –King’s College London-) and as a Business consultant (Deloitte and King’s College spin-out business wargaming company Simulstrat).

David Viles began his career at Arthur Andersen in London. After the demise of Andersen, David joined Deloitte and was a senior partner in Deloitte’s risk practice, and the firm’s own Chief Risk Officer, before joining BP.  David was involved at the heart of figuring out what happened and implementing solutions following the world’s most scrutinised corporate crisis – the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

His analysis and insights into the underlying causes of issues and crises have created a different perspective for his clients; to focus on prevention and not just preparing for when they do happen – by avoiding the incidents, and managing the issues, that can destroy value and reputation.

Martin focusses on advising clients on a wide range of governance and directors’ duties issues.

He is the editor and main author of the Institute of Directors’ leading publication, The Directors’ Handbook, now in its third edition, and a contributor to the London Stock Exchange’s guide on Corporate Governance. He also lectures and writes extensively on governance and corporate law, as well as providing training for boards and individual directors, the ICAEW and the London Stock Exchange. He writes a popular one page monthly briefing for company directors, GCs and company secretaries and presents well attended webinars for the firm’s clients.

Martin is a member of the City of London Law Society Company Law Committee for which he has led and participated in several working groups responding to various government and regulator consultations.

Yewande Adewuya, ACIS, currently works in Masthaven Bank as the Group Company Secretary.  She began her company secretarial career in 2011 with an internship at BNY Mellon London, and has since worked at a number of financial institutions including FCE Bank Plc, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.  She studied MSc Corporate Governance and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators.

Before joining Landsec in September 2015, Tim spent 5 years as the Group General Counsel and Company Secretary at Mothercare plc at a time of frequent change within the company. Prior to this, Tim worked at Yum Brands (KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell) as Regional Counsel  for Europe and Africa, and as a Senior International Counsel at PepsiCo working in various businesses in the UK, Eastern Europe and Africa. Tim started his career working for Dentons as a Solicitor where he specialised in commercial law.

In his role as Group General Counsel for Landsec, Tim heads the Legal, Company Secretarial and Real Estate Information Management teams. He sits on the Executive Committee and his broad responsibilities cover all legal and company secretarial matters affecting the company (including the AGM) as well as working closely with the Chairman and the Board of Directors.

Laura is group company secretary and general counsel at New Look with responsibility for the global legal function (including group data protection officer). Laura’s role includes supporting the board and senior management to provide innovative solutions, working with stakeholders across the business to navigate complex situations, providing commercial legal advice.

Before taking on her role at New Look Laura held positions at Slaughter & May,  Addleshaw Goddard and KPMG as both a corporate lawyer and professional support lawyer.

Tracy is one of the leaders of the Deloitte UK Centre for Corporate Governance and specialises in corporate governance.  Tracy regularly presents to clients on the latest governance and corporate reporting developments. She is also a regular presenter at the Deloitte Academy and as part of our Next Generation CFO Programme.  She undertakes benchmarking exercises for many companies keen to meet current standards for best practice and bespoke training for board members new to the UK governance framework or needing a refresher on the requirements.

Tracy is the author of Deloitte’s series of governance publications ‘Governance in brief’ and ‘Governance in focus’.  In addition she is a member of the following external bodies:

• The Confederation of British Industry’s Companies Committee
• The Institute of Directors Governance Policy Group
• The Quoted Companies Alliance Governance Expert Working Group

Tonia Lovell has a degree in law from Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge and was admitted as a solicitor and a member of the Law Society in November 1993.

Following university and a year at Guildford Law School, Tonia completed her solicitor’s training contract at Linklaters law firm in the City of London, and worked in the firm’s corporate finance/financial services team for a further four years.

1997 – 2003: Legal Counsel working on UK and corporate matters

2003 – 2010: General Counsel for Unilever’s UK/Irish business, and from 2007, a member of Unilever’s UK/Ireland Leadership Team.

2010 – 2013: Chief Legal Officer and Group Secretary, including advising the Unilever Leadership Executive.

2013 – 2015 Group Secretary.

2015 to present Group Secretary and General Counsel Corporate Governance (with responsibility for expert legal teams covering competition law, litigation and employment).

Tonia is married with two children. Her interests include swimming, rugby and travel.

A career company secretary, fellow of the ICSA and a solicitor, John has worked in a variety of sectors including financial services, hotels, FMCG and now mining, and led teams dealing with high profile hostile takeovers, rights issues, international demergers, listings and de-listings and corporate crises. He has successfully built and rebuilt high performing and well regarded company secretarial departments and has twice won the award for the ICSA Team of the Year  while managing teams at Cadbury and RSA Insurance.