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Alistair joined The Co-operative Group in July 2013 as Group General Counsel.  On joining the Group Alistair was working on the completion of the Co-operative Bank recapitalisation plan.

He is Chairman of The Co-operative Legal Services and sits on the board of The Co-operative General Insurance Services and NOMA (a joint venture with Hermes to redevelop the site around the Manchester office).  Prior to that he was a senior partner and Head of the Financial Institutions Group for the law firm Allen & Overy where he gained over 30 years’ experience of a wide range of commercial and corporate finance transactions.

Alistair is married with three children and lives in the New Forest.

Andy and his team are responsible for advising American Express’s insurance business, class-leading Membership Rewards programme and cross-border currency card across all international markets.

In his role, Andy supports business teams across LATAM, EMEA and JAPA and is experienced in multi-national and cross-border consumer products.  Andy’s understanding of consumer regulatory matters allows him to collaborate with business units to achieve sustainable growth and good outcomes for customers.

Andy was recognised for his progressive legal support as a finalist in the Rising Star In-House Counsel of the Year category at the Legal Business Awards in 2014.

Andy joined American Express in 2011 having previously been a member of the Regulatory Investigations and Enforcement team at Berwin Leighton Paisner in London.

Bruce Macmillan was Executive Director, Senior Commercial Legal Counsel at VISA Europe until April 2014. Prior to joining VISA Europe, Bruce was the first General Counsel of the Legal Services Board (LSB), the oversight regulator for the English and Welsh legal profession. Bruce moved to the LSB from Dell Computers where he was European Senior Counsel for the Consumer, Retail and Wholesale distribution divisions. Prior to Dell, he was UK Head of Legal for the Swedish listed telecoms group Tele2, and for the private equity owned Alpha Telecom group. At the start of his in house career he worked at ONdigital/ITV Digital and at Cable & Wireless. Mr. Macmillan trained as an auditor with Arthur Andersen before started his legal career at Gouldens (now Jones Day) and also worked for SJ Berwin in Brussels before moving in house. He has been an active member of legal trade associations including the Commerce & Industry Group (where he was chair of the Corporate Governance Committee) and the IT Lawyers’ Forum.

Chris joined the Post Office in October 2013 on an interim basis and, in addition to running the legal function, has  responsibility for the internal audit, risk and security functions, together with the operations of an in-house mediation team. As well as being a highly regarded lawyer, Chris has a very strong commercial background working for companies such as Royal London (the UK’s largest life and pensions mutual), Singer & Friedlander (acquired by Kaupthing), National Australia Bank and Lloyd’s of London. He started his career in the UK in the corporate finance team at Norton Rose, a job which took him to parts of central and eastern Europe.

Christopher Digby-Bell has had a legal career that has taken him from leading real estate finance lawyer, to managing partner of not one but two City law firms, to representing stars like The Beatles and Elton John,  to pioneering the first western law firm in East Berlin behind the Wall,  to setting up his own venture capital and fund management business, to doing his own by hand deliveries, to general counsel, to chief executive, to  chairman. Along the way, he has won awards for his pro bono work and become an acclaimed disability rights lawyer and writer on legal affairs. He now mentors law firms and in house lawyers in what he calls his William’s Way Project which is designed to teach them the skills required to make the transition from lawyer to entrepreneur to board director.

Clare is Head of Legal for Travelex’s foreign exchange retail, wholesale & partner services businesses in Europe, the Middle East, India & Africa and the Global Business Development function. Clare also has responsibility for Group Services (IT, HR, Procurement) and leads both a team of six based in London supporting EMEIA and Group Services and a wider legal team supporting global business development activities from London, New York and Sydney. Clare has been at Travelex for over 6 years in a number of different global leadership roles, prior to which she was in private practice specialising in Corporate Finance and M&A at two leading City firms. Clare is also a member of the Law Society Council together with its Commerce & Industry Group’s training board and an active supporter of Pure Potential, an organisation that aims to increase the career success and social mobility of state school students. Clare was included in the FT’s Part Time Power List in 2013 and currently works 4 days a week.

Dan is Head of Legal, Risk Management and Compliance for Intertek Group plc.  Intertek is a global inspection, product testing and certification company and a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.  Dan has previously worked for a number of commercial organisations including the Linde Group, Origin Energy Limited and BG Group.  He holds a law degree from the University College of Wales, holds a Masters degree in Applied Finance and is qualified as a solicitor in England and Wales and New South Wales, Australia.

Daragh joined Rentokil Initial plc, the FTSE250 support services group, in September 2013.  He had previously been GC, Europe & Asia, Thomson Reuters Financial & Risk and before that GC EMEA for Reuters Group plc.  He has extensive in-house legal and company secretarial experience in major listed multinational corporations, and has led teams of up to 25 lawyers in over a dozen different locations, and a variety of organisational structures.  Before Reuters he spent 10 years in the oil & gas exploration industry with Eni SpA, ultimately as Associate GC, N. America, N. Sea & Middle East.  In addition to the legal and co sec functions at Rentokil Initial, Daragh is also responsible for health & safety and corporate responsibility. He is also Chair of the Innovation GC Club, linked to the FT Innovative Lawyers Awards.

Ed trained at Pinsents and qualified into the corporate team in 1997.  In 1999 he joined Freshfields and spent two years working on large transactions and many smaller VC deals also.  He moved to BT Cellnet (now Telefonica UK, operating the O2 brand) in 2001 just prior to its demerger from BT plc, and he’s been there ever since, becoming General Counsel in 2011.  In his time with O2 Ed has been involved in a number of memorable deals, not least the deal with Apple which saw O2 introduce the iPhone to the UK and secure two years of exclusivity in 2007, and the original network sharing deal with Vodafone.

In 2013 Ed’s team picked up the Legal Business In House Team of the Year Award.

Elizabeth is Associate Legal Director, Commercial for the Great Britain Business Unit. She works closely with the business to ensure that the legal team support and protect the operating framework of the company and act as enablers towards consistent long term profitable growth. Elizabeth advises the business on a wide range of general commercial, marketing and competition law matters and has a background in Intellectual Property Law, which is reflected in her interest in innovative advertising and digital matters.

Helen Bradley is a corporate partner in Baker & McKenzie and a member of the London office Management Committee. She advises on all aspects of corporate finance work, general corporate advisory and UK equity capital markets. Helen was seconded to The Panel on Takeovers and Mergers in May 2000 and is listed in The Lawyer’s Hot 100 for 2007.

Joanna Day is the Director of Legal Services for Santander UK plc and is responsible for supporting Santander’s business in the UK with particular emphasis and focus on regulatory contentious matters.  Joanna is also responsible for the management of legal spend by or through Santander UK plc and legal supply arrangements through the creation and management of effective legal panels.  Joanna joined Abbey over 25 years ago and has been involved in the legal aspects of its historical transition from building society to its current position in the market.

José Ramón González is Chief Legal Officer of QBE North America, a division of QBE Insurance Group Limited, one of the world’s largest insurance and reinsurance companies.  In this role, José has overall responsibility over legal, compliance, corporate governance and regulatory affairs for QBE’s North American operations.

Until April 2014, José was General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Torus, a Bermuda-based commercial insurance organization providing property, casualty and specialty insurance and reinsurance products to a client base located primarily in the UK and continental Europe.  At Torus, José had global responsibility over the legal and compliance function, as well as oversight over claims and internal audit.

José began practicing law in 1995 as a corporate associate at the law firm of Weil, Gotshal and Manges (WGM), working in the firm’s London and New York offices.  In 1999, he joined the Mergers and Acquisitions Group of the Law Department of American International Group (AIG) as an Assistant General Counsel, representing AIG on a worldwide basis in acquisitions, depositions, joint ventures and investments relating to insurance and asset management businesses.  During this time with AIG, José spent a considerable amount of time working in Europe, East Asia and Latin America.  In 2005, José was promoted to a senior position within the legal department of AIG’s insurance businesses eventually becoming Deputy General Counsel.  Until his departure to Torus in February 2011, José was a member of the law department’s Leadership Team overseeing the law department’s corporate function and providing legal support to a variety of business units.

José holds a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a J.D. from the Columbia University School of Law.  He also holds a Masters in European Union Law from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

Kate Cheetham joined the Group Legal team of Lloyds TSB Group in 2005 and was appointed General Counsel, Group following the acquisition of HBOS in 2009. Since joining the Group, Kate has led the internal and external legal teams on the Group’s major corporate and capital markets transactions, as well as expanding and developing the Group Legal function, the Group’s legal risk management framework and the strategy for and management of its external legal advisers.

Before joining Lloyds TSB, Kate was a corporate lawyer at Linklaters and prior to that ran a commercial art gallery in London for 5 years. Kate has a History of Art degree from University College London.

Moira is currently Associate General Counsel Downstream Middle East and Asia/Lead Counsel Global Commercial and has been in this role since May 2012.

She is responsible for Downstream legal support in the Region and for advising the Global Commercial Leadership Team and coordinating global legal support to GC.  Global Commercial supplies fuels, lubricants and other oil products to business customers.  Moira manages a virtual team of 12 who perform the global/regional work and works closely with the GC lawyers who are based in operating companies.  In addition, she is Downstream Governance legal focal point and supports the Governance, Risk and Assurance and DS JV Governance Groups.  Moira is also a Trustee Director of the Shell Contributory Pension Fund.

Moira has been the AGC for the Global Commercial business since 2007.  She has advised on a number of major projects, litigation matters and global standardisation projects as well as managing the GC legal team and supporting the various GC businesses.

Moira’s previous role from 2003 – 2007 was as Senior Legal Counsel, Shell Chemicals, responsible for advising Base Chemicals, one of the major product businesses, selling the Basell JV with BASF and other assets and managing the post divestment legal issues.  Moira also supported the Chemicals Risk Committee and advised on the Group JV Governance Guidelines.

Before moving into Downstream, Moira worked in Corporate Legal on a number of complex project and asset financings, and in Upstream Legal in the LNG business on the successful launch of the Nigeria LNG Project and fast track expansion.  Moira joined Shell in 1991 and her first role was in Projects, divesting the Billiton Metals business (now BHP Billiton) and other global disposals.

Moira studied Law at Clare College, Cambridge and qualified as a solicitor at Linklaters in London, where she worked as a Corporate Finance lawyer until 1991 when she joined Shell Legal.  Moira has been based in London throughout her career except for a year on secondment to a US law firm in Boston in 1989, but has always had international/global roles.

Moira is married with 2 teenage boys.  She has a wide variety of interests including mountain walking and skiing, cooking and singing in a choir.

Nicholas is a solicitor, who has held general counsel & secretary positions at Christie’s, the BBC and O2. He was until 2012 a trustee of BBC Children in Need, a position he held for five years and is currently Chairman of the Public Service Broadcasting Trust. He is also a member of the Development Advisory Board of Aberystwyth University. Married with two university aged children, he lives in St Albans.

Nick joined The Co-operative Group in May 2013 as Group Director – External Affairs, to develop and sustain the external relationships vital to the Group’s future success. His remit was expanded in June as he was also appointed as Executive Director, Group CEO’s Office.

Nick joined The Co-op from Kingfisher plc, a FTSE100 international retailer, where he was a member of the Retail Board and held a number of executive positions over the period 2007-13. Latterly he was the Group Corporate Affairs Director, leading the team that developed and launched the market leading sustainability programme, ‘Net Positive’. He was also responsible for the Group’s Government Affairs and Regulatory programme. From 2007-2012 Nick was Company Secretary to the plc Board, Group Legal & Corporate Responsibility Director, and B&Q’s Legal Director from 2009-2011. Prior to joining Kingfisher, Nick was a member of the Group Executive, Company Secretary and Group Legal Director of Emap plc, a FTSE100 media conglomerate. Nick has held a number of other corporate in-house legal roles, having qualified as a solicitor at Linklaters & Paines in 1993.

Nick is currently a board member of the British Retail Consortium, vice-chairman of the GC100 (the general counsel and company secretaries of the FTSE 100) and a member of the Natural Environment Research Council. In the past, Nick was a member of OFGEM’s Sustainable Development Advisory Group, the treasurer of The British American Project, an adviser of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators, and a member of the Companies Committee of the CBI.

Nicola Williams is General Counsel and Company Secretary at Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water, the sixth largest water and sewerage company in England and Wales, serving 3.1 million people.  Nicola began her career at Slaughter and May as an Associate in the Dispute Resolution team, before moving to Eversheds in 2004, where she became a partner in the Commercial Litigation team, specialising in assisting regulated companies in dealing with disputes. She joined Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water in 2012.

Nuns Moodliar is Vice President, Legal & Corporate Affairs at Hertz International. He joined Hertz in 1996 and has led the legal function since that time. He has responsibility for all legal matters affecting Hertz’s businesses outside North America. Prior to joining Hertz, Nuns was at BT from 1987 where he managed legal divisions supporting different parts of BT’s businesses. Nuns was part of the legal team at Sun Life Assurance Society (now part of Axa) before joining BT.

Nuns is a Barrister and a member of Gray’s Inn. He holds a Master and Bachelor of Laws degrees.

Sally-Ann was the first lawyer to join Metro Bank in February 2012. Her role as General Counsel is to develop the legal function in a fast changing, expanding business.

Prior to joining Metro Bank, Sally-Ann spent nearly 20 years in Manchester undertaking various legal roles with the Co-operative Bank, Co-operative Financial Services and the Co-operative Banking Group.

Sally-Ann started her career in matrimonial and criminal law in Northampton, before moving on to join the corporate transactional team at Manches & Co in 1989.

Sarah Nelson Smith is the Legal Director at Yum!, the parent company of Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, with responsibility for the UK & Ireland. Having trained at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Sarah worked with the US firm Baker Botts in international arbitration, before joining the Yum! legal team in May 2011. She sits on the Pizza Hut Management Team, and leads a small in-house legal department, whilst playing an active role in the global Yum! legal team, comprised of over a hundred lawyers worldwide. Sarah won the title of In House Lawyer of the Year at the 2014 Lawyer Awards, and has spoken publically on, inter alia, franchising and managing and motivating an in-house legal team.

Simon Neill is Assistant General Counsel at Johnson & Johnson. He has been at J&J since 2001; prior to joining J&J he was in private practice at Coudert Brothers in Brussels and in London. At J&J he combines two main roles: as EMEA legal counsel for one of J&J’s largest medical devices businesses and as a competition lawyer in the Medical Devices & Diagnostics group in EMEA. He also has experience in J&J’s Pharmaceutical and Consumer business groups. In his role as business lawyer Simon is involved in all areas of legal advice on strategic, commercial and corporate matters as well as compliance including corruption, bribery and competition. In his role as principal competition lawyer, Simon has overall responsibility for coordinating a broad range of competition work across the MD&D group in EMEA, including merger notifications, litigation and risk management in commercial operations, including competition compliance programmes.

Simon manages a team of J&J lawyers across several countries in Europe and he is a member of a number of management teams and committees that focus on developing and nurturing talent in the J&J organization.

Stephen Archer is a Founding Partner of UK business strategy and leadership consultancy, Spring Partnerships.

He has consulted for CEOs, boards and senior management of FTSE 100 and multinational companies including Nestle, GE, KPMG, Carlsberg and Oracle amongst others. His main areas of expertise are commercial and marketing strategy; leadership and culture for high performance organisations.

Stephen is a regular commentator in the media, providing analysis on breaking news affecting businesses and the latest economic issues and trends. His recent broadcasts include appearances on BBC Radio Berkshire, BBC TV News 24 and BBC Radio 5 Live where he talked about the recession, and correctly predicted the pattern of the recession – 6 months ahead of time.

Stephen Godsell is Group General Counsel & Company Secretary of PA Group, the parent company of the Press Association, the national news agency for the UK and Ireland and a leading multi-media content provider across web, mobile, broadcast and print. PA Group businesses also include: Sticky Content, the UK’s leading digital copywriting and content strategy agency; TNR, a specialist communications consultancy; and Globelynx, which enables corporate clients to connect with TV news broadcasters around the world.

Stephen previously held senior positions at Clifford Chance as an intellectual property lawyer and at The Economist Group. He has extensive experience of structuring, managing and negotiating acquisitions, digital content deals and other transactions in the media, data and technology sectors, as well as managing cross-border teams.

He is a board director and trustee of The Economist Educational Foundation, a charity that works to inspire and build skills amongst disadvantaged children.

Susan joined TSB on 6 January 2014.

Susan Crichton is a solicitor with over 25 years of in-house experience within the financial services Industry. She joined TSB in January 2014 as General Counsel and Company Secretary she had previously been employed by the Post Office, where she held the role of General Counsel and was instrumental in separating the Post Office from Royal Mail, prior to its initial public offering last year.

Before that, Susan worked at Old Mutual/ Skandia where her role focussed on risk and corporate governance. She was General Counsel, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), for GE Money for nine years responsible for legal, compliance and government relations in the region.

Suzanne is Group General Counsel and Company Secretary at Network Rail, having joined in January 2012.  She is responsible for leadership of the in house legal team of 30 lawyers, the Company Secretarial team and Transparency and Business Ethics teams.  She sits on the Group Executive Committee and chairs the Risk Review Group.

Prior to joining Network Rail Suzanne was General Counsel and Company Secretary at Premier Foods Plc for 4 years.  At the time Premier was the UK’s leading food producer and manufacturer of some of the nation’s favourite foods including Hovis, Mr Kipling, Sharwoods, Brantson, Bisto and OXO.  Suzanne was responsible for the Group’s Legal, Company Secretarial and Trade Mark functions and also sat on the Group Executive Committee.  In addition to her Legal and Company Secretarial role Suzanne also had responsibility for the Internal Communications team and Group Internal Audit function.

Prior to Premier Foods Suzanne was Group Head of Legal at Gallaher Group Plc, the world’s fifth largest tobacco company and was responsible for the Group’s legal and trade-mark functions of c30 lawyers who were based across eight countries.

In her early her career, Suzanne worked in private practice, undertaking her training contract at Lewis Silken followed by two years at Crossman Block & Keith (now Crossman Block) as an IP specialist, focusing mainly on trade marks.

Tom joined Barratt as General Counsel and Company Secretary at the beginning of April 2011. Prior to that he was company secretary and general counsel of United Utilities . He was a senior legal adviser for Gallaher from 2000 to 2002 after 16 years with Simmons & Simmons, where he was made a partner in May 1991.

From 2002 until 2007 he was company secretary and general counsel of Gallaher Group Plc and a board appointed member of Gallaher’s corporate responsibility committee, managing the corporate affairs, legal and security and brand protection departments and acting as secretary to the Plc board and its principal committees.

He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, an accredited mediator, and is a non-executive director of FMI and a member of its risk committee. He has also served as a non-executive director of the SRA and been a member of its Standards, Finance and Resources and Risk committees since 2009.

Tom has spent his career as a member of leadership teams in multi-national companies. Tom is currently the Chief of Staff for Misys, in which role he leads the development of the company’s growth strategy and its continuing program of transformation to become the leading provider of financial services software.

In 2012, Tom was Acting Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors of Misys plc, a FTSE 250 company. He led the negotiation and execution of the successful sale of the company for £1.3B ($2B) in cash to Vista Equity Partners

Prior to joining Misys as EVP & General Counsel in 2009, Tom spent eight years with GE Healthcare, a division of the General Electric Company, where he held roles of increasing seniority, ultimately as General Counsel, EMEA, responsible for a business with revenues of more than $5 billion.

Tom began his career in the City of London.  He is admitted as a solicitor in England & Wales. He graduated from Oxford University with a BA (Hons) in Metallurgy & Materials Science.

Verity is director of commercial contracts at Marks and Spencer plc, having joined in 2010. She is responsible for leadership of the in-house commercial legal team and supports M&S’ operations both in the UK and internationally. Since her appointment, Verity has commenced a series of initiatives to ensure M&S has a strong and effective commercial legal function. Verity works hard with her team to continually drive change and excellence in a fast moving retail environment.

Verity was listed as highly commended in the Rising Stars In-House Counsel of the Year 2014 and was cited as “one of the most widely praised lawyers in a well regarded in-house team for all-round board excellence, board level credibility and a keen sense of the wider imperatives of the business.”

Prior to joining M&S, Verity was a Legal Director at Wragge & Co (now Wragge Lawrence Graham & Co).