Charles has over 25 years financial services experience and joined UK Finance in August 2020. As Director of Mortgages he has overall responsibility for delivering the mortgage policy work of UK Finance.

Prior to joining UK Finance, Charles was Executive Director and Chief Risk Officer at The Nottingham Building Society where he was accountable for designing and implementing the Society’s risk strategy and framework. Charles brings with him a wealth of experience including time as a director in the Regulatory Financial Services Practice at Grant Thornton LLP and 11 years regulation and compliance experience at the FCA. Whilst at the FCA, Charles was Head of Department for the mortgage sector, where he developed the FCA’s approach to the supervision of the UK mortgage market and oversaw the implementation of both the Mortgage Market Review and Mortgage Credit Directive.

Previously she was the Director of Strategic Partnerships for LBG with responsibility for the National Account, Housing Development and Intermediary Experience teams as well as leading Mortgage Intermediary digital strategy.

Prior to that she was the head of Intermediary protection at Scottish Widows where she was instrumental in the launch of ‘Scottish Widows Protect’ into the Intermediary market, which went live in 2015.

Esther began her career in management consultancy with IBM in the Netherlands and moved to the UK in 2000.   She previously worked for Legal & General where she was Commercial and Marketing Director of the L&G Network and UK Mortgage Club.

Esther lives with her husband and two children in Guildford.

Richard is responsible for the end-to-end Mortgage Business in Paragon.

Richard has 3 decades of experience in the Mortgage Industry, holding senior leadership role at Bank of Ireland, RBS, Santander, Cheltenham and Gloucester and Halifax.

He was Chairman of UK Finance’s Mortgage Product Board in 2019 and remains a Board member. Richard was an Advisory Board Member for the Government commissioned City of London Corporation Socio-economic taskforce and is now a Board Member for Progress Together.

Andy Langford is Clinical Director for Cruse Bereavement Support, the UK's largest and leading bereavement support charity.  Andy has been a consultant with the Money Advice Trust for over 5 years, having trained agents and managers on a number of financial institutions on working with high impact calls, people with thoughts of suicide, and also training to develop staff resilience.

Andy is a practicing and British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy accredited counsellor/psychotherapist, with training in life coaching and clinical supervision.  Furthermore, Andy is also a Post-Graduate Researcher with the Open University, working within a funded partnership between the Open University, Oxford University and Brunel University, to understand more about building the resilience of bereaved people through telephone support.

Andy has worked in the voluntary sector for over 25 years, in the areas of bereavement, homelessness, mental health, substance misuse and multiple needs.  He has also worked within the context of major incident and trauma management, playing strategic and operational roles in the response to the Grenfell Tower fire, the Manchester Arena bombing and the Borough Market attack.

Andy has recently published pieces on bereavement telephone support and sibling loss.  He is in the process of working on a chapter for a book, focusing on men and grief.

Cerys is the Partnerships Manager at Sero, leading numerous green finance initiatives with financial institutions to tackle residential decarbonisation within their portfolios. 

Pilots have included the POWER project (Partnership Outputs Working to Enable Retrofit) alongside Virgin Money & Rightmove, VALUER (Valuations And Lending Underwriting Energy Reduction) alongside Monmouthshire Building Society, Rightmove & RICS, FLATLINE (Fixed Level Affordable Tariffs Led by Intelligently Networked Energy), EQUINOX (Equitable Novel Flexibility Exchange) as well as leading the Foundational Economy elements within the pan-Wales Optimised Retrofit project. 

Prior to Sero, Cerys managed a fast-paced city centre residential sales and lettings estate agency. Cerys intends to keep building her skillset to play a key part in driving forward cutting-edge innovation and the use of new technologies and smart systems within the residential sector. As well as helping tackle the climate emergency, a personal key driver for her is the eradication of fuel poverty and to support better living standards within new and existing homes.

Roy has over 45 years’ experience in mortgages and retail financial services. A Fellow of the Chartered Bankers Institute, CeMAP and CeRGI, Roy spent 23 years with Halifax, before working for JP Morgan.

Roy then joined Kensington Mortgages (subsequently purchased by Investec) in 2007 as Head of Risk, Compliance and Financial Crime. There, he oversaw a rebuild of Kensington’s credit risk and underwriting framework, helping it become one of the UK’s largest specialist residential and buy-to-let lenders.

At Lendinvest Roy led the credit and loan servicing teams for 6 years and was responsible for Lendinvest's entry into the BTL market in 2017 before starting his path towards retirement in 2021. Roy now chairs LendInvest’s Credit Committee, whilst also leading the loan servicing team and representing Lendinvest on UKF's BTL and LS & P Committees. 

Tim is the Director of Property Science Innovation at Rightmove combining data, technology and analytics to develop unique insight and drive property decision making.  Prior to this, Tim ran Rightmove’s Lettings and Overseas businesses.  

Before joining Rightmove in 2010, Tim worked in investment banking and strategy consulting, advising on business, investment and financing strategies. 

Tim holds an MBA from the Wharton School, The University of Pennsylvania, USA.

John Marr joined the former Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) in January 2012 and transferred to UK Finance when it was formed in July 2017.  As Principal, Devolved Government and Social Housing, John leads our mortgages and housing policy work in the UK nations, as well as our work on low cost home ownership and government schemes to support home purchase. 

John also leads our work in relation to commercial funding and investment in the housing association sector, which is key in helping to meet government targets for new affordable and social housing delivery.  Previously, John worked on housing policy at the Local Government Association.

Simon leads the Prudential Capital and Risk team at UK Finance, which focuses on influencing the implementation reforms to capital and liquidity requirements in the UK. He leads UK Finance's work on the senior managers' and certification regime (SMCR), which seeks to improve bank-wide governance and culture, and has extensive knowledge of prudential regulatory architecture.

He is also interested in operational resilience and different types of bank capital and funding instruments such as bail-inable and covered bonds and securitisation structures. His banking background is in fixed income sales, trading and origination as well as energy and aerospace project finance. He is liveryman of the Worshipful Company of International Bankers and is a former member of the European Banking Authority's Banking Stakeholder Group.

Sonia Fernandes is a Principal in the Mortgages team and leads on supporting borrowers in financial difficulty, including the industry’s response to those impacted by the cost of living. She led the industry response to Covid-19; most notably in the design and implementation of payment deferrals and the Possession Moratorium. She also supports on policy work relating to vulnerable customers, implementation of the consumer duty and the Homes for Ukraine Scheme. She was listed on the 2023 Women in Trade Associations Powerlist, which recognises the 100 inspirational women in associations.

Prior to joining UK Finance in 2018, she worked at the Money Advice Service (now Money and Pension Service), on improving financial capability through understanding consumer's savings and borrowing decisions. Sonia has 8 years’ experience as an economic policy adviser specialising in competition and labour economics with previous roles as a civil servant in Australia, on international posting in Vietnam and conducting research and evaluation in the charity sector.

Fiona has 25 years banking experience spanning personal and corporate banking, payments, risk, regulatory and consumer affairs. She leads on financial inclusion, capability and vulnerability policy at UK Finance and works with Members to deliver positive change which improves the experience for the most vulnerable members of our society. An advocate for inclusive design, she led the development of the first accessible debit card and the vulnerable customer response to the COVID19 pandemic. She was a Commissioner on the Extra Costs Commission, an independent enquiry into the extra costs incurred by disabled people.  She is a Fellow of the RSA, and an alumni of the University of Cambridge, Institute for Sustainability Leadership Programme.

Martese has worked for Leeds Building Society for 6 years and started as Head of Intermediary Distribution. Her previous roles included Senior Corporate Account Manager at NatWest/RBS and Halifax Group and she has worked in the Intermediary Mortgage market for over 25 years.

Recently promoted to Director of Mortgage Distribution, Martese is responsible for the development, implementation and operation of the Society’s mortgage distribution strategy across both intermediated and direct distribution approaches.

Leading a team of circa 100 colleagues, Martese is passionate about embedding the Society’s culture, reward and talent management strategies to ensure that a positive, supportive an achieving culture is sustained.

Martese’s role is commercially driven, however there is a strong emphasis on the management of conduct risk, reputational risk and financial crime with the appropriate consideration of risk and reward dynamic

Paula joined Key Retirement Group in October 2017 bringing 26 years' experience in the financial services sector. Paula is responsible for growing the market by helping large corporate partners such as banks and building societies enter later life lending. Within the Group, she ensures partners can access compelling propositions that fit with their business needs as well as managing and developing existing large client relationships with life companies and banks. Prior to joining Key Group, Paula worked for Legal & General, holding a number of senior management roles across both the investment arm and life assurance society. She also holds an advanced diploma in financial planning as well as CeMAP.