Sheldon Mills is the Executive Director, Consumers and Competition at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).  He is responsible for the delivery of the FCA’s statutory consumer and competition objectives in the combined Supervision, Policy and Competition (SPC) division. 

Prior to joining the FCA, Sheldon was Senior Director at the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) with overall leadership responsibility for the delivery of UK merger control across the entire economy and for the strategic design and implementation of the new UK State Aid regime. He is a qualified solicitor and before joining the CMA he practised law at King & Wood Mallesons and Jones Day, counselling a range of UK and international clients in antitrust and competition law.

Sheldon holds undergraduate and postgraduate law degrees from King’s College, London and was born and raised in Cardiff, Wales.

David has worked in financial services for over 40 years. At Barclays he worked for three Group chairmen, helped set up Large Corporate Banking, had wide experience in SME and consumer banking and ran the Group’s IT and operations function. David subsequently led Commercial Banking for Lloyds Bank, then was chief executive of Cattles PLC (a consumer finance and invoice finance business) before joining Moneycorp (an independent FX provider) as CEO. Before joining UK Finance David spent eight years at Bibby Financial Services as the chief executive.

Emma is responsible for the strategic and operational management of the Lending Standards Board (LBS). She works with the LSB Board, team and stakeholders to ensure the organisation fulfils its mission to drive fair outcomes and the highest standards of consumer protection within financial services through independent oversight.

Having trained as a solicitor, Emma has worked in law firms across the South coast and in London. She was most recently CEO for a UK trade association for insolvency and restructuring professionals.

Emma holds a Bachelor of Laws degree, the post-graduate Legal Practice Course certificate and is a facilitator for the Leadership Trust organization.

Teresa Graham graduated from Newcastle University in 1977. (She was awarded a Fellowship in 2012). She qualified as a Chartered Accountant and, from December 1986 to August 1987, she was seconded to the UK Government’s Enterprise and Deregulation Unit reporting directly to Lord Young, the Secretary of State for Employment and then Trade and Industry.  In March 1988 she was appointed to the Government’s Deregulation Advisory Panel for a two-year term and served through two decades of administrations.

With her red tape hat on Teresa stepped down as Deputy Chair of the Government’s Better Regulation Commission (BRC) in 2008. She is currently Chairman of the Administrative Burdens Advisory Board of HMRC and was the senior independent Director of the Treasury’s Office of Tax Simplification until it closed down in 2023.

In terms of major pieces of work for Government, she completed a high-profile review on pre-packaged administrations for SoS Cable which was published in June 2014. Her publications also include a major piece of work on litigation and compensation for the Lord Chancellor, an independent review for the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the Small Firm’s Loan Guarantee Scheme and a ground-breaking study for the Prime Minister, “Less is More”.  She was also a member of the Financial Reporting Council Group which produced “Louder Than Words” – a study into the complexity of corporate reporting.

More recently she was part of the advisory board appointed by Sir John Kingman in the BEIS Review of the Financial Reporting Council with specific responsibility for the area of audit quality.

She was also a past member of the Accounting Standards Board’s Committee for Accounting for Smaller Entities (CASE); a past member of the Government’s Ministerial Group on Access Business; past Chairman of the RSA’s Educational Policy Committee; past member of the Advisory Committee of the Office for National Statistics, a non executive member of the Steering Board of the DTI’s Small Business Service, and a member of the DTI’s Small Business Council.

During her time as NED of the British Business Bank she chaired both their risk and remco committees, was a member of the audit committee and led a review of two of the Bank’s products to ensure they remained fit for purpose.

She holds a number of appointments, including non-executive, mentoring and advisory roles in growth businesses. In particular, as Chair of the award-winning company Salix Finance Limited holding funds of approximately £1bn on behalf of BEIS for allocation to the public sector to invest in energy saving schemes on their estates, winning awards including Financier of the Year, Finance Product of the Year and the best not-for-profit to work with in the UK. She also Chair’s the SME Advisory Committee of UK Finance, the professional body representing the 300 largest funders in the UK including the big 4 banks. She chairs the Public Interest Committee of professional services firm, RSM.

Teresa received the honour of Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2020 honours list for services to small businesses. She was awarded a CBE in the 2007 honours list for public service and an OBE in the 1997 honours list for services to better regulation and the small firm’s sector.

Rosanna Bryant is a Co-head of the Financial Services Sector and a Partner in the Addleshaw Goddard LLP Financial Regulation team. She specialises in advising banks, building societies and other financial services clients on a wide range of regulatory and compliance matters.

She is a recognised industry expert in consumer credit, mortgage and payment services regulation, with extensive experience of drafting and advising on the compliance and risk issues surrounding mortgages, loans, credit cards, current accounts, savings and investment products. Rosanna advises on the Consumer Credit Act 1974; the Consumer Credit Sourcebook; the Mortgage Conduct of Business and Banking Conduct of Business Chapters of the FCA handbook, as well as associated consumer protection legislation.

Rosanna splits her practice with financial services transactions work. She advises on retail debt portfolio transactions (mortgages, loans and credit cards) as well as advising on the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 Part VII banking and insurance business transfers.

• Owner Women IN platform
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For the last five years, I have worked as a Team Leader and an Expert on international projects. I was involved in economic research projects in public finance, support of SMEs, export analysis for international technical assistance projects of partners and donors, etc.

David is the Managing Director for Commercial Finance. David leads on policy relating to commercial banking, invoice finance and asset-based lending. David was previously a Policy Director in the FCA and before that spent nearly 2 decades as a civil servant, mostly in the Treasury. During that time David played a leading role in the design and delivery of many financial service polices, including leading on Covid loans policy throughout the pandemic, as well as leading on government policy around access to finance for SMEs'.

As a strategy-focused credit risk leader and senior consultant, John brings over 15 years of extensive experience in engaging with clients to help them better understand their commercial customers and drive growth. He has a deep understanding of products, business processes, risk management, and regulatory requirements across multiple jurisdictions in both developed and emerging markets. His focus is on advocating for the smart use of business data to support clients, not just from a credit risk perspective, but more broadly in assessing the needs in the market.

Phillip is Director for Digital Technology and Innovation at UK Finance.  

He has a particular focus on how legislative and regulatory policy impacts digital transformation in finance and banking. He works across the digital transformation landscape on digital identity, AI, new digital money, tokenisation, open banking and data protection.  

His previous role focussed on influencing payments strategy and regulation in the UK. Phillip has a public policy background with previous roles at HM Treasury and in local government.

He currently sits on the FCA Innovation Advisory Group and Smart Data Council.

Mike has policy responsibility for commercial finance, which covers the corporate and SME markets. This includes engagement with government, regulators and key market stakeholders on access to finance, enhanced customer protection, serving customers better, supporting the economy and competitiveness.

Prior to UK Finance, he gained over 35 years’ experience in the banking industry at HSBC, in branch, regional and head office roles, including retail and commercial banking, marketing, strategic planning and implementation, e-commerce. He led on SME, commercial and corporate banking policy issues including the Business Finance Taskforce. At HSBC, he completed secondments with the London Enterprise Agency and HM Treasury. Mike has a degree in Economics and is an associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers.

Matthew is director of UK Finance's Invoice Finance and Asset Based Lending area, with particular expertise in supporting small and mid-sized businesses. 

Prior to UK Finance's formation Matthew was deputy chief executive of the Asset Based Finance Association (ABFA), having joined as head of government affairs in 2011. He was previously joint-head of public affairs at specialist law firm Bircham Dyson Bell, advising clients across healthcare, transport, retail and infrastructure.  Before that he was a director at DLA Piper's global government relations practice, where his clients ranged from financial services businesses to overseas governments. Matthew holds a Master's degree in International Relations.

Aysha leads the team’s work on government loan schemes, economic crime, restructuring and insolvency, and innovation. Her work spans Commercial and Invoice Finance/Asset Based Lending and she also works closely with other policy areas across UK Finance. A lawyer by background, Aysha has particular expertise and focus on all legal issues impacting business banking and finance.  

Prior to joining the Commercial Finance team, Aysha was interim General Counsel at UK Finance, where she was heavily involved in the set-up of the Covid-19 emergency loan schemes as well as advising on UK Finance’s response to the pandemic, several major industry-wide and internal projects, and key policy and operational matters.  Before joining UK Finance, Aysha spent over 15 years in private practice and in-house as a competition/commercial lawyer.

Lee is currently Director of Economic Insight and Research at UK Finance, and is responsible the collection and dissemination of data relating to the support the finance sector provides to business and households. She is also responsible for the programme of research and analysis which informs UK Finance's policy and representation activities. Lee's career has focused on understanding business performance and the impact of policy on decision-making and outcomes, she was previously Deputy Director at the Enterprise Research Centre and Chief Economist at EEF, the manufactures? organisation (now Make UK).

Jennifer Tankard is Principal, Commercial Finance and leads on all issues that impact on access to finance for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) including the UK’s net zero goals. In 2021, she co-wrote Financing Green: a guide for SMEs with the CBI.

After serving a full technical apprenticeship James gained a BSc (Hons) from Buckingham University and has gone on to accumulate over 25 years of manufacturing experience, including 13 years as Managing Director of a specialist high precision, internationally trading, supplier of turnkey instrument sub-systems.

Prior to joining the MTA James was Production and HR Director at a major manufacturer of mechanical seals and support systems.

James is very knowledgeable about global manufacturing and has a strong interest in supply chains together with logistics. He is an expert on global advanced manufacturing and regularly participates in policy formation in the UK, Europe and further afield.

Helping young people to develop is also high on his agenda and he has been keen to introduce an in-house, fully certified apprenticeship scheme.

James is a Deputy Lieutenant of West Yorkshire.

Andrew is currently the Head of Customer Goals and Journeys which supports c1 million customers across the Commercial and Institutional Bank. The team brings together product, customer service and operations, technology, change delivery and partner capabilities so we can better collaborate, solve challenges and deliver the best possible experience for colleagues and customer

During his career at NatWest Andrew has held many senior leadership positions across various business areas including customer segments, sectors & regions and structured finance. Prior to his current role, he led the NatWest Business Banking & International Retail team for three years, which included the period of the covid pandemic and the roll out of government support measures. He also served as Regional Managing Director in both Commercial and Corporate Banking, and led a series of critical strategic change programmes, such as the implementation of Direct Relationship Management and the Front Office transformation of Commercial Banking. Andrew is passionate about supporting local communities. 

Andrew has a degree in Banking, Insurance & Finance and is married with 3 teenage children.

Conrad Ford is Chief Product and Strategy Officer at Allica Bank (www.allica.bank), recently named by Deloitte as the UK’s fastest-growing fintech firm ever, and backed by TCV - investors in the likes of Netflix, Revolut and Spotify. Allica is reimagining banking for established SMEs with the latest technology. Previously Conrad was sole founder of Funding Options - a fintech listed in the 2022 FT 1000 list of Europe’s fastest-growing firms - that latterly sold to leading neobank Tide. 

Glen is Chief Product Officer at CRIF UK, where he has championed Open Banking and Open Finance since its inception. CRIF are now one of the leading Open Banking providers with live connections to over 4,000 banks across Europe via a single API, specialising in enhanced data analytics and credit risk analysis.

Glen was one of the founders of Credit Passport®, the portable credit file and business credit score for SMEs, which has won multiple awards for innovation, including 3 rounds of the Nesta Open-Up! Challenge in the much-needed SME access to finance space and is now used by over 40,000 UK businesses.

Recently, Glen co-led the SME stream working group for the first coalition of CFIT (The Centre for Financial Innovation Technology), where the group delivered a successful proof of value and working prototype of a centralised data file for businesses and consumers.

Glen has also served in the Strategic Working Group for UK Finance, and various round tables for the ECB and policy makers helping steer the conversation for the future of open data.

Glen has over 20 years’ experience running companies at the leading edge of technology and has taken a strong interest in AI including how organisations can build explainable AI into their risk models.

Mark represents the Bank in numerous forums, in particular, UK Finance, Chairing working groups and committees that focus on International Trade, Exports and Trade Finance. Mark also leads Santander’s relationship with UK Export Finance (UKEF) additionally, Mark has responsibility for supporting the build out of our Alliances strategy and capability. India, Africa and the Middle East being areas of particular market of focus.

Prior to joining Santander Mark spent 12 years at RBS leading various businesses and teams throughout its Large Corporate, Institutional, Corporate and SME businesses.

Mark began his career as a management trainee with Standard Chartered bank where he worked for 20 years across the UK branch network, London, and Asia. As well as leading Corporate and Institutional Banking teams across a variety of sectors, geographies and segments he also drove the development of Standard Chartered’s Supply Chain Financing proposition leading a Global team in Singapore.

Mark is passionate about developing and supporting international business across the corporate and commercial segments and creating the next generation of Exporters and skilled international bankers.

As the trade association for restructuring and insolvency professionals R3 is at the heart of the profession providing a home for their community of members throughout their careers.

As CEO Caroline oversees all aspects of R3’s work, from representation and technical support to the design and delivery of events, courses and conferences. Working with R3’s Council, team and member committees she is responsible for the strategic and operational management of the Association as well as shaping and delivering its strategy for the future, promoting, supporting and connecting members throughout their careers.

Christopher Woolard CBE chairs the EY Global Regulatory Network.

He leads EY EMEIA and UK financial services regulation, and UK Fintech. Chris had a 25-year career in UK public service before joining EY including serving on the board of Financial Conduct Authority and as its interim chief executive. He was also a member of the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Committee and the Financial Policy Committee. Internationally, he has served on the IOSCO Board and a member of the Financial Stability Board’s strategic risk committee. Chris was awarded a CBE by HM the Queen in 2021 for services to financial regulation and fintech. He is also a freeman of the City of London.

Vincent is an experienced leader in front-to-back transformation of banks. He has worked with the C-suite executives of the largest global banks to help them reshape their businesses and operate better, faster, cheaper, safer and more sustainably.

With over 15 years of experience in the sector, he specifically focuses on transformation of commercial banking, covering commercial lending and trade and working capital finance. He has over 15 years of experience in transformation, including launching new products and channels, re-engineering operating models, and improving the efficiency of processes. This has helped future-proof some of the world’s biggest financial institutions and improve customer and business outcomes.

Vincent holds degrees in Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Industrial Engineering from University College London and Eindhoven University of Technology.

James Sankey is a Partner with the Banking & Capital Markets team at Ernst & Young LLP in London and a member of the EY Corporate, Commercial and SME Banking leadership team. He is also a Client Service Partner focused on supporting corporate banks. He is a Chartered Accountant and a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW). His experience includes consulting, transactions, strategy and assurance.

As UK Financial Services Managing Partner, Anna is responsible for a team of over 200 partners and 4,500 people dedicated to serving the UK financial services industry. Anna is responsible for some of the member firm’s largest clients globally, and is the first female financial services leader in the UK.

As a tax professional, Anna previously ran the EY EMEIA Financial Services Tax & Legal practice, where she helped shape the innovation of EY tax services, developing technology-led solutions for clients and building the legal offering within EY EMEIA financial services.

Anna works closely with the corporate social responsibility team, and plays a pivotal role driving the organization’s sustainability agenda.

In addition to her role at EY, Anna is a Non-Executive Director for the International Business and Diplomatic Exchange, a non-profit organization providing leadership in promoting international trade and investment flows.

Anna read Law at Cambridge, and qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 2002.

Keith has been a career banker with Lloyds spanning both Retail and Commercial banking businesses. Over the past 20 years he has held a number of senior Fraud Prevention roles in the bank covering Cards, Insider Investigations and most recently Head of Fraud for the Commercial part of the bank. Having completed 45 years with Lloyds Keith has decided to retire in July of this year.