M&A Conference 2025

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.

The Blockchain Industry in the UK Landscape Overview names Charles as a “leading influencer in blockchain”. He is part of teams working on investing and setting standards for emtech in the UK, Europe and the US.

At CMS he is part of the firm’s specialist crypto and digital assets team. He is a Board Advisor of Cointelligence Fun, Holistic AI and Hedgehog Hedgehog - Easy investing in real-world assets.

Partner at CMS: digital and crypto assets, AI; Advisory Board Member at Investment Association Engine. Advisory boards of the UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Artificial Intelligence (APPG AI) and the UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Blockchain (APPG Blockchain); Bank of England’s Financial Markets Law Committee on Virtual Currencies; Special Consultee to the UK LawTech Delivery Panel’s Legal Statement on Cryptoassets and Smart Contracts. UK’s “recommended lawyer” for blockchain and digital technology in the UK Parliament Hub. 

Specialist in emerging technologies including digital assets and AI; working on corporate finance and consulting projects in crypto, tokenisation, and AI. 

Author: Crypto and Digital Assets Law and Regulation; AI, Machine Learning & Big Data; Artificial Intelligence Law and Regulation.

He has worked on transactions worth over $5bn funding fintech platforms; on over 65 NFT projects; for more than 250 cryptoasset clients; including global exchanges, blockchain gaming and play-to-earn projects, DeFi and Web3 platforms; crypto and digital assets investment & M&A; tokenisation projects for debt, equity and alternative assets.

He is Editor and Co-author of Artificial Intelligence Law and Regulation (Edward Elgar, 2022).

He writes a monthly column in the crypto pages of City AM. 

Ian is a Lead Portfolio Manager at Norges Bank Investment Management with a focus on M&A and Corporate Actions. Previous roles include head of M&A and Special Situation desk teams at US and European Investment banks. Regulatory positions have included FCA designated CF1 and CF10 as well as SEC US Desk and Options principal positions. He holds a Diploma in Company Direction from Institute of Directors, a BSc (Hons) in Biochemistry and MBA from Yale.

With an extensive background in IT strategy and innovation, Rich Wagner has witnessed firsthand the impact that external big data can have on a company's financial performance. Today, as Field CTO of Board, Rich helps educate customers on the value of external insights in enterprise planning. As the former founder and chief executive officer at Prevedere, Rich helped industry-leading companies across industries use AI to look beyond their walls for key external drivers of financial performance. Rich has worked with several leading Private Equity and financial institutions, including CVC Capital, American Securities, and Apollo Global Management. 

Adam Avards joined UK Finance in 2022 as Principal for Cyber and Third Party Risk. He leads UK Finance’s engagement on Critical Third Party regulatory issues and chairs a number of industry forums and committees on Cyber Security, Cloud and Risk. Before joining UK Finance, Adam spent over 15 years within the UK’s Intelligence Community where he focused on security policy implementation and training.

Avanthi leads on listings, corporate finance including M&A, and secondary capital market-related policy files.

Before joining UK Finance in 2022, Avanthi worked for 15 years as a financial services regulator, including as a Technical Specialist at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK. At the FCA, she held roles within its Capital Markets division, focusing on market monitoring, policy and strategy formulation, and trading venue supervision. Avanthi was involved in implementing regulatory frameworks such as MiFID II/ MiFIR and the Market Abuse Regulation and led the FCA’s sector views for wholesale capital markets, contributing to the FCA’s business planning. She also led the IMF FSAP for the FCA in 2021 and previously held various capital market regulatory and legal roles.

Avanthi is a dual-qualified lawyer in England and Wales, as well as in Sri Lanka and sits on the Membership and Communications Committee of the Law Society of England and Wales.

David is the Managing Director for Resilience and Cyber, Commercial Finance, and Data and Research. David leads on policy and other activities relating to commercial banking, invoice finance and asset-based lending, as well as operational resilience. 

David also leads on ensuring our data and research function is providing our members will valuable insights and strengthening our advocacy activities. 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”.  

Julie leads the Primary Markets and Corporate Finance team at UK Finance, which focuses on primary market issuance and public M&A/Corporate Finance.

Julie has a wealth of experience in this area, having worked as a lawyer for over 20 years at (amongst others) Linklaters and Goldman Sachs and latterly as a policy expert within the FCA’s Capital Markets Policy team. Julie sits on the editorial board of the Capital Markets Law Journal.

Julie is also an experienced Executive Coach.