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.

Chris is a Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health and has a PhD from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience at King's College London.  Since 2007, Chris has led a programme of guidance, research, training, and intervention on vulnerability.  This programme has involved improving practice in more than 400 firms, over 40,000 staff, and across the financial and essential service sectors.  Chris has also co-created industry-wide tools for working with vulnerable customers such as TEXAS, IDEA, and BRUCE, as well as co-founding award-winning Vulnerability Academies with UK Finance (for firms) and the UK Regulators' Network (for regulators).

Previously Chris was a Research Fellow and Head of Policy at the Royal College of Psychiatrists where he led research programmes and national mental health policy development.  Prior to this a Researcher at Imperial College Medical School where he worked on international WHO and United Nations research studies and public health projects in the areas of drug injecting, sex work, and HIV and STD prevention.

Francesca Smith is a Research Officer at the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute, where she works on understanding and improving the experiences of people with mental health problems in the mortgage market, and across debt collection more broadly. She is the author of the Institute's report, 'No place like home: Supporting people with mental health problems in mortgage difficulty', published at the start of this year. Before joining Money and Mental Health, Francesca completed a BA in Geography at the University of Cambridge, where she studied the relationship between health and housing. Francesca has lived experience of mental health problems, and is passionate about eliminating the stigma around such conditions, and especially among marginalised groups.

James is a Relationship Manager at StepChange Debt Charity, responsible for managing key accounts with major financial services partners, including major banks. In this role, James supports the Charity’s relationship strategy by fostering strong partnerships, driving referral volumes, and identifying new business opportunities. 

With a focus on collaborative solutions, James works closely with financial institutions to implement proactive debt prevention strategies and ensure individuals in crisis receive the support they need. A dedicated ambassador for Step Change, James represents the Charity at key industry events and forums.

James has over 25 years’ experience in housing and financial services economics and analysis. Joining the Council of Mortgage Lenders in 2003, which merged into UK Finance in 2017, he has continually developed the mortgage industry’s rich data assets, creating a world-leading knowledge base for the sector. Leveraging these assets and his two decades of industry and data knowledge, James has overall responsibility for UK Finance’s mortgage sector analysis and authors many of its publications, including our flagship Household Finance Review.

Prior to settling in financial services James held a range of academic, public and private sector roles in economics, interspersed with sabbaticals to lose himself in various interesting corners of the world. He has now mostly grown up and is married with two mostly grown children and two mostly grown dogs, all of whom believe they are superior economists to him.

She has extensive experience of providing financial advice before moving into regulatory compliance and remediation projects.  Whilst at KPMG she has led some of the major Consumer Duty projects over the past 3 years and been a key speaker at various industry events.  She is part of an industry working group developing guidance  for the treatment of customers in vulnerable circumstances. She has worked with numerous clients reviewing collections and arrears, supporting contact strategy and design of communications. 

He has over 20 years experience working across financial services and is passionate about building compelling experience-based customer propositions, underpinned by innovative and intelligent, digital and operational capabilities, with specific areas of interest that include: embedded finance; family and affluent propositions; later life; customer vulnerability; financial wellbeing and assistance; and complaints and dissatisfaction.

Lauren is a subject matter expert on customer vulnerability and is experienced in developing both casework and policy approach’s to supporting victim-survivors of domestic including economic abuse. Lauren is passionate about SEA’s mission to stop economic abuse and under her leadership, the team at SEA supports over 30 major high street banks and building societies in their responses to economic abuse. Lauren has contributed to briefing papers on the Consumer Duty, Insurance and Life Insurance and Mortgages. She has also conducted independent research as part of her master’s degree to shine a light on the psychological impact of economic abuse on victim-survivors post-separation.

Lyndsey Leads Deloitte’s FS Regions business for the Risk Advisory practice and is a partner in the Retail Conduct and Governance team.  Lyndsey has over 20 years specialist experience in conduct risk and regulation and has worked extensively across the Retail Lending sector supporting firms with the implementation of regulatory change and helping them to respond to increased regulatory scrutiny.  Lyndsey leads a range of risk and regulatory related projects across a broad range of topics including Consumer Duty, Collections & Recoveries, Vulnerable Customers and Complaint Handling.

Rebecca is a Senior Credit Risk Consultant - a trusted advisor helping lenders to understand their business needs and deliver improved performance and financial results.

Simon was appointed HSBC's Chief European Economist in 2016. He joined the bank as Chief UK Economist in 2011 following a long and successful career at the Bank of England where he held a number of roles in the Monetary Policy, Financial Stability and Markets areas of the Bank. Simon also worked for two years at the Monetary Authority of Singapore, heading a team in the Macroeconomic Surveillance Department. Since 2015, he has been Head of UK Cross-Asset Research for HSBC.

Gary has over 20 years’ experience of working in financial services, specifically within the retail collections space. In recent years, Gary has led the Mortgage Financial Assistance Strategy within Barclays and has since expanded his role to head up external engagement as well internal policy and regulatory matters linked to financial assistance, working to ensure Barclays remains regulatory complaint and providing the key interlock to the broader strategic plans within the bank. Prior to this Gary has worked across various Strategy and Product owner roles covering all retail lending products, as well as time leading Control, CRA and MI functions.