In his role as managing director of personal finance, Eric is responsible for all personal finance matters, including cards, complaints handling, conduct regulation, consumer credit, payments, savings and supporting vulnerable customers across retail and private banking portfolios. Eric is accountable to retail, private and mid-tier bank CEOs for the development and delivery of sector specific strategies, maintaining active senior-level engagement with politicians, regulators, consumer advocates and policy makers on a range of issues to support the economy, serve customers better and earn trust in the sector.

Eric is a chartered banker and a non-executive director at the Buckinghamshire Building Society (chair of risk), Registry Trust Limited and also holds non-executive roles on the government's Credit Union Expansion Project and Regional Growth Fund.

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.

Conor leads the Capital Markets and Wholesale team which covers a series of strategically important initiatives spanning primary, secondary, post-trade, and international markets policy.

Prior to joining UK Finance Conor worked in a range of UK government departments including HM Treasury where he worked on financial crisis intervention schemes and was a member of the Government Economic Service. Most recently, Conor spent a number of years at UK Financial Investments, the arm's-length government body responsible for managing the UK government's shareholdings and loans in financial assets, where he was responsible for work on Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley.

Ian leads the delivery of UK Finance’s sustainability strategy, working with UK and international regulators to shape the sustainable finance and net zero policy landscape. He has held policy advisory roles in the UK Government and European Commission, including head of international sustainable finance at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and senior advisor to former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney for the COP26 climate conference. He was previously a commodities and environmental markets analyst, covering Asian and European markets.

David is an Associate Director at Global Counsel. Before joining GC he worked for the UK trade body for the banking, payments and finance sectors leading on engagement across payments, innovation and cryptoassets from a public policy and regulatory engagement perspective in the UK, EU and internationally.

David has also previously worked in the Payments and Fintech team for the UK finance ministry, advising on international engagement, trade policy, payments and fintech. Previously David also worked for a global think tank.

At Global Counsel, David works in the Financial Services practice across the EU and UK, with a wide focus across financial services but a particular specialism on payments, fintech and digital assets. David works with senior leaders in many GC clients to deepen and develop their engagement with public policymaking.

Sarah is Managing Director of Corporate Affairs and Strategic Policy and is responsible for the overall strategy and delivery of UK Finance’s external activity including press and campaigns, UK and international advocacy, regulatory policy, sustainability policy, content, design and marketing.

Prior to joining UK Finance, Sarah was Director of Media Relations at London Stock Exchange Group and has worked across a range of corporate affairs and policy disciplines at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Association of British Insurers. She also worked as press secretary to Andrew Bailey as Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, acting as his Special Adviser when he then became the FCA’s Chief Executive.

Sarah is also a trustee of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Charlie Walker is Head of Equity and Fixed Income Primary Markets for the London Stock Exchange Group having joined in 2018. He is a capital markets specialist having previously worked within J.P. Morgan Cazenove’s Equity Capital Markets team responsible for originating and executing equity transactions. He has assisted in raising over £45bn of equity capital across five continents on behalf of clients. During his time at JPMC, Charlie also worked in Sydney raising capital for companies on the Australian Stock Exchange as well as taking primary responsibility for the South African equity capital markets practice

Helen Boyd joined the FSA (as was) in July 2008 as part of the Capital Markets Sector Team and became a Technical Specialist in the OTC Derivatives and Post Trade Policy team.  In 2014, she became Manager of the Trading Conduct and Settlement Policy team and was responsible for, among other things, policy related to market abuse, settlement, short selling issues, primary markets and FX.  More recently, Helen has moved to the role of Head of Department for Markets Policy at the FCA on an acting up basis where she oversees the teams working across the full array of wholesale policy issues including Benchmarks and Primary and Secondary Markets.

Prior to joining the FSA/FCA, Helen spent 7 years working at the Royal Bank of Canada as a member and Head of the Structured Transaction Management team that was part of the Structured Products group specialising in credit derivatives.   She is a Chartered Financial Analyst Charterholder.

Virginia is a Member of Listing Authority Advisory Panel and expert panel for Mark Austin on his Secondary Capital Markets Review. Virginia has 20 years+ UK Investment Banking experience advised on IPOs of Trustpilot, THG and Aston Martin; joint global co-ordinator for rights issues for The Restaurant Group and Whitbread and financial adviser the demerger of Ninety One from Investec and the sale of Entertainment One to Hasbro.

Jonathan Rogers is a partner in our Financial Services Regulatory team based in London.

Jonathan is well known for acting at the forefront of heavily regulated FS sector projects requiring the execution of complex commercial and technological change. Jonathan guides financial services clients in the development and launch of their products and services and in the implementation of regulatory change projects. He also supports clients in their licencing, governance, and compliance arrangements and in their relationships with regulators.

Jonathan advises clients on the full range of FCA and PRA regulation and represents both international and domestic clients from the fintech, banking and lending, payments, asset management, broker/dealer, and insurance sectors. Jonathan has nearly 20 years of experience; prior to joining White & Case, he was a partner at a leading international law firm where he led their Financial Services Regulatory group in London.

Nuala Jackson is Director of Payments at UK Finance, a strategic leadership role driving where she is responsible for driving co-ordination and collaboration across the industry to respond to the regulatory, legislative and industry change agenda for payments in the UK and Europe.

Nuala joined UK Finance in 2022 bringing 20 years of banking and financial services experience and is highly experienced in the delivery of complex change within a highly regulated environment. 

Prior to joining UK Finance, Nuala worked for Santander (UK), where most recently she was a Senior Manager - Payments Industry & Oversight, there, she was responsible for the UK bank’s Payments Change Roadmap, with leadership and oversight across a number of large-scale Industry change programmes, delivering some of the most complex and far-reaching changes the banking industry has seen in more than a generation.

Before, Santander (UK), Nuala spent a number years working at HSBC in both the UK Bank and in Group in a variety of roles.

Alison has recently joined BDO as a Special Adviser on Regulation in our Financial Services Advisory practice. Alison has been leading our work on the new Consumer Duty based on her recent regulatory experience. Alison is a regulatory expert with deep understanding of the UK financial regulatory regimes and approach. Prior to working at BDO, Alison spent over 12 years at the FCA and was a Director in Supervision. Previously, Alison was in senior roles in KPMG’s regulatory practice and at TSB Life, Pensions and Unit Trust Companies. Alison is also an Independent Non-Executive Director at the Consumer Codes Approval Board.

Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted is a former MEP for the South East and Chair of the European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee. She became an MEP in 2005, and made history by being elected as the first Liberal and first Briton to Chair the Parliament's influential Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee (ECON).

In her role as Chair of the European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, she was at the heart of the EU’s response to the financial and Eurozone crisis during the height of the financial crisis. She now sits in the House of Lords as a Liberal Democrat peer.

Oivind is a Principal in the Financial Services practice where he specialises in providing prudential advisory to banks. He brings around 17 years of regulatory experience including eight years at Barclays where he implemented the Basel 2 and 3 for the corporate and investment bank division. Oivind joined BDO in 2014 and has played a pivotal part in building up the prudential function and expanded BDO’s capabilities as prudential subject matter experts. Oivind works with both banks and investment firms at all stages of maturity whether applicants; start-ups; or long established entities.

Katharine Braddick joined Barclays in March in a new role as Group Head of Strategic Policy and senior adviser to the CEO. In this capacity she will define and execute Barclays’ strategic policy agenda, aligning it to Barclays’ multi-jurisdictional government and regulatory landscape. Previously she was Director General for Financial Services at HM Treasury, in which role she also sat on the Financial Stability Board.

Previously she worked at the Bank of England, where she was Director of Prudential Policy, and worked at the UK Financial Services Authority in a variety of roles. She began her career in the civil service and has also worked at the Association of British Insurers, leading on regulation of general insurance. Katharine was educated at the Universities of Warwick and Cambridge.

William Wright is the founder and managing director of New Financial, a think tank and forum that makes the case for bigger and better capital markets in Europe. New Financial believes Europe needs bigger and better capital markets – and that this represents a huge opportunity for the industry and its customers to embrace change and rethink how capital markets work.

He was one of the co-founders of Financial News in March 1996 and was Editor of the publication between 2004 and 2011, and worked closely on its acquisition by the Wall Street Journal in 2007.

He studied at Oxford and London universities and at INSEAD.

Kate is a Director in KPMG’s EMA Financial Services Regulatory Insights Centre, leading on Digital Finance and Capital Markets regulation. Before joining KPMG, Kate worked for more than a decade in Compliance and Operations in investment banks in London and New York as well as spending four years supervising investment banks while at the FCA.
 

Heenal is a Principal Knowledge Lawyer in the Financial Services Regulatory team at Addleshaw Goddard, with a particular focus on FinTech and payments. Heenal has extensive experience advising FinTechs and financial market infrastructure, particularly in relation to the development of new DLT platforms.

Lauren is a commercial data and technology lawyer with a particular focus on consumer and regulated datasets particularly in the retail, government, energy and health sectors. Her experience includes both government and corporate transactions and advice primarily focusing on the use and exploitation of data. Lauren was named “30 under 30” for TMT Australian in 2021.

Gavin is a well-established commentator on regulation, posting a daily blog on regulatory developments and (with David Morrey) presenting our monthly Regulatory and Regulation Unravelled podcast. He also writes the foreword for Grant Thornton’s weekly Regulatory Update newsletter, as well as guest articles and podcasts for other organisations.

He has 27 years’ experience working for financial services’ regulators (Bank of England, FSA & FCA), holding a wide variety of roles including as a bank supervisor, FSA Head of Strategy, Planning & Performance, and FCA Chief Risk Officer. He joined Grant Thornton in 2016.

John Glen was Economic Secretary to the Treasury and City Minister between January 2018 and July 2022. As the longest serving City minister, he led the government’s ambitious programme of post-Brexit reforms of the financial services regulatory framework, and championed important issues such as access to cash and tacking fraud. The Financial Services and Markets Bill is the legislative vehicle for delivering many of the reforms that he authored.

Rhiannon joined UK Finance's predecessor in 2010. Rhiannon is a Principal in Policy responsible for payments and cash policy. She currently manages the Cash Services unit, which coordinates the industry on operational cash issues. She also provides thought leadership on policy issues to support the UK Finance objectives in respect of the business, operational and technical aspects of regulation, government requirements and market innovations in payments and cash more generally. She has previously led work on Open Banking, SEPA, Government Engagement with the payment systems, Digital ID, and card payments.

Prior to joining UK Finance, Rhiannon completed an MPhil at Cambridge. She has also worked for an MP and as a researcher for a global hedge fund.

Steve has worked in the financial services industry for nearly 30 years.  He has extensive experience in risk management and leading the development and execution of firm’s compliance, conduct risk and financial crime strategies. Steve joined OSB Group in June 2017 having previously worked in senior compliance roles for Aldermore Bank and GE Capital. He also worked for the regulator (FSA) as a conduct supervisor between 2004 and 2007.’

Melissa Ocampo joined SMBC Bank International as the Head of Sustainability Strategy in February 2021. Her mandate includes developing the bank’s commercial offering for clients related to ESG advice and sustainable financing, capacity building in the areas of Sustainability risk and disclosure, engaging with customers, employees, and other stakeholders on the topic of Sustainability and Climate Change and helping SMBC achieve their 2030 financed emissions reductions targets. Melissa is a member of the UK Finance Sustainability Committee and the AFME Sustainable Finance Steering Committee.

Prior to joining SMBC, Melissa was the Head of Sustainability and Inclusion for HSBC’s Wealth and Personal Banking business, where she oversaw proposition development, ESG risk management, playing a key role in delivering HSBC’s award-winning ESG report, and employee engagement for the division. Melissa holds a Post-Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Business from the Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership, where she focused on integration of ESG into bank business models and did primary research on the role of ESG reporting in improving sustainability performance. Prior to this she worked in a variety of roles in the US and UK including in strategy, operations, and client-facing roles. Melissa is passionate about Disability inclusion; she is involved with SMBC’s Disability Employee Resource Group and previously served as a non-executive director for the London-based charity the Business Disability Forum.

Yasmin Raza is Manager of the ESG Market Intelligence and Engagement Team at the Financial Conduct Authority. She leads the FCA’s external ESG relationships and horizon scanning work. She has experience across financial regulation, consultancy and central government. Yasmin is an experienced financial services policy professional, passionate about delivering a sustainable financial system that serves people and planet. She represents the UK FCA on various global standard setting bodies, including the IOSCO Sustainable Finance Task Force. She is a member of the Oxford University Sustainable Finance course alumni, and holds expertise in topics such as ESG data & ratings, greenwashing, green FinTech, climate risk, stranded assets, and TCFD disclosures.

Tallat is senior environmental counsel at White & Case LLP, advising corporate and finance clients throughout the Americas, UK and EMEA. She has unique and diverse industry experience in international environmental and social regulatory requirements and compliance standards such as the OECD and World Bank Group. Tallat is considered a trusted advisor on sustainable finance, business and human rights and ESG, including the UN Paris Agreement and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Her practice includes corporate supply chain compliance, non-financial disclosure and carbon trading.

Simon Persoff is a Partner in the Clifford Chance Tech Digital Group, based in London. He has over two decades of experience helping clients find positive solutions to complex legal and regulatory challenges on a range of issues including data protection and privacy, cyber security and the structuring and negotiation of complex commercial, outsourcing, IT transformation and corporate development projects.