Nusrat Ghani was appointed Minister of State at the Department for Business and Trade and as the Minister of State responsible for the Investment Security Unit at the Cabinet Office on 7 February 2023.

She was previously Minister of State at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy from 27 October 2022 to 7 February 2023, and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Transport from January 2018 to February 2020. Nusrat was a Government Whip between July 2019 and December 2019, and an Assistant Government Whip from January 2018 to July 2019. The Investment Security Unit moved from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to the Cabinet Office in February 2023. Minister Ghani continues to be responsible for the Unit.

The Unit is responsible for identifying, addressing and mitigating national security risks to the UK arising when a person gains control of a qualifying asset or qualifying entity as set out in the National Security and Investment Act.

Education
Nusrat was the first woman in her family to be formally educated. She attended state comprehensive school before studying at Birmingham City University (BA Government and Politics) and Leeds University (MA International Relations).

Political career
Nusrat was elected Conservative MP for Wealden in 2015. In parliament Nusrat has been a member of a number of Select Committees, including:

• Business Energy and Industrial Strategy Select Committee (2020 to 2022)
• Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission (2017 to 2018)
• Foreign Affairs Committee (2017 to 2018)
• Armed Forces Bill Committee (2015)
• Home Affairs Committee (2015 to 2017)

Most recently, in her role as a member of the BEIS Select Committee, she has led on a number of enquires, including a probe into the use of Uyghur slave labour in UK supply chains. Nusrat was part of the UK delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly from 2020 to 2022 and the Rapporteur of the Science and Technology Committee. For her work in raising awareness of the plight of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, Nusrat was nominated for the NATO Women of Peace and Security Prize, finishing runner-up to the Honourable Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.

Career outside politics
Before beginning her career in politics, Nusrat was employed by the charities Age UK and Breakthrough Breast Cancer, and later for the BBC World Service.

Baroness Vere was appointed Treasury Lords Minister on 14th November 2023. She was previously Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Transport from 23rd April 2019, and Government Whip (Baroness in Waiting) prior to that. Before entering politics, Charlotte spent 4 years as the Executive Director of the Girls’ Schools Association, including 6 months as the General Secretary of the Independent Schools Council. 

Prior to that she was the CEO of Big White Wall, an online mental health service, and Finance Director at Recruit Media, a digital recruitment agency. Her early career was spent in investment banking. Baroness Vere holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. As Treasury Lords Minister, Baroness Vere’s responsibilities include sanctions, women in finance, economic security and illicit finance, international climate and nature finance, ESG in financial services, and green finance.

Hedwige Nuyens is an influential leader in the Finance industry. As the CEO of the International Banking Federation, she represents the banking sector at international level. 

Hedwige’s pro bono work is dedicated to gender diversity, be it as a mentor, coach, speaker and for 2 years as Chair of European Women on Boards. She is also Member of the G7 Gender Equality Advisory Council for 2023, held under the Japanese Presidency.

Hedwige holds a Faculty of Law and a master's in financial sciences from the Catholic University Louvain, a master's in business administration and finance from the EHSAL Brussels. She followed courses on Digital Transformation at INSEAD, on Sustainable Finance at Cambridge, on Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning at MIT and on Cyber Security at Harvard. 

Susannah specialises in financial crime and related regulatory work. She advises a range of clients across industries on anti-money laundering, anti-corruption, sanctions fraud and insider dealing issues, providing compliance and transactional advice, investigating potential wrongdoing, and supporting clients responding to regulatory and criminal investigations.

Susannah has been ranked as Band 1 for 'Financial Crime: Corporates' by Chambers UK from 2011 to date, described as "a pleasure to deal with [who] is both extremely knowledgeable and practical". Legal 500 recognises her in the Hall of Fame for Corporate Crime, and Who's Who Legal as a Thought Leader for Investigations and Business Crime Defence (Corporates). She was named in Global Investigation Review's inaugural "40 under 40" list of 'the world's leading young investigations specialists' in 2014. Who’s Who Legal (2021) comments: "she has experience in some of the biggest investigations in the market" and is regarded as a “great strategist and technically impressive”. Chambers UK (2020) comments that "she is a legend in the world of financial crime" who is "super bright and very impressive".

 Susannah is a member of the Law Society’s Money Laundering Taskforce and the City of London Law Society Corporate Crime and Corruption Committee.

Anila represents over 300 firms on sanctions compliance and export controls implementation at UK Finance, the collective voice for the banking and finance sector. This includes advancing work with international regulatory bodies, governments and enforcement agencies to align on foreign policy objectives via public and private sector information.

Winner of the 2023 ICA Europe Awards, Anila is recognised and celebrated as Founder of the Women in Sanctions Forum and Co-host of the UK Finance Sanctions School podcast series, regularly bridging the gap as a generational leader promoting Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.

Clare Davies is the Sanctions Compliance Director in the Financial Crime Advisory and Governance team at Crédit Agricole CIB, London Branch. Clare has worked in the Financial Crime department of Crédit Agricole CIB since 2018 and, whilst having broader financial crime remit, has specialised in sanctions compliance across the different regimes since 2020 with a strong focus on Russia/Ukraine sanctions. Clare is responsible for local UK sanctions-related policies and procedures, advising on complex sanctions escalations relating to transactions and/or clients as well as providing guidance and training on sanctions and wider financial crime related matters.

Clare joined Crédit Agricole CIB from MUFG Bank, Ltd., where she held roles in sanctions advisory and investigations.

Elizabeth advises and represents clients on a wide range of corporate crime matters, including in respect of corruption, fraud and money laundering issues. She has a particular focus on sanctions, advising on the sanctions risks associated with transactions / structures, and on financial crime and sanctions compliance programmes.

 Elizabeth has significant experience of internal and external investigations, including investigations conducted by, or at the request of, regulators such as the SFO, FCA and HMRC, and also has experience of compliance monitor work, acting as part of the team appointed as a result of a company's settlement of corruption allegations with the World Bank and the SFO. Her sanctions practice principally involves advising a range of multinationals and financial institutions, in particular in relation to EU and UK sanctions against Russia, Libya and Iran.

Linda Isabel Ngesa is the Legal Coordinator of the ICRC’s Regional Delegation for the UK and Ireland. As such, she advises the delegation on all matters related to the application of international law, including international humanitarian law (IHL). She has worked for the ICRC for nine years in different contexts covering different files including ICRC protection activities, Humanitarian Diplomacy and Legal Advisory in Geneva.

Natalie has worked at Marsh McLennan for over 11 years covering the full range of financial crime risks including anti-bribery and corruption, money laundering and trade sanctions.  Natalie is now Head of Sanctions & AML, responsible for the company’s sanctions and AML framework and providing advice to the business on the many and increasingly complex sanctions that may affect our company globally. Marsh McLennan’s services include insurance broking, health and benefits and management consultancy so sanctions questions are frequent and varied.

Previous jobs in communications and change management have provided an invaluable background for work on the many financial crime developments over recent years, such as implementing new anti-bribery laws and managing the increasing numbers of complex trade sanctions and export control regulations.

Anti-money Laundering and Sanctions professional with a background gained over nine years across several sectors, including e-commerce, financial services, banking, payments and corporate. Sara has been at GlaxoSmithKline for the past four years leading their sanctions compliance programme, a role that has allowed her to develop valuable experience in managing various stakeholder groups across the organisation, mastering resilience through the delivery of key sanctions compliance changes.

Tanya Murphy is an Associate Director of Compliance at AstraZeneca, where she co-leads the Trade Controls programme with a particular focus on sanctions. Among other responsibilities at AstraZeneca Tanya supports the overall strategy of the Trade Controls programme, ensuring compliance with global sanctions and export controls.

Tanya works with the business to ensure AstraZeneca is able to continue providing life-saving medicines to all patients in need whilst complying with legal requirements.

Victoria is a Principal Associate in the Corporate Crime and Investigations Team at Eversheds Sutherland (International) LLP. Her specific areas of expertise are financial sanctions and anti-money laundering ("AML").

With over 10 years of experience, Victoria is a highly regarded specialist in areas of AML, international financial sanctions, internal investigations and remediation.  She primarily advises a range of global top tier financial institutions and corporate entities and also has extensive experience in respect of criminal and regulatory investigations, prosecutions/enforcement and self-disclosure in the context of sanctions violations.

Victoria has experience in:

• leading on large scale investigations in respect of potential US, EU and UK sanctions violations, working internationally across the US and UK;
• providing strategic advice to a range of multinationals and financial institutions regarding sanctions and AML policies and procedures;
• providing strategic advice regarding sanctions and AML remediation programmes;
• conducting independent audits and risk assessments upon AML and sanctions control frameworks;
• defending claims made under the Equality Act in so far as they relate to actions taken in alleged compliance with financial sanctions; and
• advising on the day-today application of sanctions in the context of financial transactions and arrangements.