Archives: Ambassadors

Ian began his career in financial services in 1982 at a leading UK Building Society, having then trained as a financial adviser and worked for a direct sales force and an IFA, Ian joined the compliance team of a National IFA.

 

Following a period working for the Regulator and as Head of Training and Development for an employee benefits consultancy, Ian set up his own risk and compliance consultancy, Compliance Matters UK Limited, in January 2004. Since then, Ian has worked with a number of national and multinational asset managers as well as some regional and local advisory businesses helping them through the regulatory hurdles of the Insurance Distribution Directive, GDPR, MiFID II and pension freedoms.

 

Away from financial services, Ian pursues his love of many different genres of music, watches football and being born in Islington is a fan of Arsenal FC. Ian lives in West Sussex with his partner and has an adult daughter and two adult step-sons.

Since 1992, Laurence Wormald has held positions at several central banks, investment
banks and financial technology firms. He is now working as an independent consultant in
investment risk management.

 

Laurence started his career as a university lecturer in
theoretical physics, before joining an investment team at the Bank for International Settlements in Basle in 1992. He went on to work at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt
and the at the Bank of England (Monetary Analysis Division) until 2002, supporting the economic research and monetary policy committees at those central banks.

 

After a spell as chief risk officer for a London-based proprietary trading unit of Deutsche Bank until 2008, for 10 years Laurence held the position of head of research at FIS’ buy-side, valuation and trading businesses, responsible for the team which developed and maintains the widely-used multi-asset-class market factor risk model APT.

Risk management underpins all modern finance as the essential discipline for practitioners and financial product development. The integrity of the models which are used in risk management is critical to transparency and policy-making across banking, investment management and trading. Laurence has served on the councils of academic institutions such as the Centre for Computational Finance at Essex University, and with professional
societies such as Inquire UK, to try to develop the most intuitive and rigorous models for pricing and risk management.

Tom is 57, has had a moustache since long before facial hair became fashionable, rides a Triumph Tiger in London and a Harley Davidson elsewhere, rows 5km in 20 minutes on his machine most mornings and is a decade into learning the art of Tai Chi. He’s proud that LifeSearch customers rate it 4.6/5 on TrustPilot and that the whole business talks about their values of Care, Tolerance, Openness, Honesty and Excellence about 5 times more than they talk about profit, but he’s most proud of Angus, Patrick and Carolina and his 29 year and counting marriage to their mum Alison.

 

Tom Baigrie is the founder and CEO of LifeSearch, a business that every week helps over 2,000 people protect themselves and their families against the financial catastrophe that death or disability can cause. Tom started LifeSearch back in 1998 and called it that because it searches out the best covers from all the UKs insurers. Today LifeSearch’s 500 strong team is recommended by Money Saving Expert, Compare the Market, Moneysupermarket, Lloyd’s Bank, Which? and many others and is thus the largest protection intermediary in the UK. Since 1998, Tom and LifeSearch have seen more than 85 industry judging panels deem them the best at what they do, but the award that Tom is proudest of is LifeSearch’s third place, at the first time of entering, in the ‘Sunday Times Top 100 Companies to Work For’ listing.

 

Tom set up LifeSearch originally because he saw banks ripping off customers with policies he could arrange for far lower premiums by shopping around and giving customers proper protection advice. Ever since he’s felt that leading financial services retailers should shape their market and has thus long campaigned for better insurer and distributor practices. His statement that “The claim is our core product, not the policy” is amongst the most widely quoted in today’s UK protection market.

Gareth is a leading expert on advice and technology, particularly applying to the relationship between state benefits and financial products.

 

After a number of years working on advice and technology projects for Cardiff Citizens Advice Bureaux and for the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux, during which his project won the British Computer Society Award, he founded Ferret Information Systems, which is Europe’s leading specialist company providing social welfare advice technology and consultancy.

 

Amongst other leading-edge developments, Ferret produced the world’s first large scale roll-out of mobile technology in government and the world’s first WWW advice system in 1995.

Ferret works within the financial services area on tools for assessing sustainability and affordability and for holistic assessments of financial circumstances for customers.

Ferret produces the Future Benefits Model which models the effects of welfare benefits schemes on a rolling five year horizon and is widely used by researchers in academic and other organisations.

 

 

Gareth speaks, broadcasts and writes widely on welfare reform, social security, the practice and technology of advice work, and on the application of mobile technology, in the UK and abroad

Liz’s work is centred around discovering and putting values into practice – at a personal level, in organisations and in society as a whole. She combines 20+ years’ experience in culture and leadership development in international financial services organisations with science-based mind-body practices to advise, mentor and develop leaders driving organisational change and developing values-driven cultures.

 

The UK Values Alliance is a non-profit collaborative group seeking to put values at the heart of society by helping individuals and organisations become more aware of, understand and live their values.

 

As a steering group member, Liz is part of the leadership team that co-ordinates World Values Day, a successful global campaign to bring attention to values and values-based action around the world.

Governance, culture and risk management consultant, expert witness, trainer and author

 

Paul is an acknowledged expert in corporate governance and risk management and for 13 years led ACCA’s (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) global thought leadership on these subjects.  He now works with boards and executive teams in assessing and improving their culture and governance and risk management practices to improve organisational performance and resilience.  He also writes and trains boards and others on governance, board effectiveness, risk, business ethics and corporate culture and recently wrote a text book on corporate governance for ICSA.

 

Paul is visiting professor of Corporate Governance at London South Bank University, co-chairman of the CRSA Forum, a network of practitioners established in 1994 interested in the behavioural and cultural aspects of risk, governance and organisational performance, a fellow of scenario and futures consultants SAMI Consulting, a board member of the UK Policy Governance Association and an editorial board member of a governance journal.  He is a trustee of a sailing club and has been chairman of a small housing charity, and started and sold a successful small retail and printing business.

 

Paul is a chartered accountant and a chartered secretary and earlier in his career was a company secretary and group financial controller of a small UK listed company and then a larger unlisted company with 5,000 staff.

 

His publications include:

 

ICSA’s Certificate in Corporate Governance 2018

 

Incentivising ethics 2016

Capitalism and the Concept of the ‘Public Good’

Culture and Channelling Corporate Behaviour Summary of Findings.

Creating Value Through Governance: Towards a New Accountability.

Risk and Reward Tempering the Pursuit of Profit.

Corporate Governance and the Credit Crunch

Siva has 20 years international experience in senior roles in industry sectors including brand deployment / franchising / financial services / technology / professional services / construction / real estate / building materials in Fortune 500 and in private equity backed organisations.

 

He has lived and worked in the UK, Continental Europe & Asia Pacific.

 

He also dedicates time every week to pro bono / altruistic work to make a difference where possible and is a strong believer that every single person can make a difference for the better

Martin Rich is a sustainability and impact investment specialist, with over 20 years’ experience in both mainstream and social investment.

Martin co-founded Future-Fit Foundation 5 years ago with a vision of helping create a society which is environmentally restorative, socially just and economically inclusive. The foundation’s free-to-use tools enable businesses to take practical steps towards – and ultimately beyond – the SDGs, and empower investors to understand the total impact of their portfolios and thus direct capital accordingly.

Martin previously spent 7 years as Sales Director at Social Finance Ltd, where he focused on developing the investor base for social impact investments, including the first Social Impact Bonds. Before that he worked for 13 years in international investment banking on structured debt and derivative products for JP Morgan, HSBC and UBS.

Martin has a passion for sustainable development and poverty relief, focusing his pro bono efforts in both the UK and internationally with Access Foundation, Social Investment Business, Panahpur Foundation, and Christian Aid. He is also a former member of the Asset Allocation Working Group for the G7 Social Investment Task Force.

Sue is an independent Board member and consultant. She is a Trustee Director at The People’s Pension, a leading UK multi-employer scheme. She is also a Trustee of UK national charities StepChange debt charity, the FairBanking Foundation and Surviving Economic Abuse. Until December 2018, Sue chaired the Financial Services Consumer Panel, an independent statutory body that advises the UK Financial Conduct Authority on consumer issues in financial services regulation.

 

Sue is a member representative on the EIOPA Occupational Pensions Stakeholder Group, and was previously a member of of the European Commission’s Financial Services User Group. She is also a consultant specialising in financial education, financial inclusion and consumer protection regulation, working with international organisations such as the OECD and Alliance for Financial Inclusion.

 

Sue was previously a senior civil servant, working in HM Treasury, the Cabinet Office and Department for Education.

 

Sue has a B.Sc degree in Mathematics and a Masters degree in Statistical Methods.

Antony Elliott is founder of The Fairbanking Foundation. He spent over ten years as Group Risk Director of a major retail bank having worked for UK and international banks previously.

 

He has been actively involved in researching the field of financial well-being (“FWB”) since 2004 and has many published reports. The Fairbanking Foundation was formed as a charity in 2008 to improve FWB through better financial products and services. It conducts research, provides advice and is the certification body for the Fairbanking Mark. The Foundation is the only accredited certification body for financial products in the UK.

 

He has worked on financial capability measurement and behaviour change with MAS and its predecessor body (CFEB), currently sitting on the Research and Evaluation Group.

 

Antony has a degree in Banking and International Finance from City University and a master’s in Operational Research from Imperial College, London. In 2014 he was awarded an OBE for services to bank customers.