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A graduate of King’s College, London, Steve joined Slaughter & May in 1970 where he qualified and was admitted as a solicitor, and a member of the Law Society in April 1972.

Steve practiced in the tax and corporate departments, and in 1975 he joined the legal department of Imperial Chemical industries Plc. In 1984, he was appointed one of ICI’s two assistant company secretary’s. In 1985 he was appointed Joint Secretary and General Counsel of Unilever in 1986, holding this office for 25 years. At Unilever, he was responsible for all legal, intellectual property and secretarial departments in the Head Offices in London and Rotterdam and was also responsible for Unilever legal services worldwide.  Steve current roles include: directorships at Croda International, Eversheds LLP, Spencer Stuart and Whitbread.

Christa has been a litigation partner since 1996, for the last six years at Linklaters.  She advises banks, financial services institutions and corporates on all aspects of contentious work – much of it multi-jurisdictional.  She has conducted numerous internal investigations in various sectors, from the confidential to those carried out with considerable publicity.  She has advised on crisis management in various contexts.  She is particularly used to dealing with situations in which the risks and demands of civil litigation have to be managed alongside the prospect of regulatory enforcement.

Darren joined Tesco PLC in 2011, where he is Deputy Company Secretary and a corporate lawyer.  As part of his role, Darren supports the Group Company Secretary and the Tesco PLC Board on legal, governance and company secretarial matters.    He has overseen a number of Tesco Annual General Meetings and has significant experience of shareholder campaigns.   Darren also acts as Company Secretary to many of Tesco’s UK businesses.   Darren joined Tesco from city law firm, CMS Cameron McKenna LLP, where as a senior corporate lawyer, he advised both public and private companies on a wide range of corporate and commercial transactions.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe was appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Department for Business, Innovation & Skills and Minister for Intellectual Property in July 2014. She has been a Conservative member of the House of Lords since 2013.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe joined Tesco plc in 1997 and was an executive director on the main Board from 2006-2013.

Earlier in her career, Baroness Neville-Rolfe worked as a civil servant in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and in the Prime Minister’s Policy Unit. She served as Director of the Deregulation Unit in the Cabinet Office from 1995-1997.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe previously sat on the boards of several major businesses, including serving as a non-executive director of ITV plc and of 2 Sisters Food Group, a large privately owned UK food producer, as a member of the supervisory board of Metro Group, a large German-based international retailer and wholesaler, and on PWC’s advisory Board. She is a member of the London Business School’s Governing Body.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe served as President of EuroCommerce, the pan-European retail and wholesale trade association from 2012-2014. In 2007 she won a European Women of Achievement Award.

Allan Cook was appointed a non-executive director of WS Atkins in September 2009, taking up the post of chairman on 1 February 2010. He is a chartered engineer with more than 30 years’ international experience in the automotive, aerospace and defence industries. He was chief executive of Cobham PLC until the end of December 2009. Prior to this he held senior roles at GEC-Marconi, BAE Systems and Hughes Aircraft.  He is deputy chairman of Marshall of Cambridge (Holdings) Limited and a member of the operating executive board of J.F. Lehman & Company. He is chairman of the Skills & Jobs Retention Group, chairman of the Sector Skills Council for Science, Engineering and Manufacturing Technologies (SEMTA). He is also lead Non-Executive Member of the Departmental Board for the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills, and was chairman of UK Trade & Investment’s Advanced Engineering Sector Advisory Board until October 2013. He was chairman of FINMECCANICA UK Ltd and chairman of Selex ES until the end of December 2014.  He was past president of the Aerospace and Defence Industries Association of Europe (ASD) and past president of the Society of British Aerospace and Defence Companies (SBAC). He was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours list in 2008. He is a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering where he is Vice President and serves as a trustee for the Academy. He also chairs the Academy’s employer-focused Diversity Leadership Group, part of the BIS STEM Diversity Programme.

Andrew is responsible for representing The Investment Association members interests as institutional investors on corporate governance and engagement matters. He has oversight of The Investment Association’s Institutional Voting Information Service (IVIS), corporate governance policy development and company consultations or collective engagement with the companies in which Investment Association members invest. Andrew joined The Investment Association in June 2014, through merger of the Investment Affairs division of the ABI with the IMA. He joined the ABI in 2005 as a Corporate Governance Analyst and was promoted to Head of IVIS in October 2011 and Head of Corporate Governance in January 2012.  Before joining the ABI, Andrew was a Socially Responsible Investment analyst at HSBC, having joined HSBC’s graduate scheme in 2001 after reading Economics at the University of Bath.

Tom joined Barratt as General Counsel and Company Secretary at the beginning of April 2011. Prior to that he was company secretary and general counsel of United Utilities . He was a senior legal adviser for Gallaher from 2000 to 2002 after 16 years with Simmons & Simmons, where he was made a partner in May 1991.

From 2002 until 2007 he was company secretary and general counsel of Gallaher Group Plc and a board appointed member of Gallaher’s corporate responsibility committee, managing the corporate affairs, legal and security and brand protection departments and acting as secretary to the Plc board and its principal committees.

He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, an accredited mediator, and is a non-executive director of FMI and a member of its risk committee. He has also served as a non-executive director of the SRA and been a member of its Standards, Finance and Resources and Risk committees since 2009.

David is a Senior Audit Partner in the UK Risk Advisory Practice and one of Deloitte’s most experienced global partners in the areas of governance, risk and internal control.  He has a track record of delivering the highest levels of client service for large, complex organisations across both the public and private sectors.  David brings many years of experience in working with management teams to transform their Risk and Assurance activities and to deliver the variety of focussed assurance provision that the modern organisation needs.

Having worked on many large projects at a senior level, David has the experience and ability to understand the requirements of  a complex global organisation and to turn these into a delivery plan that is of the highest standard.  Having worked on a number of high profile investigations, David has specialised in working with organisation to remediate the findings and in doing so seeks to blend the critical elements of culture, risk management, internal control and assurance into a comprehensive yet practical plan.

David has a track record of having worked in similar roles within many organisations including, Interpublic, Department for Transport, Rural Payments Agency, the Home Office, NHS, Pepsi Co, Siemens, IBM and ITV.  David has a pragmatic approach to assurance that ensures the necessary comfort is delivered in the most cost effective manner.

David specialises in risk and controls transformation projects, encompassing Enterprise Risk Management, SOX and Integrated Assurance.  His work in the area of Assurance Frameworks that link risk management to internal control and corporate governance, where his specific skills includes:-

• Providing assurance over the extended enterprise – both up and downwards.
• Working with Stakeholders to develop new assurance frameworks as a response to changing needs or regulatory requirements.

Dan is Unit Head of Cyber at Novae and is responsible for leading business development for the Novae intangible risks portfolio. He is an experienced multi-class underwriter with expertise in Cyber, Reputational Risk, Intellectual Property, Supply Chain insurance, Political Risks, Contract Frustration and Marin Consequential loss. He was previously at ANV, where he was the Lead Underwriter for their Enterprise Risk Division. Prior to this he spent 10 years at Kiln, most recently as Active Underwriter of the Enterprise Risk Division of Syndicate 510, a division he formed. Other roles included developing Kiln’s Cyber and Reputation Risks account and writing Political Risk and Trade Disruption Insurance within the Marine and Special Risks Division.

Dan studied for an MBA from Henley Management College, UK and a degree from the University of Durham.

Robert initially worked in a benefits consultancy advising companies on employee share schemes and managing a team of share schemes administrators.  He then joined BT’s Company Secretary’s Department where he held a number of roles including share registration and shareholder relations, stock exchange compliance and company secretarial administration for subsidiaries and joint ventures.  In 2001, on the demerger of the O2 mobile business from BT, he was appointed as Assistant Company Secretary to O2 plc (a FTSE 30 company) where he set up up a new Secretariat function.  Following the acquisition of O2 by Telefonica S.A. in 2006, Robert was appointed to the position of Company Secretary, Telefonica Europe plc (the former O2 plc now unlisted) with a reporting line to the Telefonica Secretariat in Madrid.

Michael Kempe joined Capita Asset Services in 2007 after spending 11 years working for the Euroclear Group where he was Head of Issuer and Investor Services,  responsible for creating a harmonised corporate actions platform for the group.  In addition to meeting this challenge in the Belgian, Dutch, French, Irish and UK markets, Michael was Chairman of the European Central Securities Depositories Association’s Working Group 5 and was also co-Chairman of the ISO 15022 Global Market Practices Group defining global market practice in relation to ISO 15022 and corporate actions.

Michael joined the Capita Asset Services board in July 2007 as Operations Director, incorporating responsibility for all industry issues as well as all operations relating to registration, corporate actions, investor relations and corporate reconciliations. In 2010 he became Chief Development Officer of Capita Asset Services and was responsible for all product development, projects and industry issues.

As of March 2015, Michael is now Chief Operating Officer.

Abigail leads responsible investment and corporate governance engagement across all asset classes and markets at Aviva Investors. She compliments this work with public policy advocacy in the UK and Europe on a spectrum of issues from sustainable capital markets through to fiduciary duty and green bonds.

She previously headed up the corporate governance team of The Co-operative Asset Management (TCAM), now Royal London Asset Management, leading on issues such as executive pay, gender & diversity, corporate responsibility, environmental sustainability and ensuring a cutting edge approach to ESG integration and engagement across all asset classes.

During her tenure TCAM received ‘Best Steward of the Year’ in the Financial News Asset Management Awards and Best Users of SRI and Corporate Governance Research – Thomson Reuters Extel SRI-Connect survey (IRRI 2012) as well as providing national pension fund NEST with bespoke responsible investment consultation. In addition, TCAM became the first investor to ascribe to the Stewardship Code and the first to factor in gender into their corporate governance voting policy.

She joined National Grid plc as Assistant Company Secretary in 2011.  Her main role at National Grid is managing the share register and the relationship with registrars and depositary in the US.  She also advise the Board as part of the Company Secretariat team in relation to corporate governance matters and play a key role in the production of the Annual Report and AGM.  She is  also Secretary to the Audit Committee.

Also she started her career with Ernst & Young (now the TMF company secretariat team) in 2005 as part of the graduate program qualifying as a Chartered Secretary in 2007.  Whilst with E&Y/TMF she had the opportunity to undertake a number of secondments and different roles giving me a diverse experience base.

Jonathan has wide experience of board governance in general and additional expertise in risk, audit and control.

A representative selection of his board review clients includes ARM Holdings, Cable & Wireless Communications, Imperial Tobacco, Interserve, Land Securities, Lloyds Banking Group, Mondi, QBE Europe, SSE and Weir Group, as well as non-corporates such as Unilever Pension Fund, The National Trust for Scotland, Macmillan Cancer Support and The Financial Conduct Authority.  In 2007 he got halfway through a board review of Northern Rock before it was prematurely ended by unforeseen circumstances.

Examples of his audit and risk clients are Euroclear, Fresnillo, HSBC and Tesco.

He was previously a partner with PwC in London and Moscow and has been a non-executive director and audit committee chairman of a foreign-owned bank in London.  He is a regular speaker and writer on governance issues and sits on the ICAEW’s Financial Services Risk and Regulation Committee.  In 2011 he was expert witness for FSA Enforcement in a case involving governance and risk management in the London branch of a global wealth manager.

Amanda Swaffield is a director at Deloitte, where she qualified as a chartered accountant in 2000.  After spending 8 years working in the audit practice, specialising in the financial services industry, she joined Deloitte’s UK National Accounting and Audit team where she leads Deloitte’s narrative reporting team and provides technical advice on a range of UK GAAP and IFRS matters.

She is a member of the FRC’s Narrative Reporting Advisory Panel and a member of various ICAEW working parties in respect of new UK GAAP, narrative reporting and integrated reporting.

She is a regular presenter on Stay tuned online, Deloitte’s internet based IFRS and UK financial reporting updates, a contributor to the publication GAAP 2015 and leads the Deloitte annual survey of narrative reporting in the annual reports of listed companies.

An employee since 1996, Robert is responsible for implementing the firm’s corporate governance policy and for engaging with companies on governance and sustainability issues. He is also responsible for advising analysts and portfolio managers regarding the governance profiles of the companies in which we invest and co-ordinating proxy voting activity. Previously, Robert worked at Phillips and Drew for three years. He obtained a B.A. in French from the University of East Anglia. Robert chairs the UK Corporate Governance Forum and is a member of the International Corporate Governance Network.

Carol is a corporate partner at Herbert Smith Freehills and a member of the firm’s Corporate Governance Advisory Team. She has extensive experience of corporate and corporate finance transactions and has particular technical expertise in corporate law, corporate governance and listed company regulation. Carol’s expertise includes advising on company meetings, corporate reporting, the UK Corporate Governance Code, continuing obligations under the Listing, Disclosure and Transparency Rules, market abuse, directors’ duties and board and committee procedures. Her role includes analysing new law and regulation and ensuring that the firm is at the forefront of corporate law and practice.

Iain is a senior corporate partner at Linklaters with over 25 years experience advising UK and international companies. As well as advising on mergers and acquisitions, public offers and reconstructions he advises a number of FTSE 100 companies and other UK and international clients on corporate governance and strategic issues.

Iain frequently advises on matters such as directors duties, continuing obligations under the Listing Rules, disclosure obligations under the Disclosure and Transparency Rules, corporate reporting and compliance with the UK Corporate Governance Code. He also chairs regular gatherings of Linklaters clients which discuss new and developing legal and corporate governance issues enabling the sharing of  experience and best practice.

Carol Arrowsmith is Chairman of the Remuneration Committee for Compass Group plc.  She is also a non-executive director on the Board of Northern Ballet and a member of the board advisory group for a leading search firm.  She has over 25 years’ experience in advising the boards of leading UK and international companies.  She has made an extensive contribution to the development of governance regarding executive pay.

Her previous client portfolio included companies across a range of sectors including pharmaceutical, retail, utilities and resources where she specialised in advising remuneration committees on executive pay matters and how to balance the needs of the company and the expectations of shareholders.

Stuart is responsible for Equiniti’s share registration, investor analytics, corporate actions and bereavement services.

He has over 30 years experience in the financial services industry, including a number of roles at Lloyds Banking Group ranging from retail to corporate banking, which included working at Lloyds Bank’s Stock Exchange branch during “big-bang” in 1986 and the stock market crash of 1987.

Stuart was part of the team that formed Equiniti in October 2007 and has had a variety of roles within the business, including Head of Business Development & Marketing and Director of Client Services.

Stuart is ACIB (Chartered Institute of Bankers) qualified.

Formerly with Thomson Financial and the London Stock Exchange, Jonathan now works closely with issuers, institutional investors, government agencies, industry bodies and associations to represent Broadridge’s investor communication solutions business in the UK and Ireland, in particular with a view to helping investors and issuers to maximise communications, increase transparency and identify cost-savings in the proxy voting space. There is a continued focus in the UK for increased transparency and disclosure and Broadridge has the solutions and domain experience to help firms meet this ongoing requirement. In addition, Jonathan is a member of the ICGN, ECGI and UK IR Society, and sits on the UK Shareholder Voting Working Group.

Simon Osborne is Chief Executive and a Fellow of ICSA. He qualified first as a solicitor in 1973.

Before taking up his current role, Simon was a freelance governance consultant. In that capacity he acted as the Joint Head of ICSA Board Evaluation, working with companies, UK regulators and other organisations.

Until April 2003 Simon’s career was in the British railway industry as general counsel, company secretary and latterly as main board executive director. Simon is a past chairman of ICSA’s Company Secretaries Forum, which comprises mainly company secretaries from mainly FTSE 350 companies. He is a member of the International Corporate Governance Network and chairs its Bylaws & Procedures Committee. He is a NED of two small media companies and deputy chair of a charity.

William is a senior audit partner and Vice Chairman in Deloitte.  He has worked with a large number of UK listed audit and advisory clients from FTSE 100 to new listings, leading Deloitte’s relationship as auditor or adviser.

William leads Deloitte’s UK centre for Corporate Governance.  As centre leader William is responsible for the development and delivery of Deloitte’s points of view and services on governance matters within the UK regulatory environment.  The UK Centre is promoted through publications, events, training and services for directors of listed companies – executive and non-executive alike – through the Deloitte Academy in London.

William is Vice Chairman of the Audit and Assurance Faculty of the ICAEW (Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales) and also serves on the ICAEW Corporate Governance Committee and the ICAEW Council.

In the community, William is a non-executive director and Chairman of the Finance Committee of TechUK, the UK’s High Tech trade association, a Governor of the Dragon School. Oxford and serves on the Charities Committee of the Goldsmiths Livery Company.

Nick is a specialist technology lawyer, a fluent Japanese speaker and a data protection specialist.  Much of Nick’s commercial work focuses on the cloud computing, e-commerce and online services sector and the data protection and privacy issues arising from the cross-border provision of cloud-based services, mobile apps and e-commerce, particularly for Japanese and US cloud service providers. Nick started his legal career with the IP/IT team of Baker & McKenzie in London before joining the Corporate/TMT team of Herbert Smith’s Tokyo office in August 2007. He joined White & Black in 2012 and was promoted to become a partner in the firm in May 2015.

John set up Ingen Partners in 2009 a recruitment advisory business specialising in search and selection for Company Secretarial staff at all levels of seniority for the UK’s largest Listed companies.

John started his career with blue chip stockbrokers as an institutional equity salesman specialising in Bank and Insurance companies. A qualified company secretary and Fellow of ICSA, he was an executive Director of Capita Registrars, part of the Capita Group plc between. John built and ran several businesses for Capita including Capita Company Secretarial Services which, during his tenure became the UKs largest employer of company secretarial professionals.

William has been a partner at Slaughter and May since 1990. He specialises in corporate finance, including securities issues and mergers and acquisitions, acting for a number of major corporate clients on a wide range of transactions and advisory matters. He has been an editor of ‘Weinberg & Blank on Takeovers’ since March 1995.

William is Chairman of the City of London Law Society Company Law Committee.

Helen Bradley heads up Baker & McKenzie’s Corporate Finance team in London and is a member of the London office Management Committee. She advises on all aspects of corporate finance work, board advisory and UK ECM. Helen was seconded to The Panel on Takeovers and Mergers in May 2000 and is listed in The Lawyer’s Hot 100 for 2007.

David started at the Financial Reporting Council in May 2014 as Director, Corporate Governance.  He was previously a civil servant in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills for nearly 30 years.  During his career he has held a number of posts dealing directly with a variety of businesses and industry sectors, including, from 2001 – 2011, Assistant Director in the Corporate Law and Governance Directorate with responsibility for policy on directors’ remuneration, shareholders’ rights and corporate governance, including European and international negotiations on these issues.

Richard is a partner in the Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) team in London, with nearly 20 years’ experience in contentious and non-contentious information governance matters. He has particular experience in advising large multi-nationals on complex international data protection and information management issues, including confidentiality, constitutional privacy rights, professional secrecy rules and disclosure and data destruction obligations.  Richard is listed as a tier one, leading expert by Chambers & Partners in the field of data protection and privacy.

Lisa has worked for Equiniti, formerly Lloyds TSB Registrars, for 28 years.  During this time she has held various management positions and for the past 14 years has been heading up a team dedicated to the delivery of shareholder meetings.  This specialist area has seen increased focus and a lot of change over the past few years such as updates to the Companies Act, Shareholders Rights Directive and Listing Rules.  Lisa personally manages a number of high profile relationships and has dealt with numerous contentious meetings, including requisitioned meetings/resolutions, adjournments and ad-hoc procedural matters.

Stephen joined Deloitte UK as a Partner in November 2008. He has 20 years’ experience in advising companies on compensation strategy and equity incentives, having previously been head of executive compensation and leader of Mercer’s human capital business in Western Europe.

Stephen has extensive experience of advising companies in the UK, Ireland, US and Asia on all aspects of executive remuneration, including total compensation reviews, long term incentive design and consultation with institutional investors.

Stephen has recently provided advice to a number of high profile FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 clients.

Stephen is a qualified actuary and a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries and the Society of Actuaries in Ireland.

Since joining Kroll in 1981, Tommy Helsby has been at the heart of the firm’s growth from a single office in New York to more than 55 offices around the world. In his first ten years, he helped found and develop the firm’s core due diligence business, and managed many of the corporate contest projects for which Kroll became well known in the 1980s. He has been based in the London office since 1991, becoming European Chairman in 1999 and Chairman in 2010.

He plays a strategic role both for the firm and in advising many of its key clients, in dispute work and in corporate transactions. He has established a particular niche in reputation-related engagements, particularly on behalf of entrepreneurial clients from emerging markets whose antecedents and track record lack the transparency which Western markets expect.

Mark is Co-Head of the UK Investment Banking business. He joined Goldman Sachs in 1994 as an analyst in London, worked in the Healthcare Group in New York from 1996 until 1997 and spent the following three years in the Advisory Group in London. In 2000, Mark worked in the Equity Capital Markets Group in New York and in 2001, he became a vice president and returned to London to work on the UK Coverage team. He joined the Natural Resources Group in 2007 and was chief operating officer of the group in EMEA. Prior to assuming his current role in 2011, Mark was co-chief operating officer of UK Investment Banking. He was named managing director in 2005 and partner in 2010.
Mark earned a BA from Cambridge University.

Lawrence joined Barclays from University in 1979. He undertook a variety of branch, Regional and Head Office roles before becoming a branch manager in the City. He then moved to Group Strategy and Planning where he was responsible for the development and implementation of economic capital, the basis for the Group’s performance measurement system. Lawrence was appointed Chief of Staff to the Group Chief Executive Officer in 1998. He continued in this role when Matthew Barrett became CEO, working in particular on the acquisition of the Woolwich. Following a short spell as Global Chief Operating Officer in the Private Bank, Lawrence was appointed Company Secretary in September 2002.

Robert Amaee is a partner in the White Collar Defense and Investigations practice at Covington. He is recognized internationally as a leading white collar crime lawyer specializing in governmental and regulatory investigations. He advises companies and senior individuals on serious economic crime matters, internal investigations, disclosures to governmental and regulatory authorities and the development of effective compliance programs. Before joining Covington, he served as Head of Anti-Corruption and Head of Proceeds of Crime at the UK Serious Fraud Office, leading the investigation and prosecution of high-profile bribery and money laundering cases.  He is a UK qualified barrister, and holds a PhD in medical research.

For the 2 years to May 2015, Nick was one of a small team that led the rescue of The Co-operative Group, acting as Chief of Staff to the CEO, and as the Chief External Affairs Officer. He joined just after the Co-operative Bank fell from grace in April 2013 and played a pivotal role in securing the first ever bank bail-in, avoiding the alternative tax payer bail-out. Nick went on to take responsibility for all of the Co-op Group’s external affairs, leading teams focused on engagement with regulators, government, PR, media, membership and marketing. Owned by its 8m members, the Co-op operated 4,500 outlets with around 87,000 employees across its retail and consumer services divisions.

Nick joined The Co-op from Kingfisher plc, a FTSE100 international retailer, where he was a member of the Retail Board and held a number of executive positions over the period 2007-13. Latterly he was the Group Corporate Affairs Director, leading the team that developed and launched the market leading sustainability programme, ‘Net Positive’. He was also responsible for the Group’s Government Affairs and Regulatory programme. From 2007-2012 Nick was Company Secretary to the plc Board, Group Legal & Corporate Responsibility Director, and B&Q’s Legal Director from 2009-2011. Prior to joining Kingfisher, Nick was a member of the Group Executive, Company Secretary and Group Legal Director of Emap plc, a FTSE100 media conglomerate. Nick has held a number of other corporate in-house legal roles, having qualified as a solicitor at Linklaters & Paines in 1993.

Nick was appointed to the Natural Environment Research Council in 2013, and is also Chair of its Audit & Risk Assurance Committee. Previously, he was vice-chairman of the GC100 (the general counsel and company secretaries of the FTSE 100), a member of the British Retail Consortium’s Policy Board, a member of OFGEM’s Sustainable Development Advisory Group, the treasurer of The British American Project, a member of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators’ Forum, and a member of the Companies Committee of the CBI.

Hannah Blackmore is an Associate of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and has been with Henderson Global Investors since qualifying in July 2014. Hannah is the appointed Company Secretary to two of the Henderson managed Investment Trusts and provides full support to the Trusts Boards and Committees. Hannah also assists the Director and Head of Investment Trusts in managing the Offshore Company Secretary for a Jersey domiciled Investment Company.

Starting out her Company Secretarial career with Capita Sinclair Henderson, Hannah worked mainly with Investment Trust and Venture Capital Trust clients. Hannah subsequently held a number of other Company Secretarial roles including Assistant Company Secretary at MetLife Assurance Limited, where she was part of the M&A project team when the company was sold to Rothesay Life Limited and Assistant Company Secretary at Integrated Financial Arrangements plc (Transact) where she oversaw the implementation of a Scheme of Arrangement to reorganise the Group and its subsidiary companies, amongst other corporate action projects.

Hannah has a particular interest in the progression of Company Secretarial as a profession and to that end is an Ambassador for the ICSA. Hannah has joint responsibility at Henderson with the other Company Secretaries for training three assistants within the Company Secretarial team.

Alex is the Group General Counsel and Company Secretary at Novae Group plc and leads the legal, company secretarial and compliance functions.  Prior to joining Novae, Alex was Emerging Markets General Counsel at RSA responsible for the legal and compliance across Asia, Latin America, Central & Eastern Europe and the Middle East.  Prior to moving in house in 2007, Alex practised as a corporate lawyer in two leading City firms.

Geof Stapledon is Vice President Governance for BHP Billiton, based in London, and has been with the company since 2008. Geof previously headed up Asia-Pacific research for ISS / RiskMetrics, having joined ISS when it acquired Proxy Australia, a Melbourne-based governance research firm he co-founded. Before moving into the governance industry full-time, Geof was a professor of corporate law and corporate governance at the University of Melbourne, prior to which he worked as a lawyer specialising in corporate advisory and transactions. His book Institutional Shareholders and Corporate Governance was published by Oxford University Press in 1996. He has degrees in Economics and Law from the University of Adelaide, and a doctorate from the University of Oxford.

Steve is an experienced lawyer with an established knowledge of BG Group and its corporate functions. As Company Secretary, Steve is responsible for advising the Board, through the Chairman, on all governance matters. All Directors have access to the advice and services of the Company Secretary, who is responsible for ensuring that Board procedures are complied with. He is responsible to the Board, through the Chairman, for advising and keeping the Board apprised of all legislative, regulatory and governance matters and developments.

Prior to joining the Group in 2005, Steve was a corporate lawyer for Herbert Smith. He was appointed Company Secretary in 2011, having previously been Chief Counsel, Corporate, leading the team providing legal support for corporate functions.

Carol was appointed Company Secretary of Halma plc in 1998 having originally joined Halma in 1995 as Group Finance Manager.  Carol is also a non-executive director of Renishaw plc where she chairs the Audit Committee. Prior to Halma, Carol spent three years with English China Clays plc. She qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Arthur Andersen and is a mathematics graduate of Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, Virginia.

Ian Barlow currently serves as a Non-Executive Director for Smith and Nephew Plc, Foxtons Plc and Brunner Investment Trust Plc, chairing the Audit Committee at each company.  He is also the lead non executive director, chairing the Board, of HM Revenue and Customs and a board member of the China-Britain Business Council.  Ian retired from KPMG LLP in 2008 as Senior Partner, London.  He is a former member of the London Development Agency (2008-12), Chairman of Think London, the former inward investment agency (2003-11), Trustee of Historic Royal Palaces (2008-13) and Chairman of the Racecourse Association, the trade body for the UK’s racecourses (2009-15).

Ian is a Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Adviser. He holds an MA in Engineering Science from Cambridge University

Rob Bellhouse has been Company Secretary and Head of Legal of Lonmin Plc since June 2003. Lonmin mines and refines platinum group metals in South Africa where it employs 28,000 people. The company has a premium listing in London and a secondary listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

Rob is based in London and has overall responsibility for all board, board committee and corporate governance matters throughout Lonmin, as well as a very broad range of company secretarial and legal duties, including managing the company’s ethics programme, share plans and HR for the top 20 executives, and the company’s nine UK employees.

He is a member of the Executive Committee of the GC100 and also serves on the Chairman’s Committee of the ICSA Company Secretaries Forum.

Rachel joined Premier Oil plc as Deputy Company Secretary in January 2014 and was promoted to Company Secretary earlier this year. Rachel is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators and has 13 years’ experience across a broad spectrum of industries including financial services, engineering and materials science and leisure retail.

Susan has been Company Secretary of Smith & Nephew since 2009, having previously held senior company secretarial roles in Amersham, RMC and Prudential.

Susan’s experience covers board support, corporate governance, corporate transactions, share registration, listing obligations, corporate social responsibility, pensions, insurance and employee and executive share plans.

Susan is a frequent speaker at conferences and seminars and sits on a number of industry working groups and chairs the GC100 standing group on company law, corporate governance, takeovers and audit matters. In 2013, she was an active participant on the GC100 Investor Group developing the guidance on remuneration reporting. She is also a trustee of ShareGift, the share donation charity.

Susan has a degree in Classics (Literae Humaniores) from Oxford University (Corpus Christi college) and is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators.

Nicky Snook has been with British American Tobacco for nearly 20 years. She qualified as a lawyer in 1990 specialising in IP and left private practice to join BAT’s in-house trade mark department in 1995. Since then, Nicky has held a number of legal roles in BAT. In 2006 she was appointed Company Secretary and has been the Secretary to the Board, its Committees as well as the Executive Committee since then.  Nicky has a particular interest in the work of the Remuneration Committee and facilitated the Company’s consultation with shareholders over changes to its Remuneration Policy in 2013, prior to the binding policy vote at its AGM in April.

Sarah has been company secretary of Genel since July 2013 having joined the company in June 2012.  Prior to that she held senior positions and worked on many complex corporate transactions for the likes of Misys, Standard Chartered, RSA and Telewest (now Virgin Media). Sarah is a fellow of the ICSA and holds an MSc in corporate governance.

Tonia has a degree in law from Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.  She worked at Linklaters for six years and has been at Unilever ever since.  At Unilever Tonia’s roles have included being a global corporate/commercial lawyer, General Counsel for Unilever’s UK/Irish businesses and  Chief Legal Officer for the Unilever Group. Tonia is currently Group Secretary (i.e. company secretary of both the UK and Dutch head companies of Unilever (Unilevers PLC and N.V.)) and General Counsel Corporate Governance with responsibility for, amongst others,  data protection and competition.

Ben Mathews was appointed Group Company Secretary of HSBC Holdings plc on 1 July 2013.

Ben joined HSBC from Rio Tinto, where he had been Company Secretary since 2007, managing the dual listings in London and Sydney. Before that, he spent over five years with BG Group, the leading natural gas producer. He has extensive experience in international corporates, mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance and share listing across a range of companies. He qualified as a chartered company secretary with PricewaterhouseCoopers in London.

He graduated with honours in European Studies and French. After a period of postgraduate study he was elected as a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators.