CASS Autumn Forum – Edinburgh

James is Of Counsel in the Financial Services Regulation Team

Chloe is a Principal Consultant at Square 4 with over 17 years financial services experience, having worked in retail banking, at the regulator, as a consultant at a ‘big 4’ firm, as well as within multiple firms in the asset and wealth management sector.

Nicky is an Advisory Director within the Square 4 leadership team, helping to drive the strategic direction, growth and management of the business. Nicky leads the Client Assets Team and is responsible for overseeing all work in the areas of client assets and financial crime compliance, outsourcing and third party management as well as regulatory transactions including authorisations, variation of permission applications and changes in control. She leads on reviews and health checks, provides subject matter expertise to in-house teams and designs processes and controls for firms. She has worked with firms to prepare for and provide support throughout CASS audits, supported remediation and change projects and has led skilled person review teams. Nicky has 25 years financial services compliance experience with 18 of those years spent providing regulatory consultancy. She has worked with all types of firm, from start-ups to multinational corporations. She has broad experience of general compliance matters, outsourcing and governance and extensive financial crime compliance experience. For the last 12 years, Nicky has focussed heavily on client assets compliance and has deep technical knowledge and wide-ranging experience on the topic.

Senior COO & CASS Manager at Evelyn Partners, with more than 20 years’ experience in financial services, including the last eight years primarily focused on CASS compliance and oversight. I began my career in investment operations before progressing into various oversight roles, with responsibility for internal operational functions and third-party administrators supporting the firm’s investment platforms. This operational foundation has given me a strong understanding of the end-to-end investment lifecycle and the practical application of CASS requirements within complex operating environments. More recently, my experience has centred on CASS oversight, operational risk and governance, with a particular focus on ensuring effective controls, identifying, and managing regulatory risks.

David Roberts is a Director in the Financial Services Audit Practice at KPMG. He has over 16 years of experience in Financial services delivering a range of CASS audits including large and complex engagements as well as other CASS engagements and experience skilled person reports. He is currently the Head of the CASS Audit department at KPMG which responsible for supporting the delivery of CASS audit engagements across the UK.

Joe is a Director in Ernst & Young LLP’s Extended Assurance Financial Services team with over 10 years of Financial Services experience. Joe acts as a CASS and Payments safeguarding SME in the CASS/Safeguarding practice for EY. He supports a range of Wealth & Asset Management firms on CASS matters and payment firms on safeguarding matters

Lauren has worked primarily in CASS for over a decade and has recently returned to FNZ as the Senior CASS Compliance Manager, working both with client firms regarding CASS environment enhancements as well as on FNZ’s direct CASS footprint as a CASS Large Firm. She started her career in operations and has since gained CASS experience across all four lines of defence, including leading external CASS audits and holding the certified CASS Oversight role.

Steve joined TISA in March 2026 as a Policy Executive, with responsibility for leading on Client Assets (CASS) and Financial Crime prevention. Prior to joining TISA, Steve held various management and senior management positions at a range of large investment manager and platform businesses. When he was at Aberdeen, Steve was Head of CASS (CF10a) for its investment management activities. Steve is a Chartered Accountant and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment.