Who’s who at TISA

TISA Corporate Board

Tony Stenning (Downing LLP)

Chairman

Tony Stenning, Chairman of TISA has been a non-executive director since 2014. Tony is also a Partner and Head of Liquid Alternatives at Downing LLP, a responsible investment manager that strives to provide investors access to rewarding investment opportunities by making investments based on both their profitability and their environmental and social impact. Tony has worked in financial services for over three decades, beginning his career as an economist and fund manager. He has spent the majority of his career at BlackRock where he was a Managing Director and held various senior positions. Tony plays an active role with a number of industry bodies, frequently engaging with regulatory authorities and government on a range of industry issues / initiatives. Tony holds a BA (Hons) in Economics and is also a Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment.

Carol Knight

CEO, TISA

Carol Knight, CEO, TISA

Carol is CEO, TISA as well as COO and Company Secretary for the wider TISA Group. Carol has been in financial services since 1998, having previously worked in variety of industries, including education, local government, Civil Service and the gaming industry. A qualified and experienced teacher Carol gained her degree at King Alfred’s College in Winchester and taught in Romsey, Hampshire. She then spent 7 years at Skandia, managing the PEP & ISA new business and transfers department.

Carol joined TISA in 2004 and has been responsible for the day-to-day running of the Association’s administration centre, technical support, member communications, expanding the events and training programme and technical issues in the cash savings sector. In 2009, she also took on the role of Company Secretary. Carol joined the TISA Board as Operations Director in July 2011, extending her responsibilities to include finance. This was swiftly followed by taking a position as Executive Director for TISA Exchange.

In August 2015, Carol became Chief Operations Officer for TISA, supporting the Director General with the general running of the company and with personal responsibilities for Children’s Financial Education, internal administration, HR and finance together with acting as TISA spokesman for the media and at functions.

Carol is also a Director for both TeX (the contract club managing the legal structure supporting electronic messaging for transfers) and CT Holdings & Services Ltd (which operates under the brand of STAR where TeX and Criterion are working in collaboration to deliver the Service Level Agreements recommended by the Transfers & Re-registration Industry Group tasked by FCA to improve transfer times).

Carol was appointed CEO, TISA Membership Services in January 2022 following the retirement of David Dalton-Brown.

Julian Korek

Treasurer

Julian is Managing Director and Business Unit Leader, Compliance & Regulatory Consulting at Duff & Phelps, a global valuation and corporate finance advisor with expertise in compliance and regulatory consulting, complex valuation, dispute and legal management consulting, mergers and acquisitions and restructuring. Julian has worked in the financial services industry for over 35 years.

He co-founded Kinetic Partners in 2005 and prior to that, was head of the financial services consultancy practice within RSM Robson Rhodes.

His main areas of expertise are in the specification of accounting, management information and control systems, organisation structures and reporting pathways for financial institutions to ensure compliance with relevant regulation and best practice.

Julian has pioneered the integration of compliance culture into the heart of organisations. His extensive knowledge of compliance and business processes in a wide range of financial services institutions include: retail and investment banking, investment management and regulated and unregulated funds, wealth management, and stockbroking.

Elissa Bayer (Investec Wealth & Investment)

Non-Executive Director

Elissa started in the City in 1972, having trained at Joseph Sebag and became a member of the private client department, managing portfolios for customers of the clearing banks. She moved firms, ending up at Savory Milln, which was taken over three times, eventually by The Swiss Bank. She was appointed Head of the Private Client Department and became a member of the Stock Exchange in 1980 and was one of the first female directors of the Swiss Bank Corporation. She now looks after private clients, trusts, small pension funds and charities, having moved to Gerrard Vivien Gray in 1999 and became Head of Private Clients and a main Board Director of GVG. The private client department numbered over 100 people and the firm went through a number of take-overs and in the late 1990s Gerrard’s merged with Greig Middleton which then became Old Mutual and finally Barclays. She moved to Williams de Broë in October 2011 and the parent company, Evolution, was taken over by Investec. She is now part of a private client team, looking after portfolios, which in many cases have been with her for over 35 years. She is a strong believer in forging personal relationships with clients and the majority of her work is managing discretionary accounts for people with whom there is an ongoing relationship. Elissa developed a strong interest in media and marketing and was head of the London Marketing Division of the various firms she worked for and she has regularly appeared on the BBC for the Today programme, CNBC, Sky and CNN and also gives talks and lectures on the City and is active in business development. She is a trustee of the Weizmann Institute for Technology, based in Israel, sits on the Advisory Board of JVN and Future Talent and was a member of the Business Committee of the Duke of Edinburgh Award, chaired by the Countess of Wessex, for ten years. Elissa is married to a recently retired GP and has three daughters.

Damien Barry (SS&C)

Non-Executive Director

Damien Barry was appointed Head of Global Investor & Distribution Solutions, Europe in January 2022, and following FCA approval as CEO, SS&C Financial Services International & Europe. Damien’s focus is on leading the business strategy and governance of SS&C Financial Services International Limited, SS&C Financial Services Europe Limited, SS&C Wealth and Insurance Ireland Limited and their subsidiaries. Prior to this appointment, Damien served as Head of IFDS Cross Border EMEA since March 2017. Damien was previously Head of Transfer Agency Strategic Programmes EMEA at State Street. Damien’s focus was on aligning the cross-border transfer agency business with State Street’s overall strategy and was a demonstration of State Street’s commitment to this business. Before that, Damien served as Head of the Real Estate and Private Equity business within State Street EMEA. He was also responsible for European Fund Services for State Street’s Offshore Business in Asia and spent several years in region developing the business. Damien has a Bachelor of Civil Law (Hons) from University College Cork where he graduated in 1991 and is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland, having trained and qualified with Ormsby & Rhodes in Dublin.

Philip Best (City Methods)

Non-Executive Director

Philip holds the position of CRO and Group Head of Compliance at Pemberton Asset Management, prior to which Philip had the same role at Evelyn Partners. Philip has worked in the financial markets since 1985 and has held a number of senior positions in risk management and compliance, including Global CRO Barclays Wealth, CRO for Columbia Threadneedle, Head of Risk at UFJI London and Director of Market Risk at Abbey National.

Anne Fairweather (Hargreaves Lansdown)

Non-Executive Director

Anne Fairweather is Head of Government Affairs & Public Policy for Hargreaves Lansdown. She joined HL in 2021 with a career in financial services policy roles for Nationwide Building Society, Nest Pensions and the British Bankers’ Association. She has a broad background in business policy issues having worked for the Recruitment and Employment Confederation and the CBI in Brussels. Outside of her business roles Anne has been involved in politics since University and was an elected Common Councillor in the City of London Corporation from 2016-2022. This time included a stint on the City’s lead Policy and Resources Committee and Chair of the Hampstead Heath Management Committee

Claude Kurzo (JPMorgan)

Non-Executive Director

Claude Kurzo, Country Head for the U.K. and Head of Financial Intermediaries in the Middle East and Africa. Having been with J.P. Morgan for 11 years, Claude recently served as Country Head for our AM business in Switzerland, and prior to that Claude was the Global Head of Strategy & Business Transformation of J.P. Morgan Asset Management, based in New York, and a member of the global Operating Committee (AMOC). Previously, Claude was with McKinsey & Co. in Zurich and Dubai, and a member of the leadership team of the McKinsey Asset and Wealth Management Practices. He also co-founded McKinsey’s Family Business Practice. Claude holds an MBA from IESE Business School, Barcelona, Spain, and a master’s degree in law from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland.

Sarah Layden (Aviva)

Non-Executive Director

Sarah Layden has over 20 years’ experience at Aviva in Life and General Insurance. She is currently leading the development of Aviva’s Direct to Consumer Wealth business. Sarah’s key area of interest is in evolving the industry to make investments accessible for all, aided by technology, advice, and guidance, to give people confidence in their financial future.

Iain McNicol (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride)

Advisor to the Board

Lord Iain McNicol of West Kilbride (born August 1969) is a British Labour politician and trade unionist. He is a Labour member of the House of Lords (the UKs second chamber) having being introduced in July 2018. He is a life Baron. Iain served as the General Secretary of the Labour Party from 2011-18, moving from the position as National Political Officer of the GMB Union. He has a long history of organising in both the Labour and trade union movement. As Labour’s GS he was legally and operationally responsible for the most important elections in the U.K. over the past decade. Iain grew up on in West coast of Scotland, he began his involvement in political organising as President of the Student Union at Dundee Institute of Technology in 1991. He then moved to the Labour Party, first in an elected role as National Campaigns and Membership Officer for Labour Students. Then as an organiser and agent in West London from 1994 through to Labour’s historic 1997 General Election. Following the Labour Party’s electoral victory in 1997 Iain moved to work for the GMB Union. On 19 July 2011, Labour’s National Executive Committee selected him to become the Party’s General Secretary. Iain is married and has a son and daughter and the family have lived in South London for over 25 years. He holds a black-belt in karate, and plays the bagpipes.

Faith Reynolds

Advisor to the Board

Faith is a strategic adviser to industry, government and regulators on fintech, Open Banking, Open Finance & Smart Data. She is the Independent Consumer Representative on the Open Banking Implementation Entity Steering Group. Faith is also a Non Executive Director for the Current Account Switch Service at Pay.UK. She advises the Lending Standards Board on the implementation of the Authorised Push Payment Scams Code and is a Non-Executive Director for Fair4All Finance which is responsible for promoting financial inclusion through the distribution of dormant assets. She is a Senior Fellow at the Finance Innovation Lab. Previously she was a member of the FCA’s Financial Services Consumer Panel and led the Data Rights Working Group for the FCA’s Open FInance Advisory Group. During an earlier part of her career she established Toynbee Hall’s financial inclusion services. She is a 2010 Clore Social Fellow.

Ed Vaizey (Lord Vaizey of Didcott)

Advisor to the Board

Ed Vaizey (Lord Vaizey of Didcot) is a member of the House of Lords, appointed in 2020, and sits on the Communications and Media Committee. Ed was the Member of Parliament for Wantage between 2005 and 2019. He served as the UK Government Culture and Digital Minister from 2010-16, and is the longest-serving Minister in that role. He was appointed a privy councillor in 2016. In his role as digital minister, Ed was responsible for the roll out of the successful rural broadband programme to more than 4 million homes, the introduction of 4G, and tax credits for film, television, animation and video games, which have helped make the creative industries the fastest growing part of the UK economy.

TISA Commercial Enterprises Board

  • Larry Banda
  • Carol Knight
  • Julian Korek
  • Katrina Sartorius
  • Sam Seaton
  • Tony Stenning

TISA Executive Committee

Carol Knight

CEO, TISA, Membership Services

Carol Knight B.Ed. Hons

Carol is Chief Operations Officer and Company Secretary. Carol has been in financial services since 1998, having previously worked in variety of industries, including education, local government, Civil Service and the gaming industry.

A qualified and experienced teacher Carol gained her degree at King Alfred’s College in Winchester and taught in Romsey, Hampshire. She then spent 7 years at Skandia, managing the PEP & ISA new business and transfers department.

Carol joined TISA in 2004 and has been responsible for the day-to-day running of the Association’s administration centre, technical support, member communications, expanding the events and training programme and technical issues in the cash savings sector. In 2009, she also took on the role of Company Secretary. Carol joined the TISA Board as Operations Director in July 2011, extending her responsibilities to include finance. This was swiftly followed by taking a position as Executive Director for TISA Exchange.

In August 2015, Carol became Chief Operations Officer for TISA, supporting the Director General with the general running of the company and with personal responsibilities for Children’s Financial Education, internal administration, HR and finance together with acting as TISA spokesman for the media and at functions.

Carol is also a Director for both TeX (the contract club managing the legal structure supporting electronic messaging for transfers) and CT Holdings & Services Ltd (which operates under the brand of STAR where TeX and Criterion are working in collaboration to deliver the Service Level Agreements recommended by the Transfers & Re-registration Industry Group tasked by FCA to improve transfer times).

Jon Richmond

Business Development Director

Jon Richmond joined TISA in November 2020 as Business Development Director and is responsible for bringing new members to both TISA, as well TISA initiatives such as Digital ID, Open Savings Investments and Pensions, TURN and TISAtech.

Jon holds a BA (Hons) in Financial Economics from Coventry University and has over 20 years of Financial Services experience. He spent nearly 8 years at Nordic equity broker ABG Sundal Collier in a variety of roles including Equity Sales Trader where he worked with some of the largest institutional asset manager, hedge fund and sovereign wealth funds in Europe. After leaving ABG he spent 3 and half years in Copenhagen with Nordea Markets as Senior Sales Manager where he helped re-launch Nordea’s International Equity Sales proposition and was instrumental in the successful delivery of some of the largest corporate deals in the Nordic region 2008-11. He developed deep relationships across the whole of Europe including Switzerland, Austria and Germany. On returning to London, Jon continued to work in the Nordic markets for SpareBank1 Markets and helped transpose many of his previous relationships over to the new entity until leaving the broking sector in 2013.

After leaving broking, Jon took his relationship building and client engagement skills and forged a career in Business Development, utilising his connections in the Asset and Wealth Management space at firms such as FundAssist, FundsLibrary and Broadridge who he left as Sales Director before joining TISA.

Lisa Laybourn

Strategy and Business Management Director

Lisa has over 25 years experience in financial services with a breadth of regulatory knowledge and particular expertise in CASS. She spent 5 years at Architas Multi Manager as CF10a, and deputised for the COO in leading a function which included Third Party Governance, Operations and IT, as well as CASS. Prior to this Lisa spent 10 years with IFDS in various senior roles including as a Lead Relationship Manager and Head of European Cash and Stock Reconciliations. Lisa also spent some time with a Big 4 firm as a CASS SME. Prior to this Lisa worked in various operational roles in the banking sector.

Mosa Zahed

Head of Public Affairs & Market Engagement

Mosa Zahed is the Head of Public Affairs & Market Engagement for TISA, overseeing the programme of conferences, forums and briefings and is responsible for developing and managing partnership opportunities at TISA events. He is also responsible for establishing working relationships with key stakeholders in Government, the Regulators and the UK financial services industry. Mosa has over ten years’ experience in public affairs having worked with senior policymakers across Europe. He holds a BA in European Public Management from The Hague University and an MSc in International and Development Administration from Leiden University.

Jill Crowell

Head of Relationship Management

Larry Banda

CEO, TISA Commercial Enterprises

Larry is CEO, TISA Commercial Enterprises and was appointed in his new role in February 2023 while continuing with his non-executive director role as Deputy Chair of TISA. Larry brings a raft of board and executive experience to the TISA Group, having been an NED/Chair of Mortgage Brain and The Mortgage Trading Exchange for nine years and having been on the TISA Board since 2015. Larry became Deputy Chair in 2020. He has supported TISA’s Executive team as Board representative and been directly and actively engaged in TISA’s work on Later Life Lending and Personalised Guidance where he chairs the cross-industry working group. Larry served 34 years with Nationwide in many senior positions across multiple disciplines prior to taking early (semi) retirement in August 2020. His roles included Director for Financial Planning, Protection & Investments from September 2015, which included developing roboadvice solutions in the FCA sandbox, before expanding that role to include all of Mortgage Distribution (inc. Intermediaries) in 2019. This also included “Nationwide-Now” the video conferencing service launched for Mortgages and Financial Planning. Larry has previously been Director for Branch Network, contact centres, was Head of Mortgages and has held CF1 responsibilities as Managing Director of The Mortgage Works, the largest Buy-to-Let lender in the UK. Prior to leaving Nationwide, Larry launched the new Later Life advice team for Lifetime Mortgages and introduced the “Video to Member” service at the start of the pandemic, a full advice video conference capability linking Financial Planners, Mortgage Consultants and Later Life advisers to members in their own homes.

Renny Biggins

Head of Retirement

Renny has been at TISA for over 8 years and is the Head of Retirement. He has been in the industry for nearly 35 years and has held various management and senior management positions at a range of financial services organisations. Qualifications wise he holds the CII accreditations of Certificate in Life and Pensions, Certificate in Financial Planning and Diploma in Financial Planning. He is a frequent commentator in the media and has significant involvement in the ongoing Government agenda of change through his TISA role and membership of several industry working groups and committees.

Sophie Legrand-Green

Policy Executive

Sophie leads TISA’s work on the Advice/Guidance Boundary Review, Disclosures, Financial Education, Financial Crime and TISA’s Inclusive Investing initiative. Before joining us, Sophie worked in Wholesale Markets Policy at the FCA, gaining experience in Primary and Secondary legislation, as well as FCA consultations. She has worked on Brexit and the LIBOR transition and was seconded to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Prior to that, she worked in M&A for a FTSE 100.

TISA Staff

  • Nazifa Ali
  • Danielle Barrass
  • David Beaston
  • Pauline Beattie
  • Tetiana Chechota
  • Bethan Gilbey
  • Marita Holland
  • Alison Kennedy
  • Uzma Khan
  • Linda Lee
  • Nikki Miller
  • Dawn Phillips
  • Rebecca Pritchard
  • Nicola Robbins
  • Karl Russell
  • Henna Sadhu
  • Shareena Sattaur
  • Claire Sekhon
  • Jackie Sharpe
  • Gordon Shea
  • Annemarie Smith
  • Angela Stubbs
  • Phil Turnpenny
  • Karen Walker