Who’s who at TISA

Tony Stenning, Chairman of TISA has been a non-executive director of TISA since 2014, becoming Deputy Chairman in September 2016. Tony is also chair of “The TISA Strategy Group” (previously “The Savings and Investment Policy Project”) – an unprecedented collation of 50 leading firms (representing asset management, financial advice, stock broking, wealth management, banks and life companies), trade bodies and important consumer groups. This group aims to develop strategic proposals for a Savings and Investments policy with the interests of UK families firmly rooted at their heart.

Early in 2017 Tony was asked to become a member of an advisory group to the government to help create a culture of social impact investing in the UK. This group was formed at the request of the Minster for Civil Society and the Economic Secretary to the Treasury. Tony chaired the Advice and Distribution workgroup, one of three workgroups in the project. Recommendations were made to the Government in the Autumn of 2017. Tony subsequently joined the Implementation Taskforce formed to implement the recommendations.

Until December 2016, Tony was a Managing Director at BlackRock where he spent 17 years in various senior positions, most recently as Head of Retirement and Defined Contribution in EMEA where he was responsible for driving the firm’s vision and strategy in the region on individual retirement. Prior to this Tony led the firm’s UK Retail business between 2009 and 2015. He was also a member of the Leadership Committee and was CEO of BlackRock Fund Managers Limited. 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 is also a regular speaker on various industry topics.

Prior to joining BlackRock, Tony spent several years in private client fund management with a particular focus upon collective investment schemes. Mr Stenning holds a BA (Hons) in Economics and is also a Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment. Tony is married with three daughters and spends much of his spare time watching them significantly eclipse his own sporting achievements.

David Dalton-Brown has led the TISA team since January 2015, prior to which he served for three years on the TISA Board.

David is also an NED at Aegon UK, Cofunds, Scottish Equitable and Chairman of Aegon investments – joining the Board of Aegon UK to support the business as it transitioned from a traditional L&P business to a modern, digital platform business. In addition to his NED positions at Aegon, David is also an NED on a number of Lexis Nexis businesses.

During his career, David has held a number of key positions including Head of Fidelity FundsNetwork platform and Retail Business; Head of Barclays Retail Investment Businesses; External Board Director on Barclays Investment Boards; Partner at KPMG; Head of the Exchange and senior Business Development, IT and e-commerce executive roles at Norwich Union and Prudential.

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).

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.

John has been involved with The Tax Incentivised Savings Association (TISA) since its inception as PEPMA in 1991, initially serving on the Advisory Council and subsequently on the Board. John became Chairman of PIMA in September 2000 and continued in the role with the launch of TISA in July 2007. After 12 years as Chairman John stood down at the end of June 2012 but remains on the TISA board.

John was Head of New Business at BNP Paribas Fund Services UK Ltd (formerly Cogent Investment Operations) prior to his retirement in June 2003 and is currently working as a consultant in the financial services industry. John maintains a professional interest in all forms of investment management and administration.

Ruth joined TISA in April 2019 and heads up the Engagement Team, with responsibility for member relations, communications and events & training.

Ruth was previously Head of Market Engagement at The Investment Association, where she was responsible for the development and delivery of structured market engagement for the buy-side, including the creation and management of The IA’s portfolio of events and sector engagement with ‘Velocity’; the industry FinTech Innovation Hub and Accelerator. Prior to this, Ruth was Director of Events at the British Bankers’ Association (BBA), where she carried out a similar role for the sell-side. Ruth was also a member of the Board of Directors of BBA Financial Crime Alert Service Ltd, for which she developed the operational infrastructure and oversaw service delivery applying to industry, government, law enforcement and security service sectors.

Harry Weber-Brown is the Digital Innovation Director for TISA who is responsible for delivering key industry infrastructure projects including the Open Savings & Investments and Digital Identity projects for consumers of financial services products. Harry has over 25 years of experience working in digital in strategic planning and programme management resulting in the delivery of transformational services within complex stakeholder environments. This includes a European Commission funded project focusing on opening bank accounts across European borders using Digital Identity delivered through the eIDAS framework. Harry has worked as a senior consultant, an interim Digital Director and as a Non-Executive Director as well an Angel Investor. He has experience consulting across a range of sectors and clients including the Public Sector (Cabinet Office, Department of Health, Home Office and DWP), the Commercial sector (Old Mutual, Lloyds Banking Group, Reuters and Ask Jeeves) and the Not-for-Profit sector (NSPCC, Shelter and the BBC). He has actively invested and mentored digital start-ups with a focus on Advertising Tech and Digital Marketing services.

Larry is a very experienced Non-Exec Director having been an NED/Chair of Mortgage Brain and The Mortgage Trading Exchange (from 2004) for nine years and on the board of TISA since 2016.

Larry spent 34 years with Nationwide in many senior executive positions prior to taking early retirement in August 2020. His roles included Divisional Director for Financial Planning, Protection & Investments from September 2015 before expanding that role to include all Mortgage Distribution (inc Intermediary Relationships) in 2019. This included “Nationwide-Now” the video conferencing service for Mortgages and Financial Planning. Larry has previously been DD for Branch Network, led the contact centres, was Head of Mortgages and held CF1 responsibilities when he was Managing Director of The Mortgage Works.

Recently Larry has led the launch of the new Later Life advisory service for Lifetime Mortgages and following Covid-19 has introduced “Video to Member” which is a full advice video conference capability to link Financial Planners, Mortgage Consultants and Later Life advisers to members in their own homes.

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.

Stuart joined Fidelity in 2015 and is Head of Personal Investing and Wealth Solutions.

Prior to joining Fidelity Stuart spent 9 years with TD Bank Group, holding leadership roles in Finance, Operations, Change Management and Technology before taking the role of CEO NatWest Stockbroker and then CEO TD Direct Investing.

Stuart started his career as a Chartered Accountant – training with PWC – and then spent time in Finance at Lloyds Banking Group and Equifax.

David White is Managing Director at Creative. Creative is a leading pensions, master trust and wealth management provider. He also Chair of Offspring a fintech start-up company focused on social saving for families for their children’s futures. Previously he was Chief Executive of The Children’s Mutual for eleven years where he was responsible for leading the company through a period of unprecedented growth in the number of customers, sales and embedded value. The Children’s Mutual also won a string of customer service awards and was voted customer service company of the year on two occasions. He has been a member of the ABI’s Consumer Strategy Committee and also a Steering group Member for the FSA’s initiative on Financial Capability (later CFEB). Having started his financial services career in 1976 in the pensions division of Scottish Life, prior to joining The Children’s Mutual, David was Product Group Director (Pensions) at Prudential where he was responsible for the marketing of Prudential’s wide range of Pensions products.

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 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.

David Dalton-Brown has led the TISA team since January 2015, prior to which he served for three years on the TISA Board.

David is also an NED at Aegon UK, Cofunds, Scottish Equitable and Chairman of Aegon investments – joining the Board of Aegon UK to support the business as it transitioned from a traditional L&P business to a modern, digital platform business. In addition to his NED positions at Aegon, David is also an NED on a number of Lexis Nexis businesses.

During his career, David has held a number of key positions including Head of Fidelity FundsNetwork platform and Retail Business; Head of Barclays Retail Investment Businesses; External Board Director on Barclays Investment Boards; Partner at KPMG; Head of the Exchange and senior Business Development, IT and e-commerce executive roles at Norwich Union and Prudential.

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).

John has been involved with The Tax Incentivised Savings Association (TISA) since its inception as PEPMA in 1991, initially serving on the Advisory Council and subsequently on the Board. John became Chairman of PIMA in September 2000 and continued in the role with the launch of TISA in July 2007. After 12 years as Chairman John stood down at the end of June 2012 but remains on the TISA board. John was Head of New Business at BNP Paribas Fund Services UK Ltd (formerly Cogent Investment Operations) prior to his retirement in June 2003 and is currently working as a consultant in the financial services industry. John maintains a professional interest in all forms of investment management and administration.

Ruth joined TISA in April 2019 and heads up the Engagement Team, with responsibility for member relations, communications and events & training.

Ruth was previously Head of Market Engagement at The Investment Association, where she was responsible for the development and delivery of structured market engagement for the buy-side, including the creation and management of The IA’s portfolio of events and sector engagement with ‘Velocity’; the industry FinTech Innovation Hub and Accelerator. Prior to this, Ruth was Director of Events at the British Bankers’ Association (BBA), where she carried out a similar role for the sell-side. Ruth was also a member of the Board of Directors of BBA Financial Crime Alert Service Ltd, for which she developed the operational infrastructure and oversaw service delivery applying to industry, government, law enforcement and security service sectors.

Jeffrey leads the Technical Policy team, helping firms where new regulations are being introduced or proposed.

Having read History at Cambridge, Jeffrey qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC). He then spent seven years in banking including posts as chief accountant of two merchant banks (HongKongBank and Samuel Montagu). He has spent 25 years in the funds industry, including 15 years at M&G, where he held a number of operational roles including Chief Trusts Accountant, setting up M&G’s call centre, launching closed and open ended funds, public affairs spokesman, responsibility for non-compliance relationships with regulators, HMRC and Government. He was a director of M&G and ran M&G’s direct business.

Harry Weber-Brown is the Digital Innovation Director for TISA who is responsible for all of TISA’s digital initiatives and projects, including the Digital Identity programme for consumers of financial services products and the Open Savings and Investment project.

Harry has over 25 years of experience working in digital in strategic planning and programme management resulting in the delivery of transformational services within complex stakeholder environments. He has worked as a senior consultant, an interim Director and as a Non-Executive Director. Significant projects that Harry has managed include a European Commission funded project that focused on opening bank accounts across European borders, using Digital Identity, delivered through the eIDAS framework and a major re-development of the Money Advice Service’s digital proposition.

Harry has worked across a range of sectors and clients including the Public Sector (Cabinet Office, Department of Health, Home Office and DWP), the Commercial sector (Old Mutual, Lloyds Banking Group, Reuters and Ask Jeeves) and the Not-for-Profit sector (NSPCC, Shelter and the BBC) before joining TISA in July 2018.

He has more recently has been actively investing and mentoring digital start-ups with a focus on Advertising Tech and Digital Marketing services.