Carol Knight
Chief Operations Officer, TISA
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).
Nigel Banfield
Technical Policy Manager (Cash & Investments), TISA
Nigel has almost 40 years’ experience in the financial services industry across many areas, including Life & Pensions and latterly in the savings & investments arena, largely working for a FTSE100 firm. During that time, he built a close working relationship with TISA, spending 2 years chairing the Children’s Savings Council and leading a project to develop BSI standards for customer data quality. He has been working for TISA for almost 5 years now, with a particular focus on the Cash and Investments and Financial Education Councils and leading on the Child Trust funds maturity work.
Sophia Spence-Cheng
Policy Manager, Children and Young People, Money and Pensions Service
Sophia Spence-Cheng is the Policy Manager for Children and Young People at the Money and Pensions Service. She is passionate about improving the lives of children and young people, and her diverse experience includes strategy work in the charity and public sectors, statutory social work, and financial services. Sophia has a degree from Oxford University and is also a registered social worker for children and families.
Karen Gillie
Director Product Management, Coutts & Co
Karen Gillie is a Director of Fund and Portfolio Products at Coutts & Co. She started her career at Legal and General Investment Management in 1985, working in Segregated Pension Funds and subsequently moved to Invesco Perpetual in 1997 where she led the Operational Investment Team. Following a move to Edinburgh, she joined the RBS Group in 2004, working on product development as part of the Joint Venture with Aviva and subsequently headed up the Investment Risk and Control Team. A move to Coutts & Co Investment Centre of Expertise in 2017 led to her current position, as Head of the Fund & Portfolio Product Team.
Danielle Higgins
Managing Director, The Tracing Group
Data quality and asset reunification has been the focus of Danielle's professional attention for the last 13 years. Her industry involvement is diverse and extensive - running companies delivering tracing, data quality improvement and ID checking, consulting on the subject as part of industry-wide initiatives, lobbying government and developing products designed to solve these issues. Danielle is wholeheartedly committed to harnessing innovation to reunite everyone with their unclaimed assets.
Danielle established The Tracing Group after recognising the need for an innovative approach to tracing. Working with some of the UK’s largest and most respected pension schemes and financial institutions, The Tracing Group manages the data quality challenges for multiple organisations. This work includes end to end data improvement projects, covering everything from: basic data screening, complex genealogical trace requirements presented with legacy data books. Consultancy work can incorporate reengineering internal processes to better equip organisations to mitigate against the risks of poor quality data, or delivering fraud prevention solutions that are proven to work and reduce costs. The challenges that are presented with the Maturing Child Trust Funds are ones that Danielle and her team at The Tracing Group are ready to tackle head on!
Jonathan Lee
Head of Investment Proposition, OneFamily
Jon has worked in financial services for over 30 years initially with Lloyds Banking Group in a variety of roles ranging from product development in savings, unsecured loans and mortgages; customer relationship management and channel distribution across branch, telephone and digital; all of which has provided a diverse knowledge base and a wealth of experience. More recently in December 2017, Jon joined OneFamily to lead on the Child Trust Fund maturity programme along with responsibility for a range of investment propositions and is passionate about the customer being at the heart of the proposition. Outside work in his limited spare time, Jon somehow managed to help build a new indoor tennis facility in his hometown.
Lisa Lyon
Managing Director, Target
MD for nineteen years, Lisa has inspired Target Professional Services to grow into the reputable public and private sector service provider that it is today. Highly regarded and known for her appetite for continuous improvement, Lisa introduced automated tracing to the pension market and developed investigated mortality screening. mypensionID was Lisa’s latest brain child and is set to revolutionise the industry.
Lisa is passionate about giving back to the local community and works closely with local schools and charities regularly sponsoring events and new initiatives. Outside of work Lisa enjoys spending time with her family. Her favourite sport is golf, Rory Mcllroy would have a run for his money with her golfing skills.
What does Lisa enjoy most about her job? “Listening to an elderly member for 10 minutes because that’s the only person he or she would speak to that week or hearing the feedback from the students regarding a trip that we funded makes me go home with a smile on my face.”
Sarah Ratcliffe
Governance Risk and Compliance Manager, Kingston Unity
Sarah Ratcliffe is an experienced Risk and Compliance Manager, having worked in financial services for over 20 years. Sarah has previously worked as a Compliance Manager for a Friendly Society with responsibility for designing and delivering the Compliance Monitoring Programme and the approval of financial promotions. Sarah’s current role is as the Governance, Risk and Compliance Manager for a Friendly Society based in Yorkshire where she has a wide range of responsibilities and holds the SMF16 Compliance Oversight Function and DPO responsibility. With extensive knowledge of the mutual sector, Sarah is a member of the AFM’s Regulation and Governance Committee as well as sitting on the Risk and Audit Committees for her firm. Sarah has a range of qualifications in savings, investment and health products as well as risk and regulation and has been involved in CTF since their launch in 2005.
Matthew Rowland
Proposition Manager, Savings, Nationwide
Matt’s been a product manager for Savings at Nationwide for 6 years working on product development, risk and policy. Matt has also worked on industry initiatives with government as the Banks and Building Societies sector lead for the Dormant Assets Scheme and on savings initiatives with the Money and Pensions Service. Prior to Nationwide Matt held senior product and marketing roles in pre-paid cards and FMCG. Outside work Matt is the dad of two sports mad kids and a qualified football coach.
Harriet Shepherd
Workplace Financial Education Project Manager, St. James’s Place Wealth Management
Harriet Shepherd joined St. James’s Place Wealth Management (SJP) as a Specialist Graduate and now leads one of SJP’s Financial Wellbeing Programmes; Workplace Financial Education. During life as a student, the skills of budgeting were well and truly put to the test! Now in the workplace, the key challenge for her is the balance between funding life right now vs. saving money to fund her longer term personal goals. Bringing in her personal and professional experience, Harriet has been working with the TISA working group on ‘Marketing a Savings Culture to the Digital Generation’.
Laura Haigh
Global Graduate Leadership Programme, Savings & Retirement, Innovation & Digital Programme , Aviva
Laura studied Geography at the University of Bristol, graduating in 2017. She has since worked across various sectors including marketing at Peroni UK and Customer Engagement at Leaseplan. Laura has recently completed her first year on the Global Graduate Scheme at Aviva, working in the UK Savings and Retirement business. She has played an active role in the pilot for the TISA Savings Culture Competition which aims to strength the UK’s saving culture amongst younger generations