Karen Gutierrez
Senior Advisor, Bank of England, PRA
Karen has 30 plus years of experience in the financial services industry. Karen started her career in the Life and Pensions Industry, focussing on new product development and implementation. From there Karen moved into consultancy and advisory work joining KPMG. This move allowed Karen to branch out into the Banking side. For several years Karen specialised in mergers and acquisitions, corporate restructuring, business performance improvement, outsourcing and cost transformation. All of which allowed her to deepen her knowledge and experience of firms business and operating model specialising in IT and Operations.
Karen moved in to regulation, initially as part of the FSA, later subsumed into the Bank of England. Karen is a Senior Advisor within the Operational Resilience Division, responsible for developing the micro prudential supervisory approach for operational resilience. Her specialism over the last 11 years has focussed on firms business operating model; focussing on three aspects, business model development, business operating model optimisation and operational resilience, to consider the risks that can arise and assessing firms mitigation strategies.
Chris Day
Group Head of Operational Resilience, Royal London
Chris is an experienced, business driven senior IT executive with nearly 30 years consulting and industry experience. He has proven success in developing and implementing innovative IT strategy coupled with a first class track record in the delivery of business transformation programs and exceptional operational management experience. His move to Royal London Group in 2018 followed a successful career at AstraZeneca where he held a range of senior leadership roles including leading the successful transformation of their global IT organisation. Prior to joining AstraZeneca, Chris spent 19 years with the global management consultancy Accenture, as a senior executive within their global delivery group. Over a broad ranging consulting career, Chris worked with senior leadership teams in many of Accenture’s largest global clients across a range of industry sectors. Chris shaped and led some of the largest business transformation programs undertaken by Accenture and held global responsibility for leading assurance reviews across all areas of Accenture program delivery activity. Chris has a degree in Industrial Economics from the University of Nottingham. He enjoys working in different cultures and has worked extensively across Europe, India and the US. Chris is married with two children and is based in the UK.
Michael Calamito
Head of Operational Resilience, Hargreaves Lansdown
Michael Calamito has worked in the Financial Services industry for over 30 years in a variety of business operations and business continuity roles. He joined Hargreaves Lansdown in March of 2021 as Head of Operational Resilience. Michael was also Head of Global Business Continuity Management where he oversaw business continuity activities across 27 countries for Fidelity International. Michael’s service with Fidelity’s domestic operations dates back to 1987. Michael has managed various operational departments such as New Accounts, Treasury and Client Services. Michael has spent many years on the first line working with business units on their continuity plans and has worked on the global business continuity team at Fidelity managing the New York/New Jersey region. Michael is the recipient of the 2014 President’s Circle Award at Fidelity Investments for crisis management and leadership for the successful recovery of all Fidelity Institutional business units in New Jersey during Hurricane Sandy.
Michael served in the US Army Reserves for 30 years, retiring in 2015 with the rank of Colonel. Michael had an accomplished career that included deployments to Iraq in 2006-2007 as an Iraqi Logistical Advisor and Afghanistan as the Commander of the Defense Logistics Agency in 2013.
Michael holds a BS in Business Management and Industrial Relations from Seton Hall University and is a Master Business Continuity Planner (MBCP) from the Disaster Recovery Institute.
David Heffron
Partner, Pinsent Masons
David is a partner and leads the firm’s Financial Regulation & Funds Group. He specialises on advising financial institutions on commercial and regulatory matters. David is a leading practitioner in financial regulation, and advises many of the firms major banking, insurance and investment firm clients on regulatory matters. He provides strategic guidance on regulatory, compliance and risk management. David has extensive experience on governance.
Salina Ladha
Director, Baringa Partners
Salina is a Director at Baringa Partners LLP, where she leads Baringa’s operational risk and resilience capabilities. She has worked with a range of financial services clients to review their operational risk, business continuity and disaster recovery programmes, and to help firms respond to the changing requirements around operational resilience. She has also worked closely with industry associations, including as part of the Business Services working group under the Investment Association’s Operational Resilience Committee, and in her current role as deputy chair of the TISA operational resilience working group. Prior to consulting, Salina worked as a bank supervisor at the Prudential Regulation Authority, where she reviewed firms governance, risk and control frameworks. She also worked at both the Bank of England and HM Treasury on financial stability issues, including recovery and resolution planning and business continuity, and was involved in designing and participating in UK authority led market-wide exercises to test the financial sector’s response to industry-wide disruption.
Angus McFadyen
Partner, Pinsent Masons
Angus is an experienced technology lawyer advising on a range of sourcing and contracting matters, with a particular focus on data assets and emerging technologies in the Financial services sector.
Kurt Neilson
Supplier Oversight Director, Aegon UK
Kurt Neilson is Supplier Oversight Director for Aegon UK. Kurt has over 30 years’ experience in Financial Services having worked for Royal Life, Swiss Life, Resolution, Phoenix and for the last 9 years, Aegon.
Kurt holds a Master of Science Degree in Management Studies and various financial and outsourcing professional qualifications issued by the CII, GSA and IACCM. Kurt is responsible for Aegon’s Supplier Oversight Framework which includes the Outsourcing Policy, handbook, processes and controls.
Luke Scanlon
Head of Fintech Propositions, Pinsent Masons
Luke Scanlon advises some of the world's leading technology companies, banks and fintech businesses on a range of fintech and legal technology related issues and had been recognised by Legal500 and ranked as a leading fintech lawyer by Chambers. Luke is the Head of Fintech propositions and a Legal Director for Pinsent Masons.
James Wharton
Head of Custody Operations, Winterflood Securities
Jeffrey Mushens
Technical Policy Director, TISA
Jeffrey, having read History at Cambridge 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, and responsibility for non-compliance relationships with regulators, HMRC and Government. He was a director of M&G and ran M&G's direct business.