TISA 10th Annual CASS Conference 2024

Jim is Head of Client Assets at the FCA. He has a longstanding grounding in the subject, leading teams of CASS supervisors for five years and after that, leading teams working on the resolution of insolvent regulated firms, with a focus on return of client funds from CASS and payments/e-money firms. He also has significant experience of corporate finance regulation and market abuse from leading teams in the FCA’s Market Oversight division. Before joining the FCA, he worked in tax consulting.

Dennis is the Principal & Founder of Gladius Assurance Services, with over 18 years of experience advising the financial services sector on regulatory matters. Before founding Gladius, he was a Partner at a Big-4 firm, who led their Client Assets, Safeguarding, Payments and Digital Assets Assurance practices. At Gladius, he is a trusted advisor with deep hands-on expertise in CASS, Safeguarding, FSCS and Internal Controls. He supports clients with regulatory and business change, s166 and V-REQ remediation, deep-dive reviews, and practical regulatory training. His sector coverage and experience spans banking and capital markets, wealth platforms, fintech, payment / e-money firms and insurance brokers.

Chloe has 16 years of financial services experience, having worked in retail banking, private banking, at the regulator, investment management consultancy and investment/wealth management. Chloe has been specialising in CASS for 8 years whilst working at the 2 largest global asset managers and has recently started working at Winterflood Securities leading the CASS function.

Chris is a partner in the Financial Services Regulatory Practice at CMS London. Chris has significant payments, fintech and financial regulation expertise. He has a unique background and insight having joined CMS from the Bank of England where he was working on a number of high profile projects such as the renewal of the Bank’s Real Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS), the broadening of access to RTGS and the payments systems which settle over it to non-bank payment service providers or central bank digital currency (CBDC) / stablecoin workstreams. Chris also has a strong background in Banking and Restructuring, having qualified as a restructuring lawyer and advised on a wide range of finance and resolution matters at the Bank. Chris has considerable experience working with the regulators, financial market infrastructures and payment institutions.

Chris is SMF18 (CASS) for Aviva and has SMCR Senior Manager responsibility for 3 CASS firms (one CASS Large firm and 2 CASS Medium firms) and he provides oversight to all Aviva’s platform, life assurance and general insurance businesses. His role as Head of CASS and Middle Office Oversight ensures he is a full time in his role overseeing each firm’s CASS compliance. Chris has 29 years of experience gained in both retail and institutional financial services in a variety of consulting, operational and accounting roles for some of the UK and world's leading financial and professional services organisations including Aviva, Aegon, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Franklin Templeton Investments, Grant Thornton, HSBC, Standard Life Aberdeen and Abbey National. In addition, Chris held the role of Chair of the TISA Client Assets Technical Committee from its inception in 2012 until 2015.

Stewart has over 20 years of experience in financial services, specialising in client assets (CASS) compliance. He is currently a Board member, Director and Head of Operations Control where he is responsible for ensuring the operational effectiveness of the systems and controls that safeguard the firm's compliance with CASS regulations.

Shaid is based in Scotland where he received his undergraduate education in Finance & Risk Management at the Glasgow Caledonian University. He has gone on to have an extensive career in banking and investment services over the past 25 years in both the wholesale institutional and retail sectors in the UK and Europe. His career history includes firms such as Morgan Stanley, Scottish Widows, Barclays and most recently abrdn. For the past 12 years, Shaid has focused his attentions on client asset regulations in the UK and specifically the FCA’s CASS rules and has been a leading industry commentator on this topic in the UK. As Head of Client Assurance for abrdn’s Adviser business, Shaid is responsible for the oversight of client assets and operations of two of the UK’s largest investment platforms, Wrap & Elevate. Additionally, Shaid is a founding member of the Scottish CASS Forum, a member of the UK wide TISA CASS Technical Committee and Co-President of the CISI Scotland Committee. With these associations, Shaid has represented industry bodies in several CASS consultations with the FCA and other regulatory agencies in developing regulation and establishing industry best practise.

Naomi is Head of CASS at Moneybox, a savings and investments app. She has 13 years of experience across both audit and industry and was a founding member of a CASS industry focus group for fintech.

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.

Kiran is a Partner at Deloitte in the Client Assets & Safeguarding Assurance team. Kiran works primarily with Investment Management & Wealth firms and more recently with the Insurance sector. Kiran has worked with a broad range of IM & Wealth clients, ranging from global asset managers through to private equity firms. Kiran also leads on some of Deloitte’s largest Insurance Broker CASS 5 engagements. Throughout her tenure, Kiran has supported firms on regulatory matters with a focus on Client Assets, risk, governance and controls reviews. Most recently Kiran has supported firms in a variety of CASS transformation projects. Kiran is also the Inclusion & Diversity lead for Assurance within Deloitte.

Julie has delivered programs of work in the regulatory space for several major financial service institutions, as selected CASS adviser & consultant; having held C level roles across the industry and with credible expertise across operations and regulation, particularly with the FCA regime. Julie has over 35 years industry expertise & 20 years’ regulatory consulting experience. Subject Matter Expert (“SME”) in relation to FCA CASS, she brings perspective across a variety of sectors & business models; including wealth, asset and investment fund managers, stockbroking, investment banking, third party administrators and service providers. Julie is an Individual Chartered Member of the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investments (“CISI”).

Edward has worked for the last 17 years in the financial services practice at Forvis Mazars. He has focussed his regulatory work on CASS with clients across multiple sectors and business models. He is active at Forvis Mazars in the practical aspects of methodology and technical matters and is responsible for the internal ‘licensing’ of staff for CASS audit work. He has an especial interest in transferring knowledge to other practitioners. Edward represents Mazars at the ICAEW CASS and Safeguarding working party.

Katy holds the Head of CASS Operational Oversight role at T. Rowe Price, overseeing a medium sized CASS firm and a further limited assurance CASS firm. Katy has over 10 years’ experience in the financial services industry. She initially started her career as a financial statement auditor at Big 4 firm, Deloitte. She later moved in the regulatory assurance team at Deloitte, specialising in CASS external and internal (co-source) audits and wider CASS assurance reviews within the investment management sector.

As Director of Risk and Technical Policy at TISA, Lisa has emerged as one of the leading voices in Consumer Duty, having brought together the industry to produce a comprehensive Best Practice Guide, and currently working to bring about a standardised framework for data sharing across the distribution chain. Lisa also leads TISA work on vulnerability, an area which she is particularly passionate about, having had lived experience. Lisa is an experienced outsourcing, risk and CASS specialist with over 25 years’ experience in financial services, with a particular focus on client protection. She has held senior roles encompassing oversight of outsourced delivery of services within the asset management sector to both retail and professional clients, and held the role of CF10a, an FCA approved role responsible for compliance to Client Asset Protection. Prior to this she held senior roles in a large outsourcing service provider, including as a Lead Client Relationship Manager responsible for delivering services appropriate for a regulated firm, and leading large operational finance teams based in the UK and India. She has significant experience in implementing oversight and risk management frameworks to effectively identify and manage the risks associated with outsourcing and offshoring regulated activities. During her time as a CF10a, she took a key role in a joint client/service provider remediation programme, gaining valuable experience and insight into meeting the regulators expectation in relation to service providers performance, and regulated firms oversight of its outsourcing arrangements. She has a breadth of regulatory knowledge, in particular with a deep understanding of SYSC; CASS; COBs; COLL; MiFID; and MiFID II and is accomplished in assisting senior managers to Board level in understanding regulatory obligations