Governance North 2024

Bio coming soon

Claire is Company Secretary and Compliance Officer at Northern Gritstone, a venture capital firm focused on supporting the Northern tech ecosystem. Claire is a fellow of the institute and an experienced governance professional and has had a varied career to date, working with and supporting organisations in multiple sectors. Claire is responsible for all compliance procedures, policies and processes at Northern Gritstone, and acts as a trusted advisor to the Board of Directors and its committees.

Prior to joining Northern Gritstone, Claire worked in professional services leading corporate secretarial service delivery teams including at Eversheds Sutherland, KPMG, and Indigo Independent Governance. Claire is Chair of the North West Branch of the CGI.

Sarah joined Together in 2007 on the Graduate Management Scheme and progressed throughout the Group taking leadership positions in Customer Servicing, Project Management and Business Change. Following successful leadership of key regulatory change programmes, Sarah moved into a governance role in 2016, and was appointed as Group Company Secretary in May 2018.

Sarah is a member of the Group’s DEI and Sustainability Committees and is a qualified Chartered Secretary.

Justine has held various board, executive and company secretary appointments throughout her international career. Justine started her company secretarial career in-house in the  UK Nuclear & Property sectors, before entering the world of professional services.

Internationally, Justine has held a number of senior roles, more lately Chief Executive and Global Head of Client Services for an International Law Firm leading a team providing corporate, trust, regulatory and accounting services in the UK, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dubai, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Since returning to the UK, Justine formed her own consultancy firm, Blakesley Consulting, providing regulatory advisory services to  international clients.

Justine is currently the Company Secretary for Rolls-Royce SMR.

Justine is an active Fellow of the Corporate Governance Institute and Institute of Directors.

Natasha is the founder and Director of Diverse Matters. She is responsible for the overall running of the company and for the design and delivery of a range of diversity and inclusion solutions across all sectors.

Natasha has over 25 years’ experience of working within the diversity and inclusion field, and prior to setting up Diverse Matters and was the Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion for Victim Support.  Natasha led the organisation to become a Stonewall top 100 employer,  achieve the ‘Leaders in Diversity’ and ‘Investors in Diversity’ accreditation from the National Centre for Diversity and the charity was the first national charity to achieve ‘Leaders in Diversity’ status.  Other Diversity and Inclusion roles held include Head of Development for Equal Approach (now EA Inclusion) and Head of Diversity, Inclusion and Wellbeing for law firm Mills & Reeve.

Due to this experience and knowledge Natasha has developed and delivered a wide range of diversity and inclusion programmes to companies nationally that focused on areas including bias, disability ,mental health, embedding diversity and inclusion, supporting diverse communities, race equity and LGBT+ inclusion. Natasha is also an experienced guest speaker, facilitator, chair and has held senior positions including chairing regional and national panels within the public and voluntary sector. 

Natasha has also carried out Diversity consultancy Associate roles for Pearn Kandola, Business Disability Forum (BDF) National Centre for Diversity (NCD), Irish Centre for Diversity. Board roles include the Institute of Equality and Diversity Practitioners (IEDP) and Advisory board for Supporting Justice.

Natasha was also the winner of Stonewall Cmyru's LGBT+ 'Ally of the Year' Award 2018 and Runner up/Special mention - National Centre for Diversity 2016 'Inspirational person award’ and also named on Class of 2021 for the Women, Influence and Power in Law UK for her work at Mills & Reeve.

Mark has worked for Companies House for over 20 years and has held senior roles within Policy, Operations and within the Enforcement and Intelligence teams. Mark has worked extensively with Enforcement and Intelligence partners throughout the UK. Mark is currently the Senior Implementation Lead responsible for developing the Authorised Corporate Service Provider registration and maintenance service under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill.

Chelsea is a Chartered Company Secretary with extensive experience in the professional services sector providing governance and entity management services. At LawDeb she leads a team of 20 company secretaries who provide a wide range of entity management, subsidiary governance and advisory services to the UK entities of our global clients. Chelsea is passionate about building relationships and delivering a high level of service through building strong relationships with clients and colleagues. She has a particular interest in improving processes and procedures, implementing technology to achieve this where possible. Before joining LawDeb, Chelsea gained valuable experience as part of the company secretarial within a global law firm focused on serving the technology & innovation, energy & infrastructure, and finance sectors. During this time she gained exposure to supporting on large transactions and deals, and facilitated the entity management of a diverse portfolio.

Evon is an Associate Director within the Global Entity Management service in Law Debenture. She is a qualified Chartered Governance professional, having worked in governance since 2013, specialising in global subsidiary governance, project & relationship management. Prior to starting her corporate governance career, Evon has worked in the financial services with a career covering secured lending, compliance, internal audit, regulated complaint handling and consumer credit regulation. Evon has substantial experience in advising on international corporate governance requirements for small and large multinationals and in project managing post-M&A integration formalities, working with GCs, law firms and tax advisors. She is passionate about building relationships and delivering excellent service through providing pragmatic and practical advice, tailored to the setup of each client. Always looking to make change happen by looking at processes and delivering every project better than the last one. Keen to develop up and coming governance professionals, Evon oversees the technical training of the entity management service and outside of work, you will find her tutoring company secretaries who are sitting the CSQS Development of Strategy exam.

Sharon has worked in the financial services and corporate sectors and in the last two decades run her own businesses providing corporate foreign exchange risk management and corporate governance services and solutions.

Sharon’s experience in risk management at the Board level of more than 250 major, and often worldwide, corporates and her knowledge of regulations, international finance, corporate governance, financial markets and running her own businesses have together provided Sharon with an ability to work with Boards on more than one level – strategic, risk, governance and management.

This experience enables her to support Chairmen and NED’s in their strive to improve the leadership by and challenge within their Boards.

Riz is currently the Deputy Group Secretary at Skipton Building Society. A qualified corporate governance professional, she specialises in all aspects of governance within the financial and regulated sectors.

Riz has experience in both professional services and in-house roles and has worked with companies such as Computershare and Deutsche Bank.

A 30 year qualified lawyer, Rod Findlay is currently General Counsel at Birmingham City Football Club. He has 20 years’ experience in senior executive, chief executive and Board level roles in sport. He has been a non-executive director at each of the Mountain Training Trust, Badminton England and the Ladies Golf Union (LGU), and is credited with leading the legal negotiations with the Royal and Ancient Golf Club and the LGU to merge the two governing bodies in 2016. Rod has previously held legal and governance roles in Rugby League and at each of England Golf, British Cycling and the Commonwealth Games Federation. He lectures on sport law and governance at Northumbria University and was previously the external examiner for the sports law masters at De Montford University as well as a judge of the Chartered Governance Institute’s Annual Awards.

George is currently the Head of Governance and Compliance at Emmaus Catholic Academy Trust – a growing multi-academy trust of Roman Catholic primary and secondary schools within five local authority areas of Greater Manchester. Prior to this – George has led school governance services for two diverse Local Authorities and provided interim and consultancy support to local authorities, individual schools and multi-academy trusts.

George himself has been involved in school governance activity for the last 14 years in a variety of settings – taking opportunities to celebrate the impact of good governance, as well as reflect upon the challenges that can arise where governance arrangements aren’t robust enough for the organisation.

Robert Hicks was appointed Company Secretary in January 2023. He has worked in Rugby League within the Legal and Operations Department since February 2011, becoming the Director of Operations and Legal in October 2021.

He has overall responsibility for the administration and regulatory framework across all sectors of the sport including Player Welfare, Match Officials and Safeguarding.

Robert is a former International Match Official having officiated at 3 World Cups. He has refereed 2 Challenge Cup Finals, 2 Grand Finals, 2 World Club Challenges and numerous international matches whilst taking charge of over 500 first team matches including over 300 in Super League.

A qualified lawyer, Robert was admitted to the Roll in February 2008 (having previously been called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn in July 2004). He previously worked in private practice before joining the RFL where he was responsible for the drafting of the sport’s first set of Operational Rules for Tiers 4-6 as well as being the lead legal person on the 2013 World Cup.

Robert has been actively involved in the sport for most of his life, including in several volunteer roles within the community game at Saddleworth Rangers and latterly at Batley Boys.

He is also a Trustee of the Rodillian Multi Academy Trust where he is also a member of the Trust’s Audit & Risk Committee.

Mark Howorth is the Head of Corporate Governance for St. Anne's Community Services, based in Leeds.

St Anne’s Shelter and Housing Action was founded in response to the growing number of homeless and socially excluded people in Leeds. Before any services were created, homeless people were interviewed, and identified the need for a day centre. The St Anne’s Centre was opened in December 1971. St. Anne’s Community Services, pride themselves on delivering a diverse range of services with the clients and tenants at the heart of everything they do. The organisation has grown to be a housing association and multi-specialist care provider with over 2,000 clients and tenants and 1,600 staff.

Mark has a wide variety of experience in governance across a number of different sectors including professional sports, education, universities and finance. Mark won the Worshipful Company of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators Charitable Trust 2022 prize for the best dissertation.

Mark is Chair of the Board and Trustee of Beyond The Margin, a small charity in Bradford supporting disadvantaged and marginalised people in West Yorkshire.

Mark is also the Chair of the Yorkshire and Humber Branch of the Chartered Governance Institute UK & Ireland, is a Chartered Company Secretary and a Member of the Institute of Leadership.

Professor Dr Yanguo Jing is the Dean of Faculty of Business, Computing and Digital Industries, Leeds Trinity University. He is a Professor of Artificial Intelligence. Professor Jing is a Fellow of the British Computer Society, a Charter IT professional and a Principal Fellow of the Advance HE and a Certified Management & Business Educator. Prof. Jing’s prime research interest is applied Artificial Intelligence.

His recent research work focuses on the use of machine-learning methods to capture interaction and user behaviour patterns that can be used to develop intelligent applications. This research has been applied in applications such as HR, health care, business analytics, sports analytics. He has led several projects with clients such as Cabinet Office, Ministry of Justice, Cadent Gas, Comic Relief, etc.

Jonathan Knight is Chief Technology Officer at Board Intelligence. Jonathan joined Board Intelligence in 2010 and has sat on the IOD’s Good Governance Index advisory panel. Jonathan spent several years working closely with boards to improve the quality of board information, before building our technology practice. Today, AI is core to our product suite, which enables leaders to make more important, more informed, and more valuable decisions

Robert is a Chartered Secretary and Governance Professional with 30 years’ experience gained in the financial services, industrial, utility, food, retail, and technology sectors. He has a proven track record in regulated FTSE companies, and most recently in the mutual sector. Responsible for Corporate Governance, Listing Rules, Disclosure and Transparency Rules, MAR and UK Takeover Code, he has also successfully implemented domestic and international IPO’s, corporate structures, M&A, due diligence, and joint ventures.

Winner: 2020 Corporate Governance Hot 100 ‘Board Influencer’.

Winner: 2022 Corporate Governance Hot 100 ‘Innovator’.

Dr Lizzie Oliver is a published author with 15 years' research consultancy experience in the education sector. She has chaired an international research organisation and worked with government departments, employer bodies and national heritage organisations to deliver complex research and engagement activities with a wide range of stakeholders.

Lizzie is a graduate of the Chartered Governance Institute's Chartered Qualifying programme and a former National Leader of Governance (NLG). Before becoming a Director with Trust Governance Professionals, Lizzie led Governance and Compliance across a multi-academy trust, and has previous experience of governance advisory support in maintained, federated, single trust and faith school settings.

Feroz Patel began his career in the NHS as a National Financial Management Trainee in 1999 and qualified as a Chartered Public Finance Accountant on the scheme. Since graduating he has held a number of senior finance roles across provider and commissioner organisations.

Feroz’s career progression has been through costing, income and contracting since the implementation of Payment by Results in 2002.

More recently, Feroz has been Chief Finance Officer at Stockport NHSFT and Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHSFT. His current role is the Lancashire and South Cumbria Recovery & Transformation Finance Director looking at the configuration of Health and Care Services in the system.

Kerry, a Chartered Secretary with over 20 years experience has worked in-house for the majority of her career and for the last 6 years has been running boutique governance consultancy Round Governance Services Limited. Her experience ranges from small private limited companies through to large FTSE 100 both home and abroad! She takes pride in always bringing a practical and sensible approach to governance solutions but always grounded in the core principles of governance. Kerry and her team are always looking for innovative ways to bring the career of a Co Sec to life, providing thought-provoking perspectives and raising the profile of governance professionals.

Kerry is also Associate Lecturer on the MSc Governance at the University of Lincoln.

Sara was recently promoted to the role of Executive Director at Riverside, a large social landlord who manage homes and services across the country. Her portfolio is somewhat broad, and includes Legal, Governance, Data Protection, Health and Safety, Business Continuity, Compliance, Strategy, Comms, Internal Audit and People Services.

Sara has worked for Riverside since 2019, prior to which she worked for lots of years at Manchester Metropolitan University, as a solicitor, then Head of Department, then General Counsel, and did an MBA during that time. Before that, she lived in Toronto working for the provincial government, and before that, she trained and qualified as a Solicitor at Weightmans.

At home, Sara enjoys spending time with her children who are 6 and 9 (going on 16 and 19!), and husband, ideally hosting parties, or in the campervan, though never at the same time.

Femi has 30 years' experience as a Chartered Secretary, working primarily in financial services where she has worked with senior boards and executives, dealing with directors' inductions, board performance reviews - internal and external, and been involved in the identification and mitigation of risks. She is currently the Deputy Company Secretary at Frasers Group plc, the UK's largest sporting goods retailer by revenue.

Patrick Stewart is a c-suite executive, company secretary & solicitor with over two decades of experience in the sports & entertainment industry. He spent 18 seasons at Manchester United, where he was a director and company secretary of the main trading companies and the group’s general counsel. He also served as a director of the club’s New York-listed parent company and as its CEO during the successful search for new investment. Prior to that, Patrick worked in sports marketing with TEAM Marketing AG in Switzerland and also as a commercial lawyer with two leading firms.

Patrick has been a member of numerous advisory and working groups within the football industry, including the Premier League’s Legal Advisory Group and Financial Controls Advisory Group, the Legal & Regulatory Working Group of the European Club Association and the FA's CEO Advisory Group for women's professional football.

In 2019, Patrick was appointed as an arbitrator at the Court of Arbitration for Sport and he has since presided over a variety of international sports disputes.

Lesley Ward FCG has been a chartered Governance Professional for 20 years with experience of working in the charity, public and private Sector, as well as 5 years working for CGIUKI.

She is currently Governance Manager at UniHomes in Sheffield. She is also an International Coaching Federation accredited coach and has coached and mentored governance professionals at all points in their career and in different roles. She is passionate about supporting governance professionals to thrive in their roles.

Paul Wilson has been Chief Executive Officer of international recruitment firm, Nigel Wright Group, since January 2014. He has over 30 years’ global recruitment industry experience, during which time he has successfully built teams and grown specialist recruitment businesses in the UK and overseas.

Whilst his current role carries substantial management responsibility, he is still actively involved in talent attraction, retention, and development both for Nigel Wright and its clients throughout the UK, Europe, and North America.

Paul has helped establish Regulators such as the FSA and CQC as well as helping boards across the whole range of environments hire Board Talent. He has led the refinancing of Nigel Wright when PE owned and subsequently initiated and negotiated a successful management buyout in 2020. Paul advises CEOs and Chairs in multiple countries and sectors on attracting and retaining Board members. He is an active private investor in both quoted and unquoted companies.