Meet the Board

Ken is a consummate businessman with extensive experience in the financial services sector, having originally spent many years working in HSBC’s commercial bank, where his key focus was driving improved customer outcomes. As Chief Executive of Hamptons International, he led the estate agency’s turnaround and then went on to run a major portion of the nonprime lending activities for Citigroup in the UK and Irish Republic. Subsequent executive roles included Managing Director of MG Capital, an early fin-tech that Ken floated on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM).  Then Chief Executive of AIM-listed training software provider ILX Group, which Ken transformed and built into a leading international skills-based training supplier. Ken’s current appointments include non-executive chair of JLC Distribution, and Senior Independent Trustee at St John’s Foundation, a Bath-based charity supporting vulnerable members of the local Bath & NE Somerset community.

Mark is an investor, advisor and commercial leader within the Fintech lending space and plays an active role in executive advisory for a number of UK and US based Fintech’s and starter banks.  Having spent over 15 years working across the main UK corporate banks such as HSBC, RBS and Santander he has led teams and business’s that have provided a range of funding and lending products to SME’s and large corporates and has pro-actively moved into the private equity and Fintech space over the past few years.  His specific expertise includes corporate finance, trade finance, asset finance and commercial finance and he currently works in the leadership team of one of the UK’s first receivable finance and loan Fintech companies.

Prior to his Director role, Mark acted as Interim Chief Executive of the LSB and has had a nearly forty-year career of public service.  From 2010, he led the Financial Services Compensation Scheme for nine years, transforming its capability in the wake of the financial crisis so that it is able to protect consumers in the event of major failures and putting many of its services on-line.  Before FSCS, Mark was a civil servant in both policy and delivery roles.  This culminated in Director-General roles in both Home Office where he was responsible for counter-terrorism, organised crime and International work from 2002 to 2005 and in HM Treasury where he was the Managing Director for Budget, Tax and Welfare between 2005 and 2010.  Mark has also worked as a civil servant on education, employment and welfare issues.

Debbie Forster MBE is an award-winning figure in the areas of tech, diversity and education. She is co-founder and CEO for the Tech Talent Charter, an industry collective which aims to deliver greater inclusion and diversity in the UK tech workforce. Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) named her Woman of the Year for 2016 and she was awarded an MBE in 2017 for “Services to Digital Technology and Tech Development” and in 2018 Women in IT named her Diversity Leader of the Year.  More recently, WeAreTechWomen awarded Debbie their Editor’s Choice Award for 2020 and Computer Weekly named her Most Influential Woman in UK IT for 2019 and on its top 20 Most Influential People in IT 2022. Debbie has a wider portfolio including coaching social entrepreneurs and serves as the Chair of the Institute of Coding’s Diversity Board and serves on the government’s Digital Economy Council and its Money and Pensions Service advisory board.

Emma joined the LSB in April 2020. She is responsible for the strategic and operational management of the organisation. Emma works closely with the LSB Board and team, stakeholders and partners to ensure that the LSB fulfils its renewed mission and strategy to drive fair outcomes and the highest standards of consumer protection within financial services through independent and rigorous oversight.

Having trained initially as a solicitor, Emma has worked in law firms across the South coast and in London. She was most recently CEO for a UK trade association for insolvency and restructuring professionals.

Emma holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from University College London, the post-graduate Legal Practice Course certificate and is a facilitator for the Leadership Trust organisation, helping to develop the skills of current and future leaders.

Caron Bradshaw OBE has led Charity Finance Group (CFG) as CEO since she joined in 2010, having previously worked as Head of the Charity and Voluntary Sector at ICAEW. A trained Barrister, Caron has a wide array of experience across charity; everything from policy to professional ethics, and she continues to influence the reshaping of the Charities SORP.

In 2015, Caron was named Charity Principal of the Year at the Charity Times Awards and in 2020, she was named Woman of the Year (non-CCAB) at the Women in Finance and Accountancy Awards. A year later she was honoured for her services to charity with an OBE. Caron is committed to improving workplace culture and people’s experience of the sector and when she’s not sharing her passion for excellence in finance and governance, she can be found tending her small holding, painting, or playing hockey. 

Iain is one of Britain’s leading political commentators and bloggers, and has presented shows on LBC Radio since 2010. Iain co-hosts a weekly podcast with former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith called ‘For the Many’, and is a visiting professor of politics and broadcasting at the University of East Anglia. He has written more than fifty books. Until June 2018, Iain was managing director of Britain’s leading political publisher, Biteback Publishing. He formed the company in 2009 and published more than 600 books, including Power Trip, by Damian McBride and the bestseller Call me Dave: The Unauthorised Biography of David Cameron, by Michael Ashcroft, as well as the Alastair Campbell Diaries. Iain is a regular columnist for the Daily Telegraph, Evening Standard and i, and is a regular panellist on Radio 4’s Any Questions. He has appeared twice on BBC1’s Question Time.

Paul has been director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies since 2011. He is a columnist for The Times, and is a regular contributor to other broadcast and print media. He is a visiting professor in the UCL Policy Lab and at the UCL department of economics.

He was for 10 years a member of the UK Climate Change Committee, and has served on the council of the ESRC and of the Royal Economic Society. Paul led reviews of pension auto-enrolment and of inflation measurement for the UK government, and of fiscal devolution for the Northern Ireland executive.

Previous roles have included time as chief economist at the Department for Education and as director of public spending at HM Treasury, where he also served as deputy head of the government economic service.

Paul published the Sunday Times bestseller “Follow the Money” in 2023. He was appointed CBE in the 2018 birthday honours.