Judging panel

As well as being the principal consultant at the Caledonia Credit Consultancy, David sits on the Money Advice Liaison Group in Scotland, is a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, a member of the Operational Research Society and an associate member of the Chartered Institute of Bankers in Scotland.

As the head of the retail team at the British Bankers' Association, Eric's brief covers a broad portfolio of issues, including forthcoming revisions to the Consumer Credit Act, PPI, proposed changes to insolvency and debt management legislation, pensions and savings, and the banking code.

In a wider context, Eric's team also hold responsibility for proposed European interventions, including the retail banking review, Single European Payments Area - and the introduction of collective redress, which has been the subject of much attention and debate in Brussels recently and emerging EU thinking around a single home loans market.

Eric has over twenty years experience as a career banker in retail banking with NatWest and latterly the Royal Bank of Scotland Group. During this time, the roles he has undertaken have been both operational and strategic, including successful spells as a branch and business manager. Before joining the BBA, he was responsible for a portfolio of policy-driven projects in PR and communications, new and emergent markets, legal and regulatory issues and crisis management.

Paul Aitken founded borro in August 2008. borro is the leading personal asset lender in the UK and won Alternative Lender of the Year at the Credit Today Awards 2011.

borro offers loans from £1,000 - £1,000,000 secured against personal assets including jewellery, luxury watches, gold, fine art, antiques, sculptures, prestige cars, yachts, and other high value assets. All of borro's valuation experts are highly qualified and combined have over 50 years’ experience having worked for the leading auction houses including Sotheby's, Christie's and Bonham’s.

borro's board and investors have created, invested in, or managed a number of very successful online businesses: Sportingbet, Betfair, Egg, Linkedin, Groupon, Facebook, Lovefilm, BullionVault and First Direct.

Prior to founding borro, Paul was the founder and managing director of Movota, a provider of interactive mobile solutions to Europe’s leading TV and radio broadcasters. He sold Movota to Bertelsmann in 2005. In 2007, he was the chief executive officer, through the successful sale process, for an online video editing business backed by Benchmark Capital (eBay, Bebo, Betfair).

Andrew is a solicitor and consultant for LA Fast Track, the specialist recoveries division of Lester Aldridge Solicitors. LA Fast Track is one of the country's leading legal collections teams specialising in collections in the credit insurance, motor vehicle finance, banking, construction and waste management sectors. Andrew writes and speaks extensively on debt recovery (including being a frequent contributor to Credit Today). He is known nationally for his expertise in the field and was named in the UK Spotlight Table of leading debt recovery lawyers in the Chambers Legal Directory.

Heather Greig-Smith is head of editorial for Credit Today and its sister titles Insolvency Today and Payroll World. Previously editor of Credit Today, she joined the company in 2006, having worked for business magazines Property Week and Regeneration & Renewal.

Fiona Hoyle joined the Finance & Leasing Association as head of consumer finance in 2008. A qualified barrister, she has worked predominantly within the financial services sector with both the Building Societies Association and as senior lawyer at the Council of Mortgage Lenders. Fiona was also chairman of the Council of Property Search Organisations. At the FLA, she is responsible for consumer finance and regulatory reform issues including the FLA lending code.

Matt Idle is the director, customer operations for British Gas. His operational responsibilities currently include metering, billing, debt management, imbalance, settlements and revenue protection.

Matt joined British Gas as financial controller in September 2002 from WH Smith, the UK high street retailer where he held various senior finance positions. In 2004 he became finance transformation director, overseeing the transformation of the Centrica finance function.  In March 2007 he moved back to British Gas as part of the leadership team tasked with successfully restoring the customer service operations of the business.

In March 2008 he took on responsibility for British Gas’s operations in India and moved to Delhi with his family. Matt moved back to the UK in 2010 when he took on ownership for debt collections and the rest of his current responsibilities.

Zach has 12 years of executive experience in debt purchase, debt collections and contact centre management. He joined Arrow Global from Vertex, the business process outsourcing division of United Utilities (a FTSE 50 company) in the UK, where he served as president of Vertex North America and was the global product owner for debt management. Among his clients were the largest European and multi-national companies in the financial services, utility and government sectors. Previously, Zach was co-founder and executive director of 7C, a global call centre operator, which was acquired by Vertex in 2002, and a consultant with Mercer Management Consulting. He holds an honours degree in economics and a certificate in applied and computational mathematics from Princeton University. Zach currently serves as chairman of the Debt Buyers and Sellers Group of the Credit Services Association.

Euan joined the bank in 1988 and has been involved in the collections, recoveries and risk environment for the last 16 years. In his current role within group operations, Euan looks after the management of all outsourced activities within recoveries such as debt collection agencies, insolvency management and debt sale activity. Euan pioneered some of the early large scale debt sales in the UK and also use of risk-based scoring and segmentation methodologies in recoveries.

Kamala is the publisher of Credit Today and began the magazine more than ten years ago, bringing a range of other credit products to market including the Credit Summit and Credit Today Awards. A journalist by training, she is a trustee of the financial education charity, Credit Action, and is a freeman of the Guild of Stationers and Newspapermakers.

Edward Rimmer joined Bibby Financial Services as a graduate trainee manager in 1995 from Sheffield Hallam University where he achieved a BA in business studies. He has since enjoyed rapid promotion in his 13 years’ service with the Bibby Financial Services Group, becoming UK chief executive in 2007. In this role, Edward is responsible for overseeing the sales and operations performance of Bibby Financial Services’ 16 UK companies to ensure successful strategies are developed to aid continued growth in the UK market.

While serving as regional managing director of the central region, Edward was voted Manchester’s Young Director of the Year (2005), impressing the panel of distinguished judges with his professionalism, commercial acumen and commitment to the group.

Mike has spent twenty five years in the credit industry principally as a credit management consultant.

Greg Stevens is the chief executive of the CCTA. Prior to his recent appointment, he was the chairman of the CCTA for 5 years and also served on the FLA board, and the national executive of the CCA. Greg is also a trustee of Credit Action, the financial literacy charity. Greg has been in financial services for 19 years in senior director and business consultant positions. His main areas of experience are sales, marketing, HR, executive development, cultural change and latterly, corporate and regulatory affairs. Greg has held senior director and management roles in varied industries prior to financial services.

Tim is a partner in Deloitte responsible for analytics and modelling within the risk and regulation group. Tim joined Deloitte in 2009 from Lloyds Banking Group where he was director of risk analytics and modelling, responsible for group model oversight.
 
Tim’s experience includes credit and market risk model development and validation including policy, process and governance across group; stress testing and risk appetite; segmentation and scorecard development methodologies covering a wide range of asset classes (unsecured, secured, assed and cash flow); and economic capital framework development, methodology and process governance.

With responsibility for all legal and regulatory matters, Jacqui’s remit within The UK Cards Association covers a broad range of topical issues and key stakeholders. Particular areas of focus include the future of the consumer credit regime and the introduction of a single regulator; financial reform; the consumer credit act; the lending code; debt and mental health; and irresponsible lending.

In addition, Jacqui has responsibility for legal oversight of The UK Cards Association itself and oversees its senior groups; the board and its management committee.

Jacqui has been in the banking industry for nearly 30 years, working previously for a building society where she managed the current account new business team and also supported the organisation’s debit card implementation programme. Prior to that, she worked in international banking, both in the branch network and as a regional training officer.

Originally an analytical chemist, George later worked in local government and the aircraft and food industries, in systems and process re-engineering. This prior to joining the consumer finance sector over 35 years ago. First, he was an internal management consultant, then a credit specialist within finance companies, banks and credit card businesses.

Senior risk roles in car finance, personal loans, mortgages, and credit cards allowed him to improve the finance and control elements of credit decisions. Companies he worked for are now owned by Lloyds Banking Group, Standard Chartered Bank, J P Morgan Chase, Santander and RBS. He was chief executive of a start-up credit scoring company, Scorelink, in the late 1980s and later a non-executive director of debt purchaser, Cabot Financial. He was on the executive board of credit reference agency, UAPT Info-link – now absorbed by Equifax.

George’s pioneering work on credit scoring and his credit referencing background made him a popular speaker and a supporter of Edinburgh University’s Credit Research Centre for two decades. 13 years ago, he set up his own consulting business and has advised about 20 UK household names and also supported organisations in the USA, Europe, Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia. He has also advised on related strategic, regulatory and compliance issues, the sale and purchase of businesses and competition enquiries - often working with substantial legal firms.

A past fellow of the Institute of Credit Management, George was chairman of the Consumer Credit Trade Association and on its council for 13 years. He was deputy chairman of Eurofinas and a chair and an originator of SCOR, the body governing the sharing of credit data. In late 2010, he agreed to re-join the CCTA after a three year gap and has been keenly involved in its successful re-vitalisation.

George was pivotal in campaigns to retain the use of the UK electoral roll data and third party credit family data in the early 2000s. With its retention many on lower incomes and those with limited credit histories are being helped to get appropriate credit. Improving the accuracy / fairness of tenant credit decisions has been a passion.

George was a money advice link on behalf of Lombard-NatWest during the 1990s. He has, more recently, worked with Social Finance on the provision of finance to families with disabled children and has been the technical advisor to a 2008 project with Big Issue Invest. This analytically orientated project investigated the value to the financially excluded of making social rent data available. A report on the project, co-authored with BII’s Sarah Forster and published in February 2011, has lead to detailed implementation planning for a large scale roll out in 2012 / 2014. He has provided ad hoc support to unsecured lending initiatives within the social housing sector. He received the Credit Today Award in 2011 – for his contribution to the credit industry.