James is Chief Executive of the Quoted Companies Alliance, the members’ organisation that champions small and mid-sized companies whose shares are publicly traded. James was City Editor and Executive Editor of the Evening Standard and Independent titles and before that City Editor of the Sunday Times. He is the author of several business books and chairs Oscar’s Book Prize, the annual search for the UK’s best picture book. James is also a non-executive director of Finsbury Growth & Income, the FTSE 250 investment trust.

Emma Reynolds was appointed Economic Secretary to the Treasury and City Minister at HM Treasury on 14th January 2024. She was Minister for Pensions at HM Treasury and the Department of Work and Pensions from 9th July 2024 to 14th January 2025. Emma has been the MP for Wycombe since 2024, and represented Wolverhampton North East as MP from 2010 – 2019. She has worked as an adviser in Downing Street and the House of Commons, and set up a business in Brussels advising British companies on their European operations. She has also worked for TheCityUK and Cogitamus

James is Chief Executive of the Quoted Companies Alliance, the members’ organisation that champions small and mid-sized companies whose shares are publicly traded. James was City Editor and Executive Editor of the Evening Standard and Independent titles and before that City Editor of the Sunday Times. He is the author of several business books and chairs Oscar’s Book Prize, the annual search for the UK’s best picture book. James is also a non-executive director of Finsbury Growth & Income, the FTSE 250 investment trust.

Alderman Alastair King DL is the 696th Lord Mayor of London in November 2024. The principal role of Lord Mayor is as a Global Ambassador for UK’s Financial and Professional Services, alongside championing charitable interests for the Lord Mayor’s Appeal and the wider community.

Alastair is on the board of five City of London-based financial services companies, four of which he chairs. Of the five companies, four are FCA-regulated and he owns two – Naisbitt King Asset Management Limited (a fund manager) and Naisbitt King Limited (a family office).

Alastair is Chair of the British Liver Trust, the national liver charity. He also has substantial involvement in the Livery Companies.

Alastair is a Deputy Lieutenant for Greater London. He is an Honorary Fellow – Chartered Institute of Securities and Investment (CISI), an Honorary Visiting Professor – Bayes Business School, City St George’s, University of London and an Honorary Bencher – Honourable Society of the Middle Temple.

Sarah was appointed as Executive Director, Markets in June 2021 and took up her role as Executive Director, International in April 2023.

As Executive Director of Markets, Sarah is responsible for the delivery of the FCA’s statutory market integrity objective and co-leads the combined Supervision, Policy and Competition (SPC) division with Sheldon Mills.

As Executive Director of International, Sarah leads our international function, proving overall leadership for our international priorities in support of the FCA strategy.

Sarah is the Executive Director sponsor for the FCA's Edinburgh office, as well as sponsoring the FCA's gender diversity network.

Prior to joining the FCA, Sarah was the Director of the National Economic Crime Centre (NECC), a multi-agency partnership housed in the National Crime Agency, created in late 2018 to deliver UK system leadership on economic crime. Before then she was General Counsel/Legal Director for the National Crime Agency as well as leading the NCA's transformational people programme.

Her career has involved stints in investigative, operational and legal roles in a range of government departments and in the private sector. Within the private sector she has led global financial crime compliance and reputational risk teams at HSBC and qualified as a commercial litigator with Dechert LLP.

Sarah is currently covering the Consumers and Competition, Executive Director’s role alongside David Geale, Managing Director, PSR. Specifically, Sarah is covering consumer finance, insurance, cost-cutting policy and strategy, and competition directorates (plus sustainable finance Executive Director oversight), whilst David is covering retail banking, and payments and digital assets directorates.

Simon Walls is covering Sarah’s Executive Director, Markets role. Sarah retains executive responsibility for International.

Stephen Welton was appointed Non-executive Chair of the British Business Bank in October 2023.

Stephen has extensive experience as an investor in private capital markets around the world. He was the founder CEO of the Business Growth Fund plc (BGF) from 2011 to 2020, then Executive Chair between 2020 and 2022, and later Non-Executive Chair until July 2023.

In 2013, Stephen was appointed as an advisor to the UK Government regarding the establishment of the British Business Bank and, in 2017, served as a member of the Industry Panel advising HM Treasury on the Patient Capital Review. He was also a member of the Prime Minister’s 2021 Business Council and member of the Innovate Council from 2018-2021.

Prior to BGF, he was one of the founding partners of global private equity firm CCMP Capital (formerly JP Morgan Partners) and, before that, managing director of Barclays Private Equity and Henderson Ventures, which he also co-founded.

Stephen was awarded a CBE in June 2023 for services to Small Businesses and Entrepreneurship.

Charles joined Peel Hunt as Head of Research in October 2008 as well as covering the consumer sector. His career includes nine years at Panmure Gordon as Head of Small & Mid Cap Research and nine years at Cazenove. Charles has been regularly ranked as the top analyst in the Extel market survey. Charles read Politics and Economics at Durham University.

Andrew is CEO of Gamma Communications plc.  He joined Gamma in 2007 and became CFO in 2014 at the same time as Gamma floated on AIM.  He became CEO in 2022.  Gamma has recently announced its intention to move to the Main Market having been on AIM for over ten years during which time its market capitalization has increased from £160m to £1.3bn.  Andrew has overseen that growth as both CFO and CEO.  He has spent a lot of time with investors on the AIM market over the past ten years and brings experience of AIM from the perspective of a fast growing technology company.

The Managing Director and the lead fund manager for Herald Investment Management Ltd. She established HIML in December 1993 to manage Herald Investment Trust plc which was launched in February 1994 which remains the flagship fund. The fund has appreciated over the life of the Trust with an NAV total return exceeding 25x. It invests in global quoted TMT stocks with a market value below $5bn, and the UK portfolio has outperformed other geographies from inception with a return of over 1500%.

Charlie is Deputy CEO of the London Stock Exchange plc having joined in 2018 to lead the Equity and Fixed Income Primary Markets businesses. Charlie is a capital markets specialist and previously worked within J.P. Morgan Cazenove’s Equity Capital Markets team responsible for originating and executing equity transactions. He has assisted in raising over £45bn of equity capital across five continents on behalf of clients. During his time at JPMC, Charlie also worked in Sydney raising capital for companies on the Australian Stock Exchange as well as taking primary responsibility for the South African equity capital markets practice.

Vijay is a chartered accountant who was a partner at Deloitte and EY before taking up a number of non-executive director (NED) roles. He has served as a NED on various boards, including Quorn Foods and The Quoted Companies Alliance. He is currently on the boards of Alpha Group International plc, RSM Group and Treatt plc where he is chair.

Following an executive career with Centrica, ultimately as Chief Procurement Officer, Heather has held a range of Chair and Non-Executive Director roles across private, public and voluntary organisations. She has worked for organisations with growth agendas across multiple sectors including financial services, water, the arts and the health and  voluntary sector. She is presently Chair of ShareSoc, voice of individual investors in the UK,  an Independent NED for BlueLight Commercial, collaborating with police and fire forces across England and Wales to transform their commercial and procurement functions, and Chair of Everyturn – a mental health charity and Vice President of The Leaders Club which networks with senior leaders. She has also been Senior Independent Director with Cheque and Credit Clearing.

Andreas has 25 years of experience in the financial market, as General Counsel Europe at Nasdaq and Chairman of Nasdaq Stockholm AB, as well as at the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority. His team has twice won the FT Innovative Lawyers Award in technology (2018) and ESG (2023). He has also been a member of several stakeholder groups such as Swedish self-regulatory bodies, ESMA, EFRAG and CityUK’s Leadership Council. He is currently a member of the Swedish Corporate Governance Board.

Bim served as the Conservative Member of Parliament for Hitchin and Harpenden from 2017 until 2024.

During his time in office, Bim became the youngest ever City Minister, while also taking on the role as Economic Secretary to the Treasury.

He previously served as Chair of several Cross-Party Groups, including the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Financial Markets & Services. He also was the joint founder and Chairman of the Regulatory Reform Group, a group of prominent Conservative MPs working to reform the British regulatory system.

Prior to his political career, Bim worked as a corporate lawyer at Freshfields and Simpson Thatcher & Bartlett, as well as a senior executive at HSBC.

Neil is responsible for the vision and strategy of the FINTEL plc business with co-CEO Matt Timmins and has executive responsibility for Fintel’s Intermediary Services & Technology and the Distribution Channels business of FINTEL. Neil actively leads the PLC’s IT, operations and governance strategy and plays a major role in identifying and completing M&A to accelerate strategic development. Neil joined SimplyBiz in 2004 as Operations Director and was appointed Joint CEO of Fintel PLC (formerly The SimplyBiz Group plc) in 2010.

Neil has an Engineering Degree and an MBA, and has studied ‘Public Company Leadership’ and ‘Mergers & Acquisitions’ courses at Imperial College. Neil is currently studying a CTO programme at Wharton.

Oliver is associate editor at The Sunday Times. He was named business journalist of the year at the 2017 Press Awards for his investigation into Sir Philip Green’s £1 sale of BHS. He was also named business journalist of the year at the 2017 London Press Club Awards. His first book, Damaged Goods: The Inside Story of Sir Philip Green, the Collapse of BHS and the Death of the High Street was published by Penguin in June 2018.

Richard is the Chief Executive Officer of the Financial Reporting Council and has over 25 years of board level experience across a range of regulated sectors. Prior to joining the FRC, he was CEO of the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority and before that the CEO of the Legal Services Board, which oversees the regulation of the legal professions. Earlier in his career he held senior roles in the regulation of social housing, communications and energy. He has also held roles in the private sector such as being a director with a water company and as a partner for a consultancy. In a non-executive capacity, he was deputy Chair of the Social Housing Regulator, responsible for the governance and financial viability of social landlords. He is currently the senior independent director with a housing association.

Anjli reports on CEOs, boards, corporate governance, what’s going on inside the world’s biggest companies and the future of work.

Previously she was Senior Energy Correspondent covering oil and gas companies, Opec energy policy and the global transition towards cleaner fuels. Before joining the natural resources team, she was an editor and reporter in New York writing about the US consumer economy. She has also worked in the New Delhi bureau and on the companies, markets, comment and analysis desks in London since starting at the FT in 2009.

Dr Filipe Morais, is a specialist in corporate governance and faculty member at Henley Business School (UK), and a visiting professor at Catolica-Lisbon School of Lisbon and Economcis. He is the program director of Henley’s MSc in Management for Future Leaders. He is the author of several books, chapters, articles, reports and case studies on corporate governance and ESG.  Filipe is member of the editorial board of California Management Review and of the advisory board of the Governance magazine.

Outside academia, Filipe is an independent Partner at AMROP (Lisbon office), and works privately as an advisor for family-owned and entrepreneurial businesses, as well as larger corporates.

Michelle is the Managing Director of ESG Services for Inspired, an emerging market leader in the ESG sector. Inspired deliver end-to-end solutions for investors and businesses to make compliance disclosure and transform them into effective ESG impacts.

Michelle and her team now support 420 clients across multiple industries and geographies, providing expert insight and advisory services to help businesses reduce their carbon emissions and develop their net-zero, ESG and environmental strategies.

Michelle has a PhD in International Development in Emerging Economies, along with a wealth of experience delivering client services to the mining and metals industry, agriculture, retail sector and social enterprises to support them with their ESG, Social Impact assessment, Sustainable Business Practices, Environmental Awareness, Good Governance, Stakeholder and Public Engagement and much more.

Manju Malhotra joined the Board of Smiths News on 16 January 2025 as an independent non-executive director and is member of Smiths News’ Audit, Remuneration and Nominations Committees. Manju has extensive experience having held a number of senior financial and operational roles, including Chief Financial Officer (2010-2017), Chief Operations Officer (2018-2019) and Chief Executive Officer (2020-2023) at Harvey Nichols Group Ltd.
She is currently a non-executive director and chair of the Audit Committee at abrdn UK Smaller Companies Growth Trust PLC and non-executive director and member of Audit Committee and chair of the ESG Committee at Workspace Group PLC.
She qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1998

Having joined Giles Hargreave in 2007 to work on the Marlborough Special Situations Fund, Sid designed and launched the Marlborough Multi Cap Income Fund in 2011, where he remains lead manager. The Marlborough Multi Cap Income Fund became the first of its funds to cross £1bn in AUM for both Marlborough and Hargreave Hale and was subsequently acquired by Canaccord Genuity in 2017. It was ranked top in its peer group in 2013 and top quartile for total returns over one, three, five, and 10 years by the end of 2021.

Sid's expertise has always been on small mid-cap stocks, but it has grown to build on his initial experience of European (including UK) equities. He has been involved with the industry panels via the QCA, advising on various consultations and has been a judge for some of the smaller company awards. He is a trustee of the Oundle School Foundation and a chartered fellow of the CISI.