Governance

John Browett, Chair

In a career spanning thirty years, John has held the position of Chief Executive within a number of major UK businesses including Tesco.com, Dixons Retail, Monsoon-Accessorize, and Dunelm Group. He has extensive experience of transforming and strengthening the position of some of the UK’s most popular retailers. At Dixons, he was responsible for driving their five year transformation strategy and oversaw the successful merger of the Dixons Retail business to form Currys PC World. Prior to this, John played a key role in the major transformation of the Tesco operating model, launching and overseeing the retailer’s online operation, Tesco.com.

Arnold Wagner OBE, Senior Independent Director

Arnold was previously Director of Human Resources at Smiths Group plc. Prior to Smiths Group, he was Director of Personnel at Bunzl plc, the distributor and outsourcer, and also worked at Fisons plc and International Computers Limited in HR roles.

He was the Chairman of the Pension Protection Fund from 2016 to 2021, having served on the PPF Board for over 10 years in total. He has also served as a Non-Executive Director at the UK Atomic Energy Authority, where he chaired the Remuneration Committee. Arnold is active in voluntary and charitable work in the social care and education sectors, and he was awarded an OBE in 2002 for his services to education. 

Rob Fraser, Non-Executive Director

Rob has over 35 years' experience in technology and consulting roles. In his executive career, he was IT Director for both J Sainsbury’s and Boots the Chemists, where he led substantial technology enabled transformations. Prior to that Rob was Vice President for Retail and Consumer Products at Computer Sciences Corporation. Rob is Chairman of Chris Fraser Associates, a digital consultancy advising some of the UK's largest companies. He has also been a Board advisor to tech startups E:Fundamentals and HubBox.
 

Zoe Wimborne, Non-Executive Director

Zoe is the Citigroup International Chief Risk Officer responsible for risk management for the 95 countries where Citi has operations outside of North America.   Prior to taking on this role in September 2023, she was the Chief Risk Officer for Europe, Middle East and Africa, responsible for leadership and oversight of Risk within the region.

Sarah-Jill Lennard, Non-Executive Director

During a distinguished career that spanned both the public and private sector, Sarah-Jill worked for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office before being appointed CEO and Accounting Officer for Her Majesty’s Government Communications Centre (HMGCC). More recently, Sarah-Jill worked as the Security Partner for Deloitte UK, combining the duties of Chief Security Officer and Chief Information Security Officer, and was responsible for Confidentiality and Privacy in both the UK and Switzerland.

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Chair: Ashley Hart, Monzo Bank

Ashley has been at Monzo Bank since October 2021, focussing on fraud and financial crime. Prior to joining Monzo, Ashley was at TSB for just over five years, leading various teams including fraud strategy and systems, customer awareness and education, and law enforcement engagement. At TSB, Ashley established an industry-leading, victim-centric, approach to fraud, with a focus on educating, protecting and supporting customers. He led on the partnership between frontline Policing and TSB, in support of community protection as well as the pursuit of fraudsters, and worked alongside forces across the length and breadth of the UK, as well as national bodies, to bring fraudsters to justice.

Vice Chair: Dr Nikki Grieve-Top, Cigna

As an expert in Investigative Psychology, Dr Grieve-Top is a recognised financial services figure specialising in fraud & financial crime risk management. Nikki is the Director of Payment Integrity at Cigna Global Markets where she is responsible for the strategic leadership and tactical direction of activities to manage fraud, waste, error and abuse across Cigna’s international health plan products. Nikki has over 20 years’ experience of influencing and leading diverse multidisciplinary teams and can demonstrate a proven track record of improving operational performance. A seasoned conference speaker and recognised subject matter expert, she has sat on several cross-sector anti-fraud steering groups and she prides herself on her unique academic and industry expertise. Nikki is a regular guest lecturer at the University of Liverpool where she also obtained her PhD titled ‘Explorations into Insurance Fraud: Bare facts, Behaviours and Beliefs’ which cements Nikki as a leader in this field.

Howard Rawstron, Lloyds Banking Group

Howard has undertaken a diverse range of roles in the financial services sector spanning the disciplines of operational management, corporate relationship management, strategy and risk management. His current role is Head of Fraud and Financial Crime Oversight for Lloyds Banking Group. His role ensures that the Groups approach to Fraud and Financial Crime prevention aligns to the organisation's Fraud Risk Appetite and the Group's vision and values.

He is also an advisory board member for Cifas, the UKs largest cross-sector fraud data sharing organisation, as well as a member of the European Banking Federation Exco financial crime strategy group. In his spare time, Howard enjoys running getting in a 5km jog on most days.

Stuart Stevens, Direct Line Group

Stuart has worked for Direct Line Group for over 21 years and leads multi-disciplined teams focussed on preventing fraud in both commercial and personal lines of business. Stuart and his teams have been successful in gaining insurance fraud awards for collaboration and for the use of Anti-Fraud Technology. He has progressed many initiatives to improve prevention, including robotic process automation, device recognition, digital identities, email risk scoring and biometrics. Having gained professional qualifications in Financial Crime Prevention and Anti-Money Laundering, he has extensive technical knowledge. Stuart chairs DLG’s Fraud Risk, Control & Insight Committee, which shares intelligence and tracks the impact of fraud. Stuart is passionate about tackling fraud and protecting victims, through the combined power of working together.

Joe Palmer, Natwest Group

Joe has worked in fraud prevention for over 12 years, holding a diverse variety of roles across multiple industries including Retail and Financial Services. In August 2022, Joe joined NatWest group to lead the Business and Commercial Card fraud strategy. Prior to this, Joe led the fraud strategy, systems and investigations teams for Capital One (Europe) ensuring losses were mitigated across identity and transactional fraud and embedding regulatory compliance whilst minimising genuine customer disruption.

He is a keen advocate of collaboration through the sharing of data and intelligence to reduce fraud, regularly contributing to industry panels, conferences and working groups to support the use of innovative solutions.

David Callington, HSBC UK Bank plc

With over 35 years’ experience in the financial services industry, David currently has responsibility for fraud across HSBC UK, including First Direct and M&S Bank, and is the current Chair of UK Finance’s Strategic Fraud Committee. David has previously held senior fraud roles at Lloyds Banking Group, including Group Fraud Director and Fraud Insight & Analytics Director. In addition to his responsibilities whilst at Lloyds, David sat on the Board of Directors of Financial Fraud Action UK, the industry body that worked collaboratively to protect UK consumers and businesses from fraud and the Home Office led UK's Joint Fraud Taskforce Management Board.

David Eborne, Revolut

David has over 18 years experience in a variety of Fraud Risk Management roles across both Financial Services organisations and fraud prevention solution providers. In August 2022, David joined Revolut to lead the fraud prevention efforts across Account Protection and Acquiring Fraud and looks to continue to innovate in fraud prevention in order to fight the ever-changing fraud threats that consumers and businesses face. Prior to joining Revolut, David has held senior fraud roles within the consumer lending space - most recently with Close Brothers and Klarna where he established a global fraud operations group and has previously held fraud consultancy roles with Transunion, supporting organisations across a broad range of different sectors to make effective use of data to help mitigate their key fraud challenges.

Wayne Stevens, National Fraud Lead at Victim Support

Wayne is the National Fraud Lead at Victim Support with responsibility for developing fraud policy and strategy and supporting Victim Support fraud services. He chairs the Victim Support Fraud Community of Practice working group and was a member of the Authorised Push Payment Steering Group that wrote the Contingent Reimbursement Mechanism code. From 2010 Wayne was Area Manager for Victim Support services in Gloucestershire and Wiltshire (and occasionally Dorset). Before joining Victim Support, Wayne worked for homelessness charity Shelter in a range of roles, including casework supervision, court representation, and area services management. Between 1989 and 1995 Wayne was a lecturer and researcher in social sciences at the University of Greenwich and also Birkbeck College, University of London. He is a member of an authorised push payment campaign and lobbying group with other third sector organisations, that continues to press for good outcomes for victims of fraud, and he tinkers with old motorcycles in his spare time.

Lee Gray, The Very Group

Lee has been at the Very Group since October 2019 and is responsible for the new business and fraud strategy within credit risk along with the development, monitoring and implementation of internal risk models. Prior to his role at the Very group, Lee has held positions at large banks, credit references agencies and new start-up companies primarily with the objective of using the latest data and systems available to protect customers and improve lending decisions. With nearly 20 years’ experience within credit risk and analytics, Lee has a strong passion for making improved lending decisions and utilising the latest tech available.

Mike Haley, Chief Executive

Since being appointed Chief Executive at Cifas in May 2018, Mike has actively worked to grow the community of stakeholders sharing data, intelligence and insight in the pursuit of preventing fraud and financial crime. Mike is passionate about Cifas becoming the driving force behind fraud prevention in the UK and with over 30 years’ experience of tackling and preventing fraud across the public, private and not-for-profit sectors, he is determined to bring together a strong cross-sectoral collaborative approach to tackling fraud. With a Master’s Degree in Criminology, Mike has led counter fraud efforts in the National Health Service, Ministry of Defence, Office of Fair Trading, HM Revenue and Customs and the Solicitors Regulation Authority. He also worked at the National Fraud Authority directing cross sector fraud prevention strategies. Mike believes that the battle against fraud is one that cannot be won alone and that only by collaborating as a community can turn the tide on fraud and not only protect each other but also make the UK a safer place to live and do business.

Richard Freedman, Chief Operating Officer

Richard joined Cifas as Chief Operating Officer in 2018 and leads all operational areas of the business as well as Cifas’ digital transformation strategy, including overseeing the development and launch of the Cifas Member Portal. Richard has over 25 years’ experience within the financial services industry, previously working at Countrywide plc where he held leadership roles focusing on operations, transformation and strategy. He successfully ran one of Countrywide’s subsidiary businesses that provides services to corporate clients, and led a team responsible for establishing part of a new corporate strategy. Richard also developed the strategic plan for a newly formed business unit and ran its operations across multiple functions and sites. Prior to that Richard worked in various roles across a number of retail banks in the UK.

Mark Courtney, Chief Product Officer

Mark joined Cifas in 2019 and leads the Product and Technology Division, overseeing the product innovation of both new and existing services, introducing cutting-edge products. Mark has over 20 years of global experience in fraud prevention, identity verification, and building both B2C and B2B software products. At Cifas, Mark plays a crucial role in the fight against fraud and financial crime in the UK by facilitating and innovating the sharing of data, intelligence, and learning, which has included leading the launch of the Cifas Academy and our new member products such as Vision and our new Intelligence service.

Before joining Cifas, Mark spent 16 years at GBG, which included leading the product launch of the industry’s first electronic identity verification service in 2004, before developing this into a global service that is still used today. He went on to become Managing Director for both the Identity Verification and Identity Assurance divisions, playing a key role in the growth of GBG, including being involved in several global acquisitions. After GBG he went on to become a co-founder at a startup, acting as Head of Product and Engineering for TruNarrative, which was later acquired by LexisNexis.