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Governance

How Cifas is run

We have been set up as a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee and as a membership association.

Cifas is governed by its Board. The Board is responsible for the entrepreneurial leadership of the organisation: setting strategic direction and aims and measuring performance against strategic objectives as well as scrutinising risks and controls. It is responsible for determining Cifas’ vision, mission and values and holding the Chief Executive account for the organisation’s performance. The Board is led by the Chairman and also has oversight of the Advisory Board and its work.

The Advisory Board has delegated responsibility from the Board to monitor the operational effectiveness of Cifas, and understand and represent the interests of its principal stakeholders: Cifas’ membership, but also other users of its services, including members of the public. In fulfilling this purpose, the Advisory Board advises both the Executive and Board.

Led by the Chief Executive and Chief Operating Officer, Cifas is managed by its Executive Group.

Business Strategy 2020-2025

Our strategy for 2020-25 commits to empower our membership community to be even more successful in the fight against fraud through growing our data, intelligence and learning.

Read or download the Strategy 2020-2025.

Articles of Association

Read Cifas' Articles of Association which sets out how we operate.

The Board

John Browett, Chair

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 Wagner OBE, Senior Independent Director

Arnold was previously Director of Human Resources at Smiths Group plc. He is now the Chairman of the Pension Protection Fund and 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.

 

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Rob Fraser, Non-Executive Director

Rob Fraser, Non-Executive Director

Rob has over 30 years' experience in technology and consulting roles. Most recently he was IT Director for J Sainsbury's plc, overseeing the most significant investment in IT platforms in over a decade, and chairing the Information Security Committee. Prior to that Rob was Vice President for Retail and Consumer Products at Computer Sciences Corporation, and Group IT Director at Boots. Rob is Chairman of Chris Fraser Associates, a digital consultancy servicing some of the UK's largest companies. He is also a member of the Board of Governors for the University of the West of England, and a Board advisor to tech startups E:Fundamentals and HubBox.

 

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Zoe Wimborne, Non-Executive Director

Zoe Wimborne, Non-Executive Director

She is the Regional Chief Risk Officer for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) at Citigroup and previously worked for both Morgan Stanley and Barclays in several different roles in both risk and banking roles. She spent several years leading teams which were restructuring companies in trouble, frequently as a result of both internal and external fraud, so she is very aware of how fraud can come from many different sources and the importance of accurate and timely information to help protect companies and individuals.

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Sarah-Jill Lennard, Non-Executive Director

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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Winifred Ujomu, Board Apprentice

Winifred Ujomu, Board Apprentice

Winifred Ujomu is a legal expert with significant experience gained in the world’s largest Oil & Gas, Energy, Offshore Windfarm and Professional Services companies. Currently, Winifred is a Supply Chain Manager for Transformation and Business Assurance function at Wood Group Plc (FTSE 100), instilling best practices across the supply chain organisation to drive quality and efficiency. Previously, Winifred was with EY developing a supplier relationship management framework for their new platform, which aims to increase the diversity of their supply chain, and with BP Energy working on a programme to prepare for legal tech implementation. Winifred is hugely passionate about three things that support businesses to enjoy strong, sustainable growth and contribute positively to the communities around them; risk management; digital transformation; ESG. Winifred is embarking on developing her Non-Executive Director experience, and her developmental aspiration is to become a Non-Executive Director, to serve on boards and to support them.

 

Also on the Board:
Mike Haley, Cifas' Chief Executive

The Advisory Board

Chair: Ashley Hart, Monzo Bank

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

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 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 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 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

David Callington, HSBC UK Bank plc

With over 30 years’ experience in the financial services industry, David currently has responsibility for fraud across HSBC UK, First Direct, M&S Bank and John Lewis Financial Services. 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 also 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.

Gemma Young, Corporate Director of the Internal Audit and Anti-Fraud Shared Service, London Boroughs of Waltham Forest and Enfield

Gemma Young, Corporate Director of the Internal Audit and Anti-Fraud Shared Service, London Boroughs of Waltham Forest and Enfield

Gemma is an experienced senior leader in the government administration industry, specialising in internal audit, counter fraud, risk management, managerial finance, governance, and business process improvement. Gemma has worked in the public and charity sectors for over 20 years and is currently Corporate Director of the Internal Audit and Anti-Fraud Shared Service between the London Boroughs of Waltham Forest and Enfield. Gemma is an internal auditor by background, which has given her a strong insight into the design and operation of controls to prevent and detect fraud. For the last 12 years, Gemma’s work has focused relentlessly on the protection of public funds, both by the implementation of preventative measures, and the rigorous detection and prosecution of those seeking to defraud the public sector, including high levels of recovery of public housing stock, prevention of fraudulent succession and right-to-buy applications, and corporate/insider fraud cases.

 
David Eborne, Revolut

David Eborne, Revolut

David has over 16 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 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 Birkbeck College. He is part 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.

 

Also on the Advisory Board as an observer:
Mike Haley, Cifas' Chief Executive

The Executive Team

Mike Haley, Chief Executive

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 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 Courtney, Chief Product Officer

During his 16 years at GBG, he led the product management team for its identity verification suite, managing the launch of the industry’s first truly electronic identity verification (EIDV) service in 2004. He went on to become the General Manager, running both the Identity Verification and Identity Assurance divisions. For the last two and a half years before joining Cifas, Mark held the position of Head of Product and Engineering for TruNarrative, playing a key role in positioning the start-up organisation as a significant presence in the industry. Mark has a wealth of expertise in fraud, identity verification and identity assurance, having worked globally across multiple sectors in the space. In his role at Cifas, he will work with the team to develop its existing product suite, as well as build future propositions for new and existing markets.