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.

Judy Bennett, Non-Executive Director

Judy has built an extensive executive career both in the UK and internationally, holding senior roles at the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), the Bank of England, and Experian among others, with a focus on data, technology,  operations and transformation. Her work centres on building sustainable capabilities that evolve in step with business needs.

Most recently at LSEG, Judy led the delivery of the Group’s Operational Resilience programme in response to emerging global regulatory standards and was accountable for defining and assuring Group-wide data governance.  Prior to that, she established a service escalation function and co-led Refinitiv’s COVID-19 response, ahead of its acquisition by LSEG.  During her tenure at the Bank of England, she initiated and delivered large-scale infrastructure transformation programmes.

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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Alex Bailes, Non-Executive Director

Alex is a transformational technology leader with over 20 years' experience in real estate technology. As CTO at Brockton Everlast, one of the most innovate Commercial Real Estate investment firms in the UK, he set technology strategy for fund management and a diverse asset portfolio, delivering cloud migration, smart-building platforms and data systems. He also serves as an Independent Non-Executive Director at Houesmark. Previously he led product, engineering and digital transformation across EMEA at CBRE and earlier drove group digital strategy at Connells Group and formerly FTSE 250 listed Countrywide plc, where his teams built platforms that significantly grew online leads and revenue across the business. A former chair of the Property IT Directors Forum, he is a well known figures across PropTech community, he holds a BSc in Computer Science from the University of Nottingham. 

Dr Nikki Grieve-Top, Cigna Healthcare (Chair)

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 Healthcare 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.

Stuart Stevens, Direct Line Group

Stuart has worked at Direct Line, now part of the Aviva Group, for over 26 years. He currently leads Aviva’s Organised Fraud and Intelligence function, with a focus on preventing fraud across general insurance.

Stuart has led teams that have received industry recognition for collaboration and the innovative use of anti fraud technology. Holding professional qualifications in Financial Crime Prevention and Anti Money Laundering, Stuart brings extensive technical expertise to his role. He is passionate about tackling fraud, protecting victims and firmly believes in the power of working together to disrupt and prevent fraud.

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, M&S Bank and is a member of the Chief Operating Officer’s executive leadership team.  During his time at HSBC UK David also chaired UK Finance’s Strategic Fraud Committee as the industry navigated the implementation of the Payment System Regulator’s rules around mandatory reimbursement of scams.  

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.

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.

Michelle Bradford, Paragon Bank

Michelle has spent over 35 years at Paragon, with the last 25 specialising in Financial Crime. She currently leads the bank's Finanical Crime Operations department, supporting a wide range of business areas and products. An experienced financial crime prevention, detection and compliance professional, she has worked across both the first and second lines of defence in regulated financial services. 

Michelle has gained broad product knowledge and a range of functional experiences during her time at Paragon, establishing systems and controls to meet regulatory expectations. Her experience also includes managing operational risk incidents, attending court for complex cases and previously serving as Nominated Offcier. She also has strong people leadership experience and a proven track record in product integration and industry engagement. 

A Fellow of the International Compliance Association, Michelle hodls a diploma in Financial Crime and a Postgraduate Diploma in Financial Crime Compliance and Chairs the Cifas Organised Fraud Intelligence Group Committee. 

Jim Winters, Nationwide

Jim Winters has worked at Nationwide since January 2022 and has over 25 years’ experience in economic crime leadership. Prior to joining Nationwide Jim was Fraud Managing Director at Barclays UK. Jim has held senior roles with TSB, Experian and Egg, the UK’s first Internet bank.

As Director of Protect, Jim is responsible for protecting members and Nationwide from criminal activity.
 

Rachel Andrews, VodafoneThree

Rachel Andrews is a Security, Service and Customer Operations executive with a career spanning Vodafone UK, Vodafone Global Enterprise and now VodafoneThree. Renowed for energetic, customer-centred leadership, she has built and led high-performing teams across mobile, fixed, delivery, operations and security, steering complex transformations through start-up growth, major integrations and turnarounds. 

As Head of Corporate Security and Fraud at VodafoneThree, Rachel leads national security operations, fraud prevention, crisis response, government engagement and cross-industry initiatives. Her work has driven fraud levels to historic lows, strengthened credit-risk partnerships and delivered industry-shaping programmes across identity, cyber and government security. She is a driving force behind collaborative responses to emerging threats such as SIM farms, device biometrics and criminal exploitation of telecom networks. 

Nik Adams, Deputy Commissioner of the City of London Police

Nik Adams was appointed as Deputy Commissioner for the City of London Police in December 2024, performing the role of National Coordinator for Economic and Cyber Crime. He transferred as a Commander to the City of London Police in March 2022 from his previous role as National Coordinator for Prevent and Safeguarding Lead within Counter Terrorism Policing. As Deputy Commissioner, Nik is focussed on overseeing national delivery of a number of functions including Report Fraud, the new national reporting service for fraud and cyber crime. He is responsible for the national Economic and Cyber Crime Academy and a diverse range of operational units within the City of London Police. These units tackle complex and specialist aspects of economic and cyber crime, and include partnership units specialising in intellectual property crime, insurance fraud and payment crime. He oversees the National Cyber Crime portfolio and is also the NPCC lead for the Financial Investigation, including money laundering asset recovery, and the NPCC lead for Electoral Malpractice.

Nik’s vision is to work with partners to disrupt the activity of criminals across the UK, and to improve the effectiveness of the policing response at a local, regional and national level, underpinned by good communication, a shared understanding of threats, risks, knowledge, information, skills and resources to develop innovative solutions. He is currently exploring some bold new approaches to our partnership response to tackling economic crime within the City of London.

Nik has been a police officer for 25 years and spent most of his service with West Yorkshire Police, working in Leeds, where he was the City Centre Commander and Neighbourhood Policing lead for South Leeds before his move into Counter Terrorism Policing.

Chris Ainsley, Head of Fraud Risk Management, Santander

Chris Ainsley has worked in the fraud and economic crime industry for over 20 years, and is currently Head of Fraud Risk Management at Santander. He has extensive experience of fraud prevention and detection solutions across retail and transactional banking. He oversees the bank’s strategy to detect, prevent, and respond to financial crime. 

With more than two decades of experience in the financial services sector, he has developed deep expertise in tackling complex threats, including authorised push payment fraud, impersonation scams, and the emerging risks posed by generative AI and deepfake technology.

In his role, Chris leads on shaping Santander’s fraud prevention strategy, drawing on data-driven insights and customer-focused approaches to stay ahead of evolving criminal tactics. He is recognised for his clear and pragmatic guidance to both individuals and businesses, emphasising the importance of vigilance and resilience in the fight against fraud.

Passionate about protecting customers, Chris is committed to combining innovative fraud-detection capabilities with education and awareness to strengthen defences across the financial ecosystem.

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, Deputy CEO and Chief Operating Officer

Richard joined Cifas in 2018 and is now the organisation’s Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer. He brings more than 25 years of experience in financial services, operations, and transformation and has executive accountability for the Operations Directorate, making sure Cifas continues to deliver meaningful value, resilience, and long term impact and success for its members.

Richard has strategic responsibility for Cifas’ member success, academy, finance and operational change teams, as well as oversight of the GRC division led by the Chief Trust Officer. His portfolio covers most of Cifas’ annual revenue and a large share of organisational spend, helping ensure that commercial, operational, and strategic priorities work together to strengthen Cifas’ role as the UK’s leading fraud prevention service.

Richard also supports organisational governance as Company Secretary and serves as executive lead for the Cifas Strategic Advisory Group.
Before joining Cifas, Richard held senior leadership roles at Countrywide plc and began his career in UK retail banking, developing deep experience in customer operations and financial services.

Mark Courtney, Deputy CEO and Chief Product Officer

Mark joined UK leading fraud prevention service, Cifas, in 2019 and leads the Product and Technology division as well as the Intelligence team. He has more than 25 years of global experience in fraud prevention, identity verification and building B2C and B2B software products, including 16 years at GBG and as one of the founders of the fraud and financial crime startup TruNarrative. Mark plays a central role in the fight against fraud by enabling and innovating the sharing of data, intelligence and learning, including leading the launch of the Cifas Academy and products such as Vision and its Intelligence Service.

Lisa Smith, Chief Trust Officer

Lisa initially joined Cifas in 2017 and now serves as Chief Trust Officer, bringing over 30 years of experience in financial services with a deep background in data, credit, and collections. Throughout her career, she has focused on how data can be used to drive operational processes, improve decision-making, and support data-led strategies across organisations. 

At Cifas, Lisa began by writing the organisations' Handbooks, creating clear and consistent guidance for members. She has since played a pivotal role in designing and embedding Cifas' data governance model, strengthening the organisations' approach to transparency, accountability, and robust oversight. 

As Chief Trust Officer, Lisa leads the disciplines that underpin Cifas' trust and assurance framework: Data Protection, Information Security, Legal, Compliance, and Corporate Risk. Her leadership ensures that Cifas maintains strong governance and risk practices and continues to operate with the highest standards of responsible data sharing.