The Chair of Judges – Suzanne Chadwick MBA, RDR & Training Adviser for Sesame Bankhall
Suzanne’s current role is within Group Strategy. Suzanne has over 20 years of experience within financial services, several of these within sales, management and regulated supervision. Suzanne is a qualified training consultant, having achieved her Certificate in Training Practice (CIPD) in 2000. Prior to joining Sesame Bankhall, Suzanne worked as a successful sales consultant and regulated trainer for a large UK bank assurer. Suzanne completed her Masters degree in Personnel and Development at Liverpool John Moores University and has recently completed her MBA at Chester University. Suzanne is President of the local Manchester ifs Committee and is also a member of the ifs FE Board.

Alison Thomas Steer MBA – Co-ordinator for Nominations and Judges
Alison is a freelance journalist specialising in the financial services and technology industries. She has a BA in European Business Administration from ESC Reims, France, and an MBA from Cranfield University. Having gained marketing experience in the IT sector, she later worked in consumer credit and then as a consultant in the financial services industry.

Eric Leenders, Executive Director of Retail Banking, BBA
Eric’s brief as the head of the Retail team at the British Bankers’ Association covers a broad portfolio of current issues, including the forthcoming review of the Consumer Credit Act, payment protection insurance, proposed changes to insolvency and debt management legislation, and pensions and savings. It also encompasses the planned changes to retail banking regulation with the introduction of the Consumer Protection and Markets Authority.
In a wider context, Eric’s team hold responsibility for proposed European interventions, including the retail banking review, further development of the Single European Payments Area, and the introduction of collective redress – which has been the subject of much attention and debate in Brussels recently - as well as emerging EU thinking around a single home loans market. Eric chairs the European Banking Federation’s Consumer Affairs Committee and is a director of the Lending Code Standards Board.
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.

Amanda Hulme, Director of Financial Regulation, Addleshaw Goddard LLP
Amanda specialises in consumer finance. She advises a wide range of clients on regulatory compliance with the Consumer Credit Act, FSA regulation for banks and mortgage lenders, the Payment Services Directive and consumer protection. She also has extensive experience supporting due diligence on M&A and securitisation transactions. Amanda formerly practised as a barrister with Fred Philpott’s Chambers and spent two and a half years as a senior legal adviser at the Office of Fair Trading, advising on consumer law and consumer credit. She is a regular speaker at conferences and is ranked as ‘Best in the UK’ in the current issue of Chambers’ Client Guide to the UK Legal Profession.

Mark Sismey-Durrant FCIB, FRSA
Mark is currently running his own consulting company and works with a number of banks and start-up banking businesses. He was formerly Chief Executive of Sun Bank Plc and Heritable Bank Plc and a former Board member and Strategic Marketing Director of Sun Life Financial of Canada (UK) Ltd. He has established a number of banking businesses in retail savings, offshore markets, asset and professional finance, mortgages and property finance.
Mark began his career at Midland Bank where he worked in retail, commercial and international banking across a full spectrum of disciplines. He was on the Board of the BBA, is President of the Loughborough University Alumni Association, a Council Member and a member of the Strategic Advisory Board for the Loughborough School of Business and Economics. He is a Court Assistant for the Worshipful Company of International Bankers and chairs its Charity and Education Committee (which has close links with the ifs). He was Chairman of the British Icelandic Chamber of Commerce. He holds a BSc in Banking and Finance and an MPhil, both from Loughborough University.

Paul Lynam, Chief Executive Officer, Secure Trust Bank PLC
Paul is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Secure Trust Bank PLC. Secure Trust Bank is a high-growth-oriented bank currently serving retail banking and asset finance markets.
Prior to joining Secure Trust Bank, Paul spent 22 years in a variety of corporate banking and finance roles with RBS and NatWest. These included Managing Director, Banking; Chief Executive, UK Business Banking; and Managing Director, Lombard North Central PLC.
Paul holds both banking (ACIB, Fifs) and corporate treasury (AMCT) qualifications.

Dr Anthony Gandy, Reader, Postgraduate Programmes at the ifs School of Finance
Tony has a background in studying the conjunction between technology and financial services strategy. Since gaining a PhD from the London School of Economics he has worked in financial journalism, investment banking and as a consultant to the banking and technology industries.

Professor Nigel Waite, CEO of The Canford Centre
Nigel Waite is CEO of The Canford Centre for Customer Development, a specialist financial services strategy and research consultancy. He spent over twenty years in commercial practice in marketing, sales, and general management, including Marketing Director roles within Lloyds TSB and Barclays, prior to taking up his current roles. He has been consulted widely by organisations in the public, private and third sectors in a number of countries and has appeared before Parliamentary Committees and their representatives.
From 1999 until February 2011 Nigel was also the Director of the Financial Services Research Forum, an independent, not-for-profit body that specialises in understanding behaviours concerning financial services and financial well-being. The Forum is a global knowledge resource with an international pedigree. According to independent research carried out by the Economic and Social Research Council, the Forum is the most enduring and extensive body in the UK for collaborative research involving university researchers and practitioners in the field of financial services. It has pioneered the study of trust in financial services and publishes the UK Index of Trust and Fairness in Financial Services.
Nigel is Honorary Professor of Marketing at Nottingham University Business School and is the author of many papers and publications, including Welfare and the Consumer Society: New Opportunities for the Third Way. Financial Services Marketing: An International Guide to Principles and Practice, which he co-authored, has been adopted as the standard textbook for undergraduate and postgraduate studies on both sides of the Atlantic as well as being used in Asia. Nigel also represents the financial services sector on a number of advisory boards and review panels. He is a regular speaker at conferences and events that have spanned the globe.

Ouida Taaffe, Editor, Financial World
Ouida Taaffe is the Editor of Financial World magazine, which she joined in August. She has worked for The International Financing Review and Telecommunications International, among other publications. Ouida studied German.