SPEAKERS

MALG Conference 2024 Speakers

Also see the programme and session synopses.

Opening Speaker: Abigail Marshall Katung, Lord Mayor of Leeds 2024-25

Abigail is the 130^th Lord Mayor of Leeds. She is also the first African Lord Mayor to represent the city. She has chosen to support Leeds Community Foundation during her term of office as they share her vision to build a fairer Leeds for everyone.

Keynote Speaker: Susan Allen OBE, Yorkshire Building Society

Susan has worked in the Financial Services industry for over 25 years and has extensive experience across Retail Banking, Corporate Banking, Global Banking, Operations and strategic roles with a specific focus on transformation and business leadership.

Susan joined Yorkshire Building Society as CEO in March 2023 from Barclays where she was Head of Customer Transformation and a member of the Barclays UK Executive Committee. Susan was previously the CEO of Retail & Business Banking at Santander UK and an Executive Director. Prior to joining Santander UK, Susan held a number of significant roles at RBS.

Throughout her career, Susan has been a champion of diversity and inclusion, being recognised by the British LGBT+ Award in 2020 for her corporate allyship with Santander’s LGBT network. Susan is on the Board of Trustees for the Alzheimer’s Society, contributing to the Society’s strategic direction and activities. Susan has also recently joined TheCityUK as a non-executive director.

Breakout 1a: Fintech: Tackling Access to Financial Services and Streamlining the Consumer Journey

Chair: Sarah-Jayne Dunn, Citizens Advice Scotland

Sarah-Jayne is the Financial Health Policy Manager for Citizens Advice Scotland. She has been active within the Money Advice Sector with over 12 years’ experience as a frontline money adviser in the Citizens Advice Network, assisting clients dealing with crisis debts, facing eviction and repossession and complex debt situations. In addition, Sarah-Jayne worked in schools providing financial capability education and managed the Mental Health and Money Advice Service for over 3 years from project inception, gaining firsthand insight and expertise on how debt can have an impact on mental health and wellbeing. Throughout her career, Sarah-Jayne has been quite active within the Money Advice Sector in Scotland especially in providing insight to government agencies such as Social Security Scotland, DWP, HMRC and Accountant in Bankruptcy on how debt can have an impact on the people of Scotland’s mental health and financial wellbeing as well as working with the wider creditor and financial sector.

Speakers:

• Jaye Hackett, Vouchsafe

Jaye is the Chief Technology Officer at Vouchsafe, a tech-for-good company providing inclusive identity verification and KYC. Vouchsafe’s technology, used by the Scottish Government, works for the 1 in 5 failed by traditional ID checks.

• Adrian Davies, NestEgg.ai

Adrian is an alternative finance expert with 25 years’ experience in money advice and affordable credit. He’s been a money adviser, managed a Citizens Advice Bureau, and set up seven credit unions. In 2018, he co-founded NestEgg, a fintech that makes it easier for people to get accepted for loans from affordable credit providers.

• Rachael Magowan, Moneyline

Rachel has over 25 years in Financial Services for companies with a Customer First approach including Building Societies, with the last few years seeing her move into a Community Finance Non-profit. Most of her career has been in operational roles but she felt she could do Tech Transformation better, so jumped across to these roles over the last five years. Her ethos is about Adopting Tech to enhance what we do and not just replace.

Breakout 1b: Narrowing the Inequality Gap: Working Together to Build the Nation’s Financial Resilience

Chair: Deven Ghelani, Policy in Practice

Deven Ghelani founded Policy in Practice to make the welfare system simple to understand so that people and organisations can make the d

ecisions that are right for them. The company empowers people through proactive integrated support. Deven has advised private and public sector organisations including central and local government on the impact of changes to the welfare system and was part of the team that
developed Universal Credit at the Centre for Social Justice. Deven Ghelani has written and spoken extensively on welfare reform. He sits on the Social Metrics Commission and the Mental Health and Income Commission.

Speakers:

• Ren Yi Hooi, Lightning Reach

Ren Yi Hooi is the Founder and CEO of Lightning Reach, an award-winning Fintech for good startup which makes it easy for people to find and apply for a wide range of personalised support in one place. Passionate about using technology to drive social impact and financial inclusion, she was previously the Product Director at FinTech scaleup Railsr. She also led and worked in international teams supporting financially underserved communities across Asia and Africa.

Ren was recognised as one of the WISE100 top women in social enterprise and Women in FinTech Powerlist 2023. She has served as a mentor for the FCA’s Financial Inclusion TechSprint and a Senior Visiting Practitioner at the University of York’s Administrative Fairness Lab. Ren holds an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. from UC Berkeley.

• Audrey Laing, Money Matters Advice Centre

Audrey specialised in court work for 13 years in the legal profession before seeking a more balanced family life with a small four shop retail offering.  

Later, she helped set up a new Citizens Advice Bureau in her hometown before joining Money Matters at the start of 2016 where she is part of the 2 person senior management team as COO.  

Audrey has guided Money Matters through successive, and successful, Scottish National Standards for Information & Advice Providers Quality Mark audits and holds the Top level 3 accreditation; She has extended funding in several directions offering greater service for clients.  

Being well regarded in the fuel poverty community & having won an Energy Action Scotland award for Overall Excellence she is presently a Trustee of Energy Action Scotland. 

She has been seconded to GCC’s Child Poverty Pathfinder for 2 years as FI lead to aid development of a redesign of FI in Glasgow and to build a city-wide sector-wide NWD network. 

• Genevieve Orford, Policy in Practice

Starting her career in strategy consulting, Genevieve joined Policy in Practice three years ago after exploring ideas for a social enterprise focused on using company data to better support customers in need. She became Product Manager of the Better Off Calculator after discovering Policy in Practice’s work with local government and the company’s vision for how this tool could also have an impact in the private sector, particularly when integrated with PiP’s data capabilities. Genevieve now oversees all product development at Policy in Practice, expanding her role to include the entire Better Off Platform. This includes the Low Income Family Tracker dashboard for local authorities and the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Tracker, which brings data together to prevent safeguarding incidents.

Breakout 1c: Engaging with and Supporting Hard to Reach Communities

Chair: Lee Usher, Trustfolio

Lee spent over 25 years in financial services before transitioning to business consulting. He co-authored the Money and Pensions Service’s ‘Best Practice in Collections Toolkit’ in 2021 and has led key projects on compliance with Financial Conduct Authority regulations regarding debt collection and policies for vulnerable customers. Besides his role at Trustfolio, he is Co-Founder of Ethicoll Consultants, a Non-Executive Director at Citizens Advice Sunderland, and Co-Chairs the MALG North East and Yorkshire Discussion forum.

Speakers:

• Muna Yassin, Rooted Finance

Muna has over 20 years’ experience in financial inclusion services. She is the CEO of Rooted Finance (RF), a London-based specialist debt advice Charity. Rooted Finance provides bespoke on-to-one support for London’s Diverse Ethnic Communities helping them manage financial distress, multiple debts, and work towards financial wellbeing and resilience.

In March 2021 she was appointed to the VCSE Advisory Panel convened by VCSE Crown Representative, Claire Dove. The VCSE Advisory Panel has been set up to advise the government on how to help more organisations from the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sectors compete effectively in public sector contracts.

In June 2021, Muna was recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List and was awarded an MBE for charitable Financial Services to Disadvantaged People during Covid-19. She has a particular interest in reducing financial inequalities and increasing economic empowerment of disadvantaged communities – with a focus on minoritised communities and women.  Muna recently served as a Trustee at Toynbee Hall and was previously on the board of Women Advancing Microfinance UK (WAMUK).

• Habiba Hussain, London Borough of Camden

Habiba is Hardship Support Manager at Camden Council, London. She manages the team delivering the Council’s Cost of Living support for residents with one-off grants and holistic financial support and advice. She collaborates with services across the council and external advice partners to develop joined up ways of working and arrange outreach programmes to target hard to reach residents.

• Gareth Evans, Cash Perks

Gareth is leading authority on financial inclusion, community finance and local welfare provision, with over 20 years’ experience. He is Co-Director of the not-for-profit Financial Inclusion Centre, which specialises in undertaking research/evaluation studies and implementing initiatives. He also sat on the HM Treasury Financial Inclusion Policy Forum.

In 2020, Gareth founded Cash Perks – a multi award-winning cash payment facility enabling welfare payments to be instantly sent via SMS text message. This innovative solution allows the recipient to collect their funds for free 24/7 at local ATMs nationwide – without the need for a bank card. It has already been adopted by 45+ councils, housing associations and charities that have already sent over £8.5 million of welfare funds to struggling households facing financial crisis.

Interactive ‘Catch Box’ Session: Financial Capability in the ‘Finfluencer’ Age 

Chair: Ellie Austin Williams, This Girl Talks Money

Bored of the same old financial content and disillusioned with the lack of accessible and up-to-date financial know-how, aimed at modern adults in their twenties and thirties. Ellie founded This Girl Talks Money to tackle the last taboo: money.

As the author of Money Talks: A Lifestyle Guide for Financial Wellbeing and with an online community of over 50,000 people, Ellie provides knowledge, insights & a safe space to help people gain confidence and ownership of their finances.

Alongside building the community of financially empowered women, Ellie has delivered financial wellbeing workshops for companies from Spotify to eBay and partnered with brands from Glamour to American Express, as well as providing financial expertise for Refinery29, Stylist, BBC News & more. From Spring 2024, Ellie is the Invest in You columnist.

Panellists:

• Vivi Friedgut, Blackbullion

Vivi Friedgut is a tech innovator and founder/CEO of Blackbullion, the ultimate finance space for GenZ on a mission to build a generation defining financial wellbeing brand. The multi-award winning platform can be accessed by over 1.2 million students at partner institutions worldwide.

Vivi is former UHNWI wealth manager and a regular presenter about financial empowerment and leadership. She is a regular public speaker and panelist, three times published author and who was recently named in FinTech Magazine’s Standout 45 women.

• Steve Korris, MyBnk

Steve is a History graduate from the University of Leeds and has an MSc in Education for Sustainability. He has a background in sports and environmental education and was one of the first cohort of Money Advice Service one to one advisers. Steve has been with MyBnk for over 16 years and oversees MyBnk’s UK programme service design and delivery. Steve sits on the advisory group of Signing Banks UK, supporting better financial education and services access to members of the deaf community.

• Anna Brading, Mentora Money

Anna Brading is a money educator (CFEI) and a trusted, go-to source on money matters. She’s obsessed with making money simple because Anna knows, from first-hand experience, that financial literacy has the power to truly change lives. In 2021, Anna founded @MentoraMoney, an online platform that has since helped thousands of people worldwide become unstuck financially.

Breakout 2a: Debt Collection and Advice in the Age of AI: Opportunities and Challenges

Chair: Christy McAleese, Money & Pensions Service

Christy joined the Money and Pensions Service in 2020 and has lead the Debt Strategy and Policy Team since 2022. Christy’s areas of debt policy focus have included the advice needs of people who have a deficit budget, the impact of Covid-19 on access to debt advice, and how services can be designed to make deb advice more accessible.

Panellists:

• Rachel Curtis, Inicio AI

Rachel has spent 30 years in the Financial Services arena including at Santander and then as Chief Customer Officer for a challenger bank.  She still sits as a Non-Executive Director for a regional Building Society, holding the role of Consumer Duty Board Champion.

In 2021 Rachel made the switch to lead a Fintech start-up that has a B2B software platform that uses conversational AI to help organisations to support their customers to complete detailed affordability assessments. In 2024 Rachel was recognised as one of the Standout 45 on the Innovate Finance Women in Finance Powerlist and also recently won the GP Bullhound Northern Star Tech Award for Innovation.

Rachel graduated from the Morgan Stanley Inclusive Ventures Lab in February 2024 and has recently led her Fintech business to secure authorisation from the Financial Conduct Authority in just 3 months.

• Sarah Naylor, Dukes Bailiffs

Sarah Naylor joined Dukes Bailiffs limited in 2015, after graduating from university, following in the footsteps of her parents, Colin and Elaine Naylor who founded the business in 1993. Since then, Sarah has embraced challenges and seized opportunities, which have led to roles of increasing responsibility. Currently, as Sales Director, she oversees sales, bids, and client relations, driving the company’s growth and success.

• Matt Dronfield, Debt Free Advice

Matt Dronfield is an accomplished leader in the not-for-profit sector. He has dedicated over 15 years to driving transformative change and growth in youth, education, employment and financial advice.

Matt is the Managing Director of Debt Free Advice, an organisation that offers free comprehensive support to clients grappling with financial challenges. Matt navigated the service through the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis, rapidly adapting to an ever-changing world and expanding the service into a £7.5 million-per-year operation with over 50 locations and a team of 180 staff.

His commitment to driving positive change has led to numerous opportunities to share insights on debt advice and the impact of government policies on working families through appearances on BBC News, Sky News, GB News, LBC Radio, and Times Radio. Matt’s  aim is to inspire and engage audiences, create dialogue and collaboration that drives meaningful change in communities across the UK.

• Mark Pearce, Wyser

Mark Pearce is the CEO and founder of Wyser, which he set up in 2020. Wyser’s mission is the development and improvement of AI language models, which power digital services that help users and advisers, so that everyone across the UK can access the advice they need when they need it most. Wyser works with Citizens Advice, AdviceUK, the Ministry of Justice, Ombudsmen and more. The latest version of their product ASSIST launches in January. It:

• Increases capacity by up to 25%
• Uses generative AI to efficiently process both spoken word and text, rapidly summarising content and extracting key data, before automatically entering that information into your organisation’s CRM system.

Mark has over two decades of expertise in artificial intelligence, data analytics, and innovation.

Breakout 2b: In-Work and in Poverty: The New Normal?

Chair: James, Jones, Experian

James joined Experian from university in 1992 and currently leads the firm’s public education programme, guiding people on subjects such as credit reporting, credit scoring and identity fraud. James regularly appears in the media and represents Experian on several cross-industry forums, including as a director of MALG.

Speakers:

• Mo Chaudhri, Experian

Speaker bio and photo coming soon.

• Peter Tutton, StepChange Debt Charity

Peter is currently Head of Policy, Research and Public Affairs at StepChange. Over the last two decades  he has worked on a wide range of debt policy issues including credit regulation, mortgage market regulation, insolvency, PPI, debt management practice, debt vulnerability and financial inclusion and resilience. Previously Peter has been a welfare rights adviser and frontline debt adviser and has managed advice services.

• Anna Buckle, PayCaptain

Anna Buckle is PayCaptain’s Director of Operations and Impact and has over 20 years’ experience in the payroll and financial wellbeing industry. Anna is a certified Plain Numbers Practitioner who advocates for users first. Anna is dedicated to ensuring that PayCaptain remains on track with their mission to provide a payroll solution that helps users increase their financial capability and resilience, whilst improving their overall well-being. Contributing to this she has produced a number of research papers working alongside partners such as Nest Insight and The Behavioural Insights Team, developing and testing the most successful approaches for employees to build financial resilience. PayCaptain is a market leading payroll provider and a proud B Corp.

Breakout 2c: Renters’ Rights: Creating Financial Stability for Private Renters

Chair: Genevieve Richardson, StepChange Debt Charity

Genevieve joined StepChange in the Policy Team in 2022. She leads on research and influencing work related to housing and vulnerabilities. She authored the 2023 report Trapped in rent, which explored the experiences of StepChange’s clients living in the Private Rented Sector. Before joining the charity, she worked on select committees in the House of Lords and as Parliamentary Assistant to a Member of Parliament. She holds an undergraduate degree in French and Spanish from the University of Leeds and an MPhil in International Development from the University of Oxford.  

Speakers:

• Sylvia Simpson, Money Buddies

Sylvia is the CEO of Burmantofts Community Projects and has specialised in money advice since 1996. Having worked as Specialist Services Manager at Leeds CAB and South and West Yorkshire Area Manager at Shelter, she specialises in performance management, strategy, partnership working and leading services supporting vulnerable client groups in all aspects of Social Welfare Law. Sylvia is the Founder of Money Buddies (created in 2012), a Centre for Social Justice national award-winning project for the best debt advice, and multiple awards from the Institute of Money Advisers. Sylvia has been in the media a few times attracting attention from Martin Lewis, which led to high profile donations. Founder of the well-established Leeds & West Yorkshire Debt Advice Network, and the convenor of the annual Leeds Poverty and Debt Forum, Sylvia’s passion is and always will be, providing advice services to those who need it.

• Eleanor Bateman, National Residential Landlords Association

Eleanor Bateman is Senior Public Affairs Officer at the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA), where she leads advocacy efforts to shape policy on rental and leasehold reform, building safety and welfare. With over a decade of experience in the planning and housing sectors, Eleanor brings deep expertise in policy development, public affairs, and strategic communication. She drives impactful campaigns that shape the future of the private rented sector (PRS) and her knowledge of UK and devolved government structures, coupled with her expertise in public policy and housing, positions her as a trusted voice in discussions about housing.

• Mary Gogarty, Greater Manchester Combined Authority

Mary is a Principal for Housing Strategy at Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), part of a team delivering the Greater Manchester Housing Strategy objectives, as well as projects such as the GM Good Landlord Charter, a manifesto commitment of Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester. GM is committed to becoming the UK’s first Housing First city region, and Mary works with partners including local authorities, housing providers, the NHS and social care to achieve this. Mary has previously worked for a housing provider, in data and research, and for the NHS on health and housing projects.

• India Walden, Citizens Advice

India is a Policy Researcher at Citizens Advice working on housing and debt. She previously worked as Parliamentary Assistant to Lord Best and spent five years volunteering as an adviser and Research and Campaigns volunteer at local Citizens Advice.