Welcome to the Money Advice Liaison Group (MALG) Podcast, launching in November 2024. Hosted by Helen Gill, founding director of marketing communications consultancy Engage Comms, and MALG CEO Bob Winnington, it is all about working together to ‘improve the lives of people in debt’.
If you work in any capacity across the debt landscape in the UK, listen in during your lunch break, on your commute, or whenever you have some downtime for inspiring insights into how collaboration and working smarter can overcome the barriers to a fairer, better system for those in financial difficulty.
Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts (including Apple, Spotify and Amazon Music).
Episodes listed below starting with the most recent first – scroll down to the bottom of the page to listen to the introductory episode explaining what the MALG Podcast is all about.
Episode 6, May 2025: Life changing conversations with customers in debt
with Jonathan Shaw, Partnership Manager – Reach Out, Sigma Connected
In this episode of the MALG podcast, host Helen Gill of Engage Comms introduces Jonathan Shaw, Partnerships Manager for Sigma Connected Group’s ReachOut service. ReachOut, a problem debt engagement solution, was designed by the outsourced customer experience solutions provider to address the dual challenge of low engagement and low awareness of available support.
When their creditor clients are unable to contact customers with debts, Sigma Connected can offer ReachOut as a confidential and impartial service – one that isn’t there to (and can’t) collect debt. Its supportive and empathetic Pathfinders can speak with vulnerable customers where creditors can’t, creating a safe environment for sensitive disclosures. After exploring reasons for non-payment and understanding the challenges faced by customers, they can then be directed to the support services they need. They say that this personal approach to engaging customers builds trust, helps people better manage debts, and improves outcomes for all parties.
Jonathan is passionate about tackling problem debt and loves to see the change that can be brought about when different organisations across multiple sectors take a collaborative approach. He started his career as a debt adviser at Christians Against Poverty or CAP – so knows what it’s like to be on the frontline. He worked his way up to Creditor Relationship Manager before joining Sigma Connected Group to lead on the ReachOut programme in January 2023. He has been described by a former colleague as a “generous collaborator, impactful communicator and creative innovator.”
In this podcast, he talks to MALG CEO Bob Winnington about some of the innovative projects he has worked on, forging partnerships that have delivered solutions including supporting residents with council tax arrears before their debts escalate to enforcement and encouraging pension credit take up. They’ll discuss why the type of human-centred support that ReachOut provides could and should never be fully replaced by AI.
April 2025: Financial vulnerability, innovation and the future of debt support – Flexys meets MALG
Bob Winnington, CEO of MALG takes a short break from the MALG Podcast to appear on the Flexys one! Listen here for insights into:
- the challenges faced by debt collection teams
- the role of technology in improving outcomes
- the importance of industry collaboration
- and managing regulatory changes.
Episode 5, March 2025: Making support for all of your customers’ life problems accessible
with Cat Divers, Founder and CEO, National Support Network.
Since leaving her career as a qualified Chartered Insurance Practitioner working in risk management for over a decade, Cat Divers, driven by personal experience of struggling to find help with her own set of challenging circumstances, has made it her mission to make it easier for other people to discover and connect to support services. National Support Network was created off the back of her belief that no-one should struggle alone. Her not-for-profits efforts have been recognised with awards such as the Social Entrepreneur Index and NatWest’s SE100.
As Cat explains to MALG CEO Bob Winnington in this episode, National Support Network builds customisable support directory platforms containing information on thousands of external services, including charity helplines and self-help resources. It can be accessed by customers, colleagues or communities at any time to support with a whole host of different life problems and challenges – beyond just financial difficulty, which we know can be interwoven with so many other issues.
These support platforms help to transform challenging interactions with customers, better equipping frontline staff to offer a helping hand without having to be fully trained in all the different issues customers may be facing. Companies that partner with National Support Network can also access anonymised analytics to better understand the support needs of their customers and to demonstrate the real-world impact of the platform in improving access to services.
Listen to her valuable insights about the life-changing ‘ripple effect’ of getting customers to the right help quickly and easily.
Episode 4, February 2025: Why bringing your authentic self to work is so important in the credit and debt sector
with Neil Jinks, Brand Ambassador, ControlAccount (part of Broadriver Group).
A debt collection, litigation and enforcement specialist with over 36 years’ experience working in private practice, the Court Service and High Court enforcement, helping creditors to recover unpaid debts, Neil Jinks is an industry stalwart. On top of his day job, he’s also Chair of the Chartered Institute of Credit Management’s (CICM) Executive Board, Vice Chair of the Civil Court Users Association (CCUA), and Immediate Past President of the Institute of Revenues, Rating & Valuation (IRRV) West Midlands. And on top of that, he’s a proud Fellow of the CICM in recognition of his notable contribution to the credit profession, has been named in the Credit 500 index of the most influential people working in consumer and commercial credit, has been recommended for Debt Recovery in the Legal 500 across three regions, and, probably most relevant for our chat today, he has been recognised as an outstanding Champion of Diversity & Inclusion by the Financial Times, Daily Telegraph, PwC and DWF.
Aside from all these accolades, Neil is not only a master networker but believes firmly in bringing his authentic self to his work based on his personal journey of discovery with his sexuality and his first-hand experience of seeing the proven business case for diversity & inclusion in a sector that deals with sensitive issues impacting people’s lives. He talks to Bob about the importance of this authenticity in building relationships, networks and connections that foster cross-sector collaboration – and, ultimately, in improving the lives of people in debt.
Episode 3, January 2025: Gen Z Money: “Young people don’t have an attention issue, they have an interest issue”
with Vivi Friedgut, Founder/CEO of Blackbullion.
Those of you who were at the MALG Conference in November 2024 will remember Vivi Friedgut from the session on ‘finfluencer culture’ – and who could forget that Mexican wave, certainly not something you see at your typical debt sector event! Vivi founded Blackbullion in 2016 as a financial wellbeing platform that houses UK support funds, scholarships and grants for students. Today, over 1.2 million students can access Blackbullion’s platform and it partners with over 75 universities, colleges and businesses across the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa to proactively support student financial wellbeing. Vivi’s vision is for it to become the all-in-one money management space for students that supports them before, during and after their studies, helping every student to develop financial skills and confidence for life.
In this episode, MALG CEO Bob Winnington and I are at Blackbullion’s offices in London to give our listeners the opportunity to get more insight from Vivi on young people’s behaviours when it comes to managing their money. From busting the myth that Gen Zers have no attention span, to challenging the idea that AI can offer meaningful financial education, this chat offers a balanced, data-driven view on what the future of financial wellbeing should look like.
Episode 2, December 2024: ‘The power of partnerships’ for supporting and empowering people in financial difficulty
with Genevieve Orford, Chief Product Officer at Policy in Practice
On Episode 2 of the Money Advice Liaison Group (MALG) Podcast, MALG CEO Bob Winnington is at Policy in Practice’s headquarters in London to meet with its Chief Product Officer Genevieve Orford to talk about the power of partnerships.
Genevieve joined Policy in Practice – the social policy software and analytics company working with councils, government, housing providers and community organisations to reduce poverty and empower people – in December 2021. She took part in her first ever conference panel session at the MALG Conference in Leeds on 7 November 2024 where she shared insights into why partnerships are central to the success of Policy in Practice’s award winning, free ‘Better Off Calculator’.
In this episode, she and Bob talk more about the power of partnerships – why they’re so important, when they work, and what the potential challenges are. She goes into detail about how partnerships that Policy in Practice have formed through the MALG network have contributed to the development of innovative solutions that streamline access to tailored support and advice.
Episode 1, November 2024: ‘A once in 25 years opportunity to revolutionise vulnerable consumer data sharing’
with Dr Chris Fitch of Money Advice Trust
In this first episode of the Money Advice Liaison Group (MALG) podcast, MALG CEO Bob Winnington has the pleasure of sitting down with someone who may be familiar to some listeners, Dr Chris Fitch. He is the Money Advice Trust’s Vulnerability Lead and Research Fellow at the University of Bristol’s Personal Finance Research Centre. As a prolific and highly engaging speaker and host of the ‘Vulnerability Matters’ podcast he’s one of if not the leading voice on fair treatment of vulnerable customers by financial services, utilities, telecoms and related firms in the UK and beyond. A researcher by trade, he delves deep into issues facing vulnerable customers using a ‘lived experience’ approach to come up with practical solutions that work.
His latest passion project is the Government’s ‘Share Once Support Register’ which will mean vulnerable customers only need to register with energy, telecoms and water companies once to access extra help. In this episode, Bob has the opportunity to ask Chris what his secret is when it comes to galvanising people and organisations to get on board with his collaborative projects and how he manages to communicate his messages so well. They discuss the 10 principles for designing consumer data sharing programmes which a group of independent experts have come up with to inform the new Share Once Support Register and we get Chris’ take on what the new Government needs to do to ensure that vulnerable customers are finally offered the service they deserve.
Introductory episode August 2024: “The game is rigged” – why we can only change the system for people in financial difficulty by working together
In this introductory episode of the Money Advice Liaison Group (MALG) podcast, host Helen Gill of Engage Comms is joined by MALG CEO Bob Winnington to discuss what MALG is all about, why we’re bringing you this podcast, what you can expect from it and why, in 2024, we need game-changing solutions to ‘improving the lives of people in debt’ more than ever.
Former City trader and ‘real world’ economist Gary Stevenson said in one of his recent youtube videos that he thinks “the game is rigged” for low income households in the current economy. We’ll be talking about how MALG Members and others can work collaboratively to overcome the hurdles put in place by the pandemic and the cost of living crisis to building financial resilience for all, as we head into 2025 and beyond.
