BSI Consumer Forum Conference 2022 - Event Speakers

Nikki has more than 20 years of experience in consumer research, publishing, advocacy and policy. She is the Chair of the British Standards Institute Consumer Forum. She has held executive leadership positions in corporate and non-profit sectors. She was the Chief Operating Officer at Resolver, a technology business operating in consumer complaints and dispute resolution markets and, for 10 years, she was Group Director of Research and Publishing at Which?. She specialises in using data-led techniques and strategies to shape business decisions, understand and give voice to consumers, and improve product design and service delivery. 

Richard Lloyd will become the FCA interim Chair in June 2022. He joined the FCA Board in April 2019 as a non-executive director. Richard is Chair of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, and a Council member of the Advertising Standards Authority. He was a founding trustee of the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute.

Richard led Which? as executive director from 2011 to 2016. Prior to this he was chief executive of the world federation of consumer organisations, Consumers International; head of policy at the housing charity, Shelter; and worked for 2 years in No10 Downing Street as a special adviser to the Prime Minister. He was awarded an OBE in 2019 for services to the economy and consumer rights.

Shani Dhanda is a multi-award-winning inclusion specialist and social entrepreneur listed as one of the UK's most influential disabled people by the Shaw Trust and BBC's 100 Women List 2020.

As a keynote speaker and practitioner for inclusion across business, government, non-profit and wider society, Shani helps organisations break barriers and integrate inclusion into their business frameworks.

As an influential woman in leadership, Shani has taken change into her own hands and founded numerous organisations to improve representation and challenge social inequality globally - Diversability, Asian Woman Festival, and Asian Disability Network.

Peter McClenaghan is Director of Infrastructure and Sustainability at the Consumer Council for Northern Ireland, responsible for the strategic leadership of energy, water, and transport policy. 

Prior to joining the Consumer Council, Peter worked as a consultant advising GB utility companies and undertook a secondment as Head Regulatory Economist at an international payments company. 

Peter developed his utilities expertise managing regulatory affairs and compliance for firmus energy Gas Distribution and Supply. He also spent six years working as a senior policy advisor to Government Ministers and MPs.

Peter has served as chairperson of advocacy charity Voice of Young People in Care since December 2020.

Katie Alpin is Head of Strategic Insight at Which?, where she manages a robust, multi-methods research programme exploring sources of and solutions to consumer harm. Katie is an experienced economist, social researcher and campaigner, and is passionate about making sure people's voices are heard in policymaking conversations. 

Conor is Head of Research and Policy at the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute. He is responsible for planning and delivering the organisation’s research, and using insights from the research to develop solutions to break the link between mental health problems and financial difficulties. Prior to joining Money and Mental Health, Conor worked for the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government. He has spent most of his career in the third sector,  with roles at the Resolution Foundation and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

Leo Miles is Macmillan Cancer Support’s Financial Services Policy Manager. For over a decade she has been responsible for Macmillan’s work to influence improvement in the support the financial services industry provides to help people cope with the financial impact of cancer. Leo worked on  high profile specialist support pilots with a range of Macmillan’s banking partners and manages relationships with key consumer sector bodies including the Financial Conduct Authority, supporting the development of its work on consumer vulnerability and access to financial services. She initiated Macmillan’s campaign for a legal Duty of Care for the financial services industry, working alongside leading consumer sector voices to call for change, resulting in the imminent introduction of the FCA’s new Consumer Duty Principle. Leo represents the consumer and charity sector on the Cabinet Office sponsored Access to Insurance Working Group where she is also an advocate for mental health based on her own experience of living with Type 2 Bipolar.

David Bell is BSI’s Director of Standards Policy. He heads a team of 25 which is responsible for BSI's input to the international and European standards bodies, ISO IEC, CEN and CENELEC on technical and policy issues. In addition, David manages BSI's institutional relations with national and regional standards organizations, as well as relations with UK government and with key stakeholders, including consumer and public interest groups.

An economist by training, David is the UK member of the Council of ISO and is a member of the policy and finance committees of CEN and CENELEC. David can help you with just about any question about BSI/standards, but especially if it’s something to do with big picture policy questions.

Sadie Dainton is the Senior Consumer Policy Manager at BSI. Sadie is the Chair of ISO COPOLCO (Committee on Consumer Policy) for 2022-2023 term. She is responsible for transforming BSI’s relationship with UK consumer stakeholders, in terms of its reach and engagement within the UK consumer landscape and articulating BSI’s policy on consumer and public interest issues. She  works with consumer and public interest organizations and stakeholders, through the BSI Consumer Forum, to ensure the consumer view is represented at policy and technical level within BSI and Internationally.

Chris Fitch is a Research Fellow at the University of Bristol and Vulnerability Lead at the Money Advice Trust.   He leads a programme of award-winning research and intervention work on consumer vulnerability (www.moneyadvicetrust.org/vulnerability), and is also host of the podcast series ‘Vulnerability Matters’ (available on Spotify, iTunes, Soundcloud, and other platforms).

To date, Chris’s programme has undertaken work on vulnerability with more than 300 firms, 30,000 staff, and across the financial service, essential service, retail, and government sectors. 

A Senior Executive with 30 + year’s experience within Lloyds, with a proven track record of leading teams through periods of significant change. Has a wide perspective throughout the whole of Retail Banking, Risk, Insurance and Private Banking. A passion for building an inclusive culture allowing everyone to truly bring themselves to work. A reputation for delivering both complex programmes and difficult business targets through an approach that is organised, with an ability to focus on the detail when required. Remaining calm and indeed thriving under pressure, able to make the right decisions at the right time with a leadership style that realises that communication across all levels is key and therefore brings people with her.

The varied experience and proven history of leading successful teams through two banking integrations as well as major industry changing regulatory programmes such as RDR, FATCA, PSD2 and GDPR means that Catherine leads with a confidence that inspires others. Previous roles such as leading a large Financial Services Customer Relations team mean that she has a natural affinity with doing the right thing for the customer and this shows in her focus on delivering a quality product both to internal and external customers. Over the last 2 years Catherine has been focused on delivering a great customer service through the leadership of 7500 people within the telephony teams, whilst also being the Accountable Executive for one of Lloyds biggest re-platforming programmes costing £110m. Catherine took personal pride in leading the delivery of home working capability throughout 2020 for the whole of Retail going from only 200 customer facing colleagues working from home to 15000 in 2 months.

In December 2019 Catherine was asked to become the Group’s Ambassador for Yorkshire and Humber representing the bank with local communities, MPs, local government and leading key discussion groups and in May 2021 Catherine was asked to become a Vice President of the Customer Services Institute.

In October 2021 Catherine was asked to lead the Vulnerability Strategy for the whole of Lloyds Banking Group, a new role that allows her to focus on an area that she is particularly passionate about and that impacts 1 in 2 of us at some point in our lives.

Cath is Executive Director of Customer Experience at Yorkshire Housing where she looks after all front-line customer services. Recently, she has been leading the development of its new Customer Voice and Review Committee, based on the Together with Tenants framework.   This includes co-design of services with customers and scrutiny work centred around social housing consumer standards. She joined Yorkshire Housing in 2018  and her thirty years in housing include Director posts at Rochdale Boroughwide Housing and New Charter Housing Trust .  She is also a board member at Incommunities and Beyond Housing.

Judith read Law at King’s College London for 3 years before graduating with honours in 1998. She then went on to complete the Legal Practice Course (LPC) and a training contract before qualifying as a solicitor in 2001. She was previously employed by a City Law firm, practising in Commercial Law. Judith joined the Ombudsman in 2011 and now specialises in Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR).

In 2018 Judith was instrumental in the establishment and implementation of the Rail Ombudsman. In her role as Deputy Chief Ombudsman of the Rail Ombudsman, Dispute Resolution Ombudsman and the Furniture and Home Improvement Ombudsman, she oversees decisions and recommendations and provides training and insight to the sectors and their stakeholders.

Judith is a regular speaker at industry and ombudsman conferences and events and is the current Chair of the Ombudsman Association Policy Network and serves as a member of the Civil Justice Council’s ADR Liaison Panel. She has written extensively on ADR and consumer issues and the co-author of the published Ombudsman content for Atkins Court Forms. She’s also an active member of the EU Consumer ADR collaboration TravelNet, giving her a wide and varied overview of consumer law and policy.

Diarmuid is the Vulnerability Lead at UKRN, working on cost of living challenges for consumers in the UK and improving data sharing between regulators. He is on secondment from Ofcom’s Online Strategy and Planning team where he worked on areas such horizon scanning for the Online Safety regime, exploring how algorithms could be regulated and significant exogenous risks to communications in the UK.