Speakers 

Sir Gerry Robinson
Sir Gerry Robinson is one of the UK’s most powerful businessmen and presenter of the TV series I’ll Show Them Who’s Boss and Can Gerry Robinson Fix the NHS?

His BBC TV series ‘I’ll Show Them Who’s Boss and Can Gerry Robinson Fix the NHS? highlights key management issues including: leadership, formulating a strategy for the future, relations with your staff, focusing on the important issues, and communication. For those interested in the techniques and skills required to run a successful business, Robinson is the man to listen to.

What can Robinson provide that other business gurus and management books cannot? Perhaps the answer is suggested by the fact that he is extremely interesting even to those who have no real interest in business and no ambition to begin their own.

Robinson is convinced that the practical skills required to run a business are relatively simple. But this does not mean that everyone can run a successful business. Robinson’s gift is not that he understands and clearly relates what the requisite skills are, but that he is a subtle psychologist who only cares about what’s necessary to make the business work.

Gerry began his career in 1965 in the coast office of Lesney Products (Matchbox Toys) after leaving St. Mary’s Seminary at Castlehead. During his time at Lesney he progressed through various accounting roles to become Chief Management Accountant in 1974. He also during that time qualified as an ACMA.

In 1974 he moved to Lex Service Group as the Management Accountant for Lex’s Volvo network. By 1980 he had become Financial Controller and Finance Director of Lex Industrial Distribution and Hire.

He left Lex in 1980 to become Finance Director of Grand Metropolitan’s UK Coca-Cola business. A year later he became its Sales and Marketing Director and then it’s Managing Director. In 1983 he was appointed Managing Director of Grand Metropolitan’s troubled International Services business and went on to become Chief Executive of the whole Contract services division which in that year had lost some £10.5m.

In the past three decades, Gerry is credited with converting Coca-Cola UK’s £7m loss into a £17m profit in two years; leading in 1987 the biggest management buyout ever seen by creating Compass out of Grand Metropolitan; and in one year stemming Granada’s losses to post returns that were 10% higher than market expectations.

Sir Gerry has been Chairman of Allied Domecq PLC, Granada, The Arts Council of England, British Sky Broadcasting Group and ITN System.

Gareth Lodge
Gareth Lodge works in TowerGroup’s London headquarters as a Senior Analyst covering European payments.

Gareth joined TowerGroup with strong experience in the payments business. Most recently he worked for Voca, the payments processor providing ACH processing services in the United Kingdom. His experience covers business strategy, including new ventures, partnering, and thought leadership with regard to SEPA, innovation in the payments value chain; European retail payments, particularly with respect to opportunities and challenges SEPA presents; and the marketing of retail payments. He also acted as Knowledge Manager for Voca and has spoken at numerous conferences internationally on the topic of enterprise search technologies.

Previously Gareth worked for a niche innovations consultancy, The Technology Exchange, with clients such has BT, Shell, and the United Nations, and prior to that as senior researcher at a number of leading information brokerages serving blue chip companies and consultancies, particularly in the financial services industry.

Gareth has a degree from University of Portsmouth and a postgraduate diploma from the University of North London.

Marion King
Marion joined Bacs in 2002. She has built on the organisation’s impressive service record and transformed key aspects of the business including its governance structure which resulted in the infrastructure company being renamed Voca in 2003. In July 2007, Voca merged with LINK Interchange Network to create VocaLink. Under her leadership, the company delivers reliable solutions for a changing world through partnerships with best-in-class industry providers and the unique expertise of VocaLink’s people.

Marion has over 15 years experience in senior level management. Before joining the company, she held global leadership roles in Reuters, including managing director of its East Asia operation, and managing director of Reuters Global Transactions.

Chris Skinner
Chris Skinner is an independent commentator on the financial markets and Chief Executive of Balatro. He is Chair of the European networking group the Financial Services Club, and a co-founder of the website Shaping Tomorrow. He is well-known for his regular columns in a variety of media, including the Banker magazine, and Blogs on theFinanSer.com. He is the author of several books including “The Future of Banking”, “The Future of Finance” and “The Future of Investing.” The latter two focus upon Europe’s payments and investments directives, the PSD and MiFID.

Helen Lord
Helen Lord is Fraud and Regulatory Compliance Director for Experian having worked for the organisation for 18 years. Helen has mainly worked in the consumer facing arena, initially being responsible for Experian's Consumer Help Service who ensure that the organisation meets its Consumer Credit and Data Protection obligations by providing credit reports and handling any queries about the data held.

Helen then worked with the US in the development of Experian's CreditExpert service which offers credit report monitoring and ID protection on-line. The service assists people in understanding their credit report and alerts them to significant changes that may be indicators of ID fraud.

Helen is now responsible for Experian’s Directors’ Office and a Fraud Team who work closely with the police and are responsible for investigations, data mining and intelligence. The team also ensures that all credit reports are sent to authenticated applicants and leads Experian’s victims of fraud strategy.

Ashley Dowson
Ashley Dowson is Chairman of The SEPA Consultancy, a specialist company that aims to provide strategic advice to banks, corporates, public authorities and suppliers to the European payments industry.

He previously occupied senior positions in Barclays for over 30 years, latterly as Chief Operating Officer & Managing Director of Barclays Group Treasury. Ashley was an EBA Board Member during the period of the introduction of the Euro and was highly instrumental in the creation of the EBA’s EURO1 Clearing System.

Simon Bailey
Simon is Director of Payments for Logica. With over 20 years experience in international payments infrastructures and technology, he has been closely involved in major industry initiatives across retail, e-commerce and wholesale payments markets since the 1980s.

Logica’s payments business has supported recent industry developments including the SEPA and Faster Payments initiatives. With a client base in both central banking bodies and the commercial banks Logica has enabled infrastructure compliance and supported business innovation. Logica continues to support clients in the development of business strategies and supporting infrastructure in the rapidly changing payments market with advisory, implementation, systems integration, software and outsourcing services.

Jonathan Williams
Jonathan is Director of Communications and Product Strategy at Experian Payments and is responsible for identifying and developing new product ideas, managing media, industry and public relations and customer communications.

Before joining the newly named Experian Payments in 2000, Jonathan promoted strategies for growth as European Business Development Manager for Fujitsu Telecom. He has held engineering and IT roles at British Aerospace, University of Cambridge and Advanced Telecommunications Modules Ltd as well as senior marketing roles at Virata Corporation and Content Technologies (now Clearswift).

Spanning both technical and marketing disciplines, Jonathan is focussed on the commercial opportunities created by market change, partnerships or technological developments.

Jonathan holds an MA in Theoretical Physics and a postgraduate qualification in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge and is the Experian Payments representative to the Euro Banking Association (EBA), the Payments Council, APACS Affiliates and Australian Payments Clearing Association (APCA) and monitors Bacs’ Affiliates Interest Group.

Mark Bish
Mark is Senior Product Manager at Experian Payments and manages the Product Management team looking after all validation products.

Before joining Eiger Systems in 2004, Mark spent 7 years working for Kalamazoo International PLC (now Reynolds and Reynolds) on their Elite product and was responsible for the successful delivery of a number of key projects for global car manufacturers including Volvo, Renault and General motors.
Mark has extensive experience of solution design, software development, product testing, project and product management and developing support processes for software applications.