Richard has a background in implementing technology solutions for the financial services sector across the UK, US and Europe. 

He specialises in helping organisations use the latest technologies effectively to improve operational capabilities and deliver real value. His expertise spans system architecture, data infrastructure, and digital transformation, with a particular focus on the responsible integration of artificial intelligence. 

As Managing Director and co-founder of VAMOS, Richard works with financial organisations to develop effective strategies for AI adoption, focused on empowering humans rather than replacing them.

In this pivotal role, Jason is responsible for driving the sales strategy and fostering growth across NETSOL's innovative portfolio of products and services for the European region. Most recently, Jason worked with Aldermore Bank for nearly six years, where he was the product lead for a large group wide transformation program. He also led strategy, innovation, commercial insights, tech transformation, and growth initiatives for Aldermore’s SME lending division, with a particular focus on asset finance, working closely with MotoNovo Finance, Aldermore’s motor finance business.

Prior to his roles at Aldermore, Jason worked at Close Brothers Asset Finance for five years where he led several sales transformation programs, and facilitated strategic relationship development, growth initiatives and long-term strategy development. He also has experience as a business founder and entrepreneur, providing him with unique insights into end customer value in SME lending and banking. He began his career as an investment banker in the equity derivatives division at UBS.

Graham has worked at Novuna Business Finance since 2013, starting as Head of Operations when it was branded as Hitachi Capital.

Prior to this, Graham was a Senior Manager at ING Lease.

A highly experienced Sales and Operations Executive with in excess of 20 years practice across Operations, Sales, Project Management and Operational Risk. Recognised as a reliable, conscientious individual with a ‘can-do’ attitude, who maintains excellent relationships with both internal and external customers.

I am driven by curiosity and motivated by change, a problem solver who brings teams together with a shared purpose; to investigate root causes, design fixes, simplify and automate processes, to resolve for customers. I am a passionate and enthusiastic leader, creating an open and positive culture where colleagues feel supported and able to fulfil their potential. An extrovert, I am at my best when leading new thinking, challenging the status quo and bringing diverse groups who think differently together, towards shared goals and objectives.

Comfortable leading in ambiguous and complex situations, I have a track record in delivering large rectification programmes, improving business processes and supporting senior leaders to respond to regulatory change. I bring an extensive and practical knowledge of risk and control frameworks, data process design, corporate governance, consumer banking products, processes and regulation.  

Julie Warren holds over 25 years of experience in senior sales and marketing roles within organisations such as Barclays, Aldermore and new fintech startups. 

Her expertise spans a wide range of areas including Brand, PR, digital, partnerships, lead generation and social.

Julie has a proven track record of building first-class marketing functions with a strong focus on integrated sales and marketing outputs.

Management of Wholesale Funding and Risk , cash and funding trigger management, across syndicated funding markets. Primary responsibility for funding and credit risk for Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Benelux in conjunction with local risk teams.

Richard has been at DSG since 1990 and negotiated an MBO in 1998 effectively re-founding the business. Having built the business through several economic and credit cycles, 

Richard then oversaw the investments from both Promethean and Magnetar to bring DSG to the dominant position it now holds in UK car finance as the only lender-broker hybrid. 

Richard has developed a talented management team and succession path, ensuring DSG will endure in the long term.

Chris has been speaking about how technology will change the automotive landscape since he published a white paper on the subject in 2017. Since then, he founded Tomorrow's Journey, an Enterprise SaaS platform that enables automotive brands to launch and scale fully digital solutions, working globally with the likes of Hyundai, Jaguar and Leaseplan.

 

Chris Kirby has a diverse career spanning multiple roles in the automotive industry including as a Strategic Advisor at Autofutura Limited, as the Automotive Director at WeCreateClarity and as the Head of Business Development at FGA Capital UK Ltd. 

 

As well as speaking at events across the globe, Chris also hosts the Autocar Change Makers Podcast, where he regularly meets and engages with automotive industry leaders on the future of the industry.

Richard Bearman has over 25 years’ experience in the banking sector and over that time has developed a real passion for working with and supporting entrepreneurs. 

Richard oversees the Banking Relationship Management function, which helps to support a consistent and holistic approach towards the Bank’s delivery partners.

He was previously Managing Director, Small Business Lending at the Bank, which included responsibility for the Start Up Loans programme, which was rated by Forbes as its top-rated Small Business Loan and Start up Loan for three consecutive years.

Prior to joining the Bank, Richard was UK Head of Small Business at HSBC, where he led and supported colleagues serving the UK SME market via face to face, telephony and digital channels. Richard set the strategic direction and led the business to evolve its channels and grow its customer base. Under Richard’s leadership, HSBC was voted Best Business Banking Provider in the Smart Money People British Bank Awards and Best Online Banking Provider in the Business Moneyfacts Awards.

With more than 30 years of experience in the commercial finance industry, Jim brings a wealth of knowledge to the role of CEO.

Jim most recently served as Group CEO at STAR Asset Finance, where he led the brokerage through a period of substantial change, enhancing the risk control framework, upgrading the IT infrastructure, centralising the core business functions across four previously independent brokerages and increasing the group balance sheet by 50%. 

He has previously held senior roles at Lombard, Barclays, and GE Capital, where he developed an extensive understanding of asset finance, risk management, and stakeholder engagement across a variety of financial sectors.

Before joining Allica, Richard was group COO at digital bank Revolut.

Prior to that he was CEO of OakNorth and held leadership roles at TSB and HSBC.

Anna has worked at the LSB since 2018, starting as Head of Insight.

Prior to this, she spent just over 4 years at Wright Hassall LLP as Head of Risk & Compliance and 4.5 years at HSBC working with the risk and audit sectors.

Dan’s career has developed in parallel with the growth of Arkle where he has acquired front line experience across a range of functions during his 15-year career in Asset Finance. 

Working under the tutelage of his predecessor, Stephen Bassett, Dan joined the Board in 2015 and was appointed to the role of Executive Director two years later. 

When not at work, Dan enjoys an active lifestyle, spends time with family and supports his local community.

I am currently a Senior Policy Advisor in the Asset Finance Division at the Finance and Leasing Association. I have played an intergalactic part in fraud prevention strategy during my time in the Motor Industry and continuously find innovate solution for an ever growing threat. 

I review Compliance and Complaints for numerous businesses in the finance industry as well as producing guidance and toolkits to deal with the every changing financial landscape.

Leasing Professional, operating at Director level, with 25 years experience in sales and operations working with UK and International vendors across a variety of equipment sectors. 

Have proven management, sales, documentation and negotiation skills. Before joining Societe Generale Equipment Finance held sales positions assisting vendors and resellers grow their sales through the use of finance across diverse markets including IT, Office Equipment, Printing, Machine Tools and Fork Lift Trucks.

David Betteley started his career in Financial Services as a graduate trainee with Lloyds and Scottish Finance (part of the Lloyds Bank Group) in Manchester in the late 70’s. In 1989 he joined the International Motors Group (IM) to set up their in-house Finance Company in the UK to support the Hyundai and Subaru brands. Staying with IM, he moved to Sweden in 1992 to run the vehicle distribution operations for IM in Scandinavia, Russia and the Baltic states.

In 1996 he moved back to the UK to become MD of Vauxhall Finance and successfully managed the transition from 7 branches to one central location. In 1998 he was recruited by Toyota to insource their Financial Services operations in the UK. He went on to become a Senior Vice President when he had the responsibility for overall operations, sales and marketing and the development of new markets for both Toyota and Lexus in the Europe and Africa region.

During this 12 year period at Toyota he also served as a Pension Trusteee which gives him good experience to serve in a similar capacity at JLR. In 2010 David joined Jaguar Land Rover as Global Financial Services Director, retiring in July 2017. David now works as an independent advisor to Genpact Ltd and other companies. His main non-executive role has been as Chairman of the Finance and Leasing Association in the UK during the period May 2007 to May 2010.

David holds an MBA from Aston Business School Outside work his time is mainly devoted to his family. However he enjoys the occasional game of golf and still follows closely the fortunes of Manchester City.

John Rees has worked in equipment finance for over 40 years, most recently with Societe Generale’s equipment finance subsidiary, where he focused on the UK, Australian, and Chinese markets before joining the bank’s headquarters in Paris with global responsibility for sales and marketing.

Wayne leads the automotive finance practice for Shoosmiths.

Prior to joining Shoosmiths, Wayne spent 25 years working in-house in senior and executive roles at international, blue chip financial services and automotive businesses including: Volkswagen Financial Services; GMAC; NatWest (including Lombard and Invoice Finance), Cisco and Santander Consumer UK.

Wayne has extensive experience of scoping, leading and implementing domestic and international projects, particularly focused on strategically important restructuring and regulatory change.

He specialises in regulated and unregulated asset finance, consumer credit and retail finance, with a depth of experience in motor finance. Wayne is also recognised for his experience in regulatory compliance and oversight activity.

Adrian Dally is Director of Motor Finance & Strategy at the Finance and Leasing Association (FLA).

Before joining the FLA, Adrian spent 26 years in policy-making roles in Whitehall and Brussels, specialising in a number of areas including financial services, consumer protection policy, competition and the European Union.

During this time he fulfilled a number of roles, including as a UK negotiator in the EU institutions and as private secretary to two cabinet ministers. His last role was at the Financial Ombudsman Service, where he was its Head of Policy.

With over 25 years in technology solutions to the asset finance and now receivables finance domains, Steve’s extensive experience sees him lead the Sales, Marketing and Software Engineering functions at Lendscape.  

   

He is passionate about helping financial institutions understand how technology can be used to achieve operational excellence while engaging more deeply with their customers and is motivated by the belief that technology can provide opportunities to deliver more customer-centric approaches.

  

Before joining Lendscape, he co-founded Finaptix, acquired by Lendscape in 2019, and served as Managing Director and Global Sales & Marketing Director at Alfa for a combined tenure of over 22 years.  

   

A regular contributor to industry journals and events, Steve’s specialities include asset finance, technology strategy, software development, digitalization, servitization and hyper-automation.  

   

He holds a PhD in Physics from the University of Kent.

 

Cat is the Head of Data Insight & Automation at Novuna Business Finance. After completing her PhD at Imperial College London, Cat joined Alfa Financial Services initially as a software developer before moving into project management working. After five years with Alfa, Cat moved to Novuna Business Finance as Strategic Change Manager, leading the company’s largest digital transformation to date. 

Having joined the Business Finance Senior Leadership team in Feb 2024, Cat now leads a multi-disciplinary team with a focus on maximising the business unit’s data capabilities, developing business insights and achieving automation & auto-decisioning efficiencies.

Combining extensive consultancy experience with technical software development skills and a scientific research background, Cat provides a unique viewpoint to defining innovation and change within Business Finance. Passionate about giving back and promoting technological advancement, Cat has worked with the Leasing Foundation for the number of years supporting diversity and inclusion and, more recently, leading the promotion by LF of Innovation within the industry.