Mark Babington, executive director, regulatory standards, Financial Reporting Council
Mark Babington is the executive director of regulatory standards at the Financial Reporting Council (FRC). He leads the division responsible for the FRC technical and public policy work covering audit, corporate reporting, corporate governance and stewardship, actuarial and the FRC Lab. The division also includes the FRC’s Stakeholder Engagement work.
Prior to joining ExCo, Mark led the FRC’s UK Audit Policy programme, measures to support greater competition in the UK audit market and work to support the reform of international standard setting for auditors, by global regulatory authorities. Before he joined the FRC, Mark had a twenty-year career in audit and was a Director at the UK National Audit Office.
Mark is an Independent Governor, Board Member and Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, which is the UK public body dedicated to supporting democracy around the world. He is also a member of the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants, which sets the global Code of Ethics for the accountancy profession, and chairs IESBA’s Sustainability Working Group.
Amy Barnes, head of sustainability and climate change strategy, Marsh
Amy Barnes is head of sustainability and climate change strateg at Marsh. Prior to this she held a number of leadership roles with Marsh’s Global Energy, Power & Renewables business. Amy has extensive experience assisting some of the largest and most complex companies manage risks.
Amy started her career as an environmental consultant, mostly providing advice and guidance to regulatory bodies. She joined Marsh as an environmental insurance broker and spent time on secondment with a major plc client, gaining an understanding of risk and insurance issues from a client perspective. Amy has 20 years of relevant industry experience with Marsh.
Sonia Boulad, member of secretariat, Financial Stability Board
Sonia is a member of the Financial Stability Board (FSB) Secretariat where she supports the FSB work on climate risk. In addition to other work, she contributed to the report on promoting climate-related disclosures published last year and has been driving the work of the FSB Working Group on Climate Risk, including on the interim report on supervisory and regulatory approaches to address climate risk published in April 2022.
Prior to joining the FSB, Sonia worked at the Bank of England, where she oversaw the implementation of post-crisis reforms on ending “Too Big To Fail” for large international banks. Before that, she worked for Moody’s as a credit analyst on debt capital instruments issued by financial institutions and corporates, and for a London-based consultancy advising central banks and finance ministries on their crisis management arrangements.
Roshan Lachman, financial risk director, Phoenix Group
Roshan Lachman is financial risk director at Phoenix Group, a position he has held for the past eight years. He has over 20 years’ experience in the financial services industry.
Roshan is a qualified actuary with extensive experience in insurance and as an investment consultant, with previous roles including L&G’s Group Head of ALM, LV=’s Head of Financial Risk and Senior Investment Consultant at Mercers and PwC.
In addition, he is responsible for the Line 2 oversight of capital management and financial risk, including input into the Group’s ORSA processes (risk appetite, stress testing and risk profile monitoring), and leads the team responsible for the implementation of the supervisory requirements relating to climate change risk management, including the BoE stress tests.
David Rorrison, director of enterprise risk, Just Group
David Rorrison is director of enterprise risk for Just Group plc, where he led the climate change project over the past three years. His insurance industry experience spans over thirty years, holding senior positions in risk management since being appointed as MGM Assurance’s Head of Corporate Governance in 2001. Prior to joining Just in 2014, David spent eight years with Simplyhealth, where he was instrumental in preparing the organisation for Solvency II.
Manav Verma, group external reporting director, Aviva
Manav Verma is group external reporting director at Aviva plc and leads the preparation of financial results and climate metrics for external reporting and disclosure.
He is an experienced finance executive with diversified roles within the insurance industry and consulting practice.
Recently, Manav has been focussing on building Aviva’s capabilities to meet future external and internal reporting and disclosure, and to improve reporting based on Aviva’s climate and sustainability objectives.
Prior to joining Aviva, Manav was a Director at KPMG responsible for leading and delivering large transformation programmes and performing commercial roles on secondment in the insurance industry.
Manav was formerly a senior manager at Prudential plc with a proven track record of bringing commercial perspective within performance management and financial reporting.
Justin Wray, head of policy, EIOPA
Justin Wray is head of the policy department and head of the insurance policy unit at the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA). Justin has been responsible for the provision of advice on the IORP II directive, EIOPA’s technical standards and guidelines required under the Solvency II directive.
Before joining EIOPA in May 2011, Justin worked at the UK Pensions Regulator in a number of operational and policy roles including as Head of Pensions Administration and Governance. Prior to this, Justin worked at the UK Treasury on financial services regulation and international debt issues, and at the UK Department for International Development.
Robert Chaplin, partner, Slaughter and May
Robert Chaplin is a corporate insurance partner at the law firm Slaughter and May. His practice spans both life and non-life, and covers advisory work, large scale and complex reinsurances and transfers, structuring, M&A transactions, the financing of insurers, material commercial agreements in the sector and prudential solvency advice. He has been practising in the sector for 25 years.
Robert is one of the partners responsible for the firm’s own environmental strategy and has keenly pursued climate issues in the context of his sectoral work.
Together with Beth Dobson, he is responsible for the firm’s Solvency II publications, including its market leading guide, app and podcasts on the subject.
Andrew Epsom, insurance client solutions director, Royal London Asset Management
Andrew Epsom is insurance client solutions director at Royal London Asset Management (RLAM). He is an insurance investment specialist with over 25 years of experience.
Prior to joining RLAM in 2020, Andrew was a Principal in the Mercer Insurance Investment Team, where he was responsible for leading several strategic relationships with global insurers as well as introducing the Mercer investment platform to insurers across Europe.
Andrew spent 13 years at Willis Towers Watson, including being Co-Lead of the Insurance Investment Advisory Group in the UK.
Chair, Gideon Benari, editor & founder, Solvency II Wire
Gideon Benari is the editor & founder of the news service Solvency II Wire and the database Solvency II Wire Data.
Gideon is a regular speaker at industry events and has chaired a number of discussion forums including the Governance Trap (a dialogue between senior regulators on governance and regulation) and the ongoing Solvency II Wire Regular Meeting Groups.
Before his current role, he worked as a press officer for a number of organisations and prior to that was a freelance video editor for over twenty years, working for major broadcasters in the UK.