Speakers

Alexy Armitage

Alexy Armitage is a senior level share plan expert having worked in the global incentives field for over 20 years currently on the issuer side and previously on the legal and consultancy support side. In 2019, Alexy joined AVEVA Group plc, which is a FTSE 100 Tech company. She leads on AVEVA’s global equity and am responsible for the management and organisation of the incentive plans. Alexy introduced a Global Employee Share Purchase Plan for AVEVA which launched in 2021 into 20 countries. The initial launch was very successful with a nearly 50% take up by AVEVA employees. She is chair of the ProShare Global Focus Group and have supported this group for over 20 years. Alexy is also a regular speaker at conferences and industry events; as well as providing content and updates for share plan publications.

Alison Miller

Alison Miller is the Share Plans Manager at BAE Systems, with direct responsibility for the delivery of the Company’s discretionary plans and overall management responsibility for delivery of the Company’s all employee share plans, including a SIP which has over 28,000 employees making regular monthly contributions.

Ben Alhassan - Unilever

Ben Alhassan is a Reward Analyst at Unilever where he leads work on Share Plan and reward projects and contributed to work on the company’s Living Wage agenda. Prior to Unilever, Ben worked in a range of analytical roles including share plan administrator at Link Asset Services (formerly Capita Asset Services) where he was responsible for managing executive plan vestings for five clients.

Bradley Richardson

Bradley Richardson is a Partner in Linklaters’ Employment & Incentives team specialising in advising clients on the establishment and operation of employee and executive remuneration and incentive plans, executive remuneration and corporate governance, as well as the regulation of remuneration in the financial services and banking sectors.

Bradley provides commercial and innovative advice to listed and private companies on all aspects of the design and operation of incentive arrangements, and has broad experience in guiding clients through the share plan aspects of corporate actions, having acted on high-profile public takeovers and IPOs as well as private company M&A.

Bradley is a member of the Share Plan Lawyers Tax Committee, recognised as a “Next Generation Lawyer” by Legal 500 and clients report that Bradley “always demonstrates his great knowledge, approach and support" and "provides excellent advice and offers options and solutions in any situation”.

Caitlin Slatter

Caitlin Slatter is Deputy Company Secretary at Howden Joinery Group Plc, having started at the company in 2015 as Assistant Company Secretary. She is responsible for the day-to-day management of employee share awards and is qualified under the CGI Certificate in Employee Share Plans. Prior to joining Howdens, Caitlin had junior company secretarial roles at RB (Reckitt) and Smith & Nephew.

Carla Walsham – Deloitte

Carla Walsham is a solicitor specialising in incentives and has broad experience in advising clients on all aspects of executive and employee incentives matters from design, drafting, implementation, global compliance and operation. Carla has particular expertise in advising global clients. Carla is known for her commercial and pragmatic approach supported by deep technical and market knowledge.

Charlotte Cooper

Charlotte Cooper leads the Client Services team at Stitch, overseeing clients across all industries and demographics. Her business is in getting to know her clients, and ensuring that they’re positively delighted with the impact Stitch is helping to make.

Charlotte Strouts

Charlotte Strouts has been Director, Global Share Plans at LSEG since September 2020. With over 20 years of share plans experience, Charlotte was formerly a tax partner in a City law firm and, before joining LSEG, headed up the share plans offering in another FTSE 30 company.

Chris Fallon

Chris Fallon was appointed to the Board when the firm became an employee owned business in October 2020. With over 15 years' experience, Chris has a broad range of experience advising on UK tax-advantaged plans, senior executive plans and employee benefit trusts for listed companies and private equity owned businesses. Chris advises on all forms of incentives at executive and all employee levels, with particular focus on employment related tax issues, corporate governance and trusts.”

Darren Smith

Darren Smith is the Business Development Director, UK, at Global Shares and has worked in the Share Plans industry for over 17 years. In this time, he has worked on all the operational teams including management, relationship management and most recently business development. He is a regular industry host and speaker on topics including Share Plans and financial wellbeing, bringing a fun and engaging style to events.

Elaine Graham

Elaine Graham is a Director in the Employer Solutions business for Zedra - she has specific expertise in a variety of corporate incentive and reward structures from multi member arrangements, carry and co-investment trust structuring to bespoke executive structures. ZEDRA's clients include FTSE 100, 250 and globally listed companies as well as a large range of international private companies including those with a significiant private equity shareholder, large financial institutions and company founders/executives.

Emma Parker

Emma Parker specialises in all aspects of UK share plans, including advising on executive remuneration and UK tax-advantaged plans, the establishment of new share plans, plan rule drafting and reviewing the legal and tax aspects of plan awards. Emma has a broad corporate and employment tax background and has significant experience in establishing and advising on overseas tax-qualified plans, working closely with our network of overseas lawyers to operate tax-qualified plans in France, Spain, Israel, the US and other countries. Emma leads on a number of our clients such as Coca-Cola European Partners, Howdens and Hays. Emma also leads on Tapestry's Chartered Governance Institute (formerly ICSA) Certificate in Employee Share Plans.

Forbes McNaughton

Forbes McNaughton has been Company Secretary at Howden Joinery Group Plc for seven years and oversees the delivery of all employee share awards. Prior to joining Howdens, Forbes spent five years at KPMG and Tricor Europe, delivering company secretarial services to a mix of listed and private clients.

Frances Mancktelow

Frances Mancktelow has spent 34 years in the Financial Services Industry and in 2019 she joined Fidelity as Managing Director of Client Relationships. Frances began her career in equity with National Westminster Bank, and has since worked for Royal Bank of Scotland, Computershare and Equatex in equity compensation roles.

Across her various roles, Frances has led large teams and worked across a number of key areas: managing major client relationships globally in multiple jurisdictions; structuring and implementing complex client solutions; major technology transformations of share management infrastructure.

Actively supporting industry events, Frances has presented alongside clients and advisors, as well as helping clients to achieve industry awards for their collaborative efforts in industry-leading initiatives.

Gemma Phillips

Gemma Phillips acts on all aspects of mergers and acquisitions but has specialised in private equity transactions for the last nine years.

She has advised a number of private equity clients including Bridgepoint, Bridgepoint Development Capital, CBPE, ICG, Phoenix Private Equity, Livingbridge, Langholm, Inflexion, ECI, Kester Capital and Silverfleet on executing their investments, managing their portfolio companies during the life of their investments and helping them to deliver successful exits.

Gemma also works with management teams supporting them on their equity arrangements on new investments, renegotiations of those equity arrangements, assisting them with bolt-on acquisitions and group re-organisations and generally supporting them throughout the life of their business.

Graham Bull

Graham Bull is Head of EQ All-Employee Share Plans, with responsibility for all aspects of employee share plan services including business development, strategy and client support, covering over one million accounts and £3 billion of assets.

Hanaan Ullah

Hanaan Ullah is an Associate in Linklaters’ Employment & Incentives team. He advises clients on the design, implementation and operation of incentive arrangements, executive remuneration and corporate governance, and regulatory pay requirements in the financial services sector. Hanaan also regularly advises on the incentive aspects of public and private corporate transactions.

Hanaan has recently worked with a broad range of listed and unlisted corporates and financial institutions and has a broad range of experience in the remuneration regulation space.

Hanaan is also involved with firm initiatives focused on diversity and inclusion.

Helen Baker

Helen is an experienced Chartered Secretary/Chartered Governance Professional with a background in the secretariats of large listed international groups. She joined Coca-Cola Europacific Partners plc in July 2017 as Head of Secretariat. Prior to that she worked for Legal & General, WS Atkins plc and National Grid. Helen has been involved in share plans for most of her company secretarial career, starting in trust administration and moving into plan administration and management. She has experience of both all-employee and discretionary plans and of operating share plans across a large number of jurisdictions, including the Middle East and India, Asia Pacific, the US, Europe and others “in between”.

Jack Price

Jack Price joined Computershare in 2014 before becoming Managing Director of the UK Communication Services business in 2018. In addition to this, he also acts as the communication expert supporting the Computershare Employee Plans business around the world. Throughout his career, Jack has focused on supporting clients in the utilities, finance, employee share plans & government sectors in their digital transformation journey. He often speaks at industry events around digital transformation & how clients can get the best out of their customer or employee communications.

Jai Baker

As Industry Director at Link Group, Jai Baker works closely with market peers, issuer clients, central government and other stakeholders to drive the share plan industry forward. He is an active member and a fellow of the Corporate Governance Institute (formerly the ICSA) and regularly presents at ProShare and other industry-wide forums. Jai also hosts the industry podcast ‘LinkUp360’, discussing a range of topics that touch our world.

Connect with Jai @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jai-baker/

Jean Piercey

Jean Piercey has over 30 years’ experience in share registration and employee share plans, the last eleven of which as Head of Share Plans at Legal & General. Jean started her career at ICI and BP when their share registers and share plans were administered in-house. Jean subsequently managed the BP share plan team overseeing the operation of BP’s share plans in over 60 countries before moving to a project role where she managed various projects including the implementation of a new global share plan and international mobility tracking system.

Jennifer Rudman

Jennifer Rudman has worked at EQ for 32 years, 20 years specialising in employee share plans, with responsibility for enhancing employee share plan services. She a member of a number of employee schemes working groups, liaising with HMRC and industry bodies including ProShare and the Quoted Companies Alliance.

Jeremy Edwards

Jeremy Edwards is a Partner and Head of the Employee Benefits Group, specializing in all aspects of employee share plans. Jeremy has over 25 years' experience as a share plan lawyer and 2 years' experience as a corporate lawyer. Jeremy advises on all aspects of employee share plans, executive compensation and the taxation of employees.

Joe Fomenky

Specialising in equity compensation and the mark-to-market valuation of employee equity plans under IFRS 2, TSR performance updates and the analysis, modelling and explanation of financial and economic information. Joe assists companies throughout the life cycle of their employee equity plans from plan design and fair value calculation to the application of performance conditions, communication and expense amortisation. Joe studied Mathematics (MMath, BSc with Hons) at University of Leeds and graduated in 2018 with a keen interest in Statistics and Financial Modelling.

Julie Shepherd – Share Plan Director, Sage Group PLC

Julie Shepherd is an experienced share plan professional having worked in the industry for over 20 years in both provider and issuer roles. In 2016, she joined The Sage Group plc, where she is now Share Plan Director , leading a team of two Share Plan specialists, and responsible for the management of all the company’s equity plans, including a Global Employee Share plan in 17 countries. Julie is a GEO Fellow, the current Vice Chair of the ProShare Global Focus Group and a regular speaker at conferences and chapter events.

June Davenport – Head, EMEA Trust & Nominee Services, Shareworks by Morgan Stanley

June has 30 years’ experience in the share plans industry with extensive experience working with global and multinational plans. As Head, EMEA Trust & Nominee Services, she is part of the core team focused on expanding Shareworks by Morgan Stanley's market presence in Europe. During her tenure at Shareworks by Morgan Stanley, June has been responsible for building the company’s operational infrastructure in North America, the UK and Australia.

June has been responsible for strategic partner integration and directed the customer service experience in each of the locations where she was based. June serves as a Board Director of the Global Equity Organization and is a frequent speaker on global remuneration issues in both North America and Europe. She holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Business Management from the University of Strathclyde in Scotland.

Keri Simm

Keri Simm is an accomplished share plan professional with over 20 years’ experience in employee share ownership. Keri leads a small team within Diageo’s Reward function and is responsible for the creative design, administration, effective engagement and education of share plans to Diageo’s people. Diageo offers a variety of all employee share plans across the UK and Republic of Ireland as well as numerous discretionary share plans in around 55 countries.

Keri enjoys the many partnerships involved in employee share plan services and has a vast share plan network made up of third-party service providers, advisers and other issuers. Keri is an active member of ProShare and GEO. In her spare time, Keri likes nothing more than spending time with her family and is also an enthusiastic runner.

Kevin O’Hare - Manager, Share Plans & Deferred Reward

Kevin O’Hare is a senior share plans professional having trained at PwC & EY and worked at HSBC before joining Shell in 2019. Kevin is responsible for the design and delivery of the Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s global share plans across 70+ countries. Kevin has a strong track record of improving employee engagement and increasing employee participation in global share plans.

Liz Pierson

Liz is a partner in our Global Employer Services practice and leads Deloitte’s incentives and reward team in London. She is a solicitor with 20 years experience advising on all aspects of incentives and reward.

Liz advises on the full breadth of services relating to share plans, including the design of new plans, implementing plans and their day to day operation. She has substantial experience advising on all related incentives matters and the impact of corporate transactions on share plans. Liz has deep technical knowledge on the legal and tax aspects of incentives.

Liz’s clients include major listed companies and financial services clients. She works closely with heads of reward, heads of tax, company secretaries and share plan teams as well as remuneration committee members.

Marianne Phillips

Marianne Phillips is Assistant Company Secretary at Wickes Group plc which listed on the London Stock Exchange on 28 April 2021. Prior to her current role, she managed the share plans at Travis Perkins Group plc and assisted in the management of share plans at Domino's Pizza Group plc.

Martin Osborne-Shaw, Global Shares’ Head of Business Development for the European region.

Martin has more than 20 years' leadership in the employee share plan and securities industry. Founder of Killik Employee Services, he subsequently became a Director at Equiniti Premier and managed Executive Services. Prior to joining Global Shares, he spent 4 years at Shareworks by Morgan Stanley (previously Solium), where he leads the EMEA Client Service Delivery Team to shape the overall client experience.

Melanie Keegan

Melanie Keegan is Global Share Plans Manager at Ocado Group plc. Mel has worked in share plans for a number of years, and has wide experience of operating and implementing incentive arrangements for both executive and all-employee populations, including through corporate transactions.

Michael Turner

Michael Turner is a Senior Consultant at Aon, where he leads Aon’s European Equity Services team which provides clients advice and solutions on all things equity. Based in London, Michael specialises in designing equity plans for his European clients. He is particularly passionate about designing all employee share plans that generate a high participation and engagement rate. Michael also specialises in performing IFRS 2 valuations for share-based payments and tracking the performance of share plans.

Michael is a regular speaker at industry events such as ProShare and the Global Equity Organisation (GEO) and also regularly hosts webinars and seminars for his clients. He is a Chartered Accountant with over 7 years of professional experience. Having previously worked for public practice accounting firms in New Zealand. Michael has a Bachelor of Commerce in Accounting and Finance from the University of Otago (New Zealand) and is a full member of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CAANZ).

Mitul Shah

Mitul Shah is a Partner based in London and leads Deloitte’s global Reward business. He has over twenty years’ experience advising companies on all aspects of reward including the design, implementation and operation of incentive compensation plans on a global basis. He also works with Remuneration Committees (as lead advisor) across a range of industries. Mitul has been recognised in each of the last three years by the FT and EMpower in their top 100 ethnic minority executives Council.

Pat Sims

Pat Sims has been an independent consultant since 2015, and works with global companies supporting their equity compensation programmes. She’s currently supporting Rio Tinto on a number of share plan related projects.

Paula Lancaster – Deloitte

Paula Lancaster is an Associate Director in Deloitte’s Incentives & Reward practice. She has a deep knowledge of operating equity and incentive plans globally – advising clients listed on the DAX, Euronext, LSE and NYSE with their global compliance needs. Paula also specialises in leveraging technology to support her clients in meeting their global equity tax obligations in the most efficient and compliant manner.

Ritu Gupta – Senior Relationship Manager, Employee Share Plans, Canada Computershare

Ritu is the Senior Relationship Manager for Employee Share Plans, Canada. She has been with Computershare for over 10 years. Ritu has over 25 years’ experience in the financial and securities industry. Her background includes systems development, delivery, client relationship management and servicing focused in the Pension and Benefits as well as the Mutual Fund industries.

Sophie Howell

Sophie joined Stitch – a Deloitte business back in 2016 and now helps leads the Client Services team, working with their wonderful clients to turn their briefs into reality. She has been working closely with the Rio Tinto team on personalisation to help increase understanding and value around their share plan communications.

Stephanie Birner

Stephanie Birner joined Computershare in 2019, and in her current role she supports the Global Product Innovation Management organization to ensure superior operational delivery for product initiatives and ideation management. Prior to that she worked for 8 years in the Aerospace Industry successfully leading the EMEA & CIS Account Management team of jet engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney. Stephanie is known for her strong customer focus and solution-oriented work style.

Toby Morrow

Toby Morrow is responsible for managing and delivering Rio Tinto’s discretionary and all-employee share plans globally. Prior to joining Rio Tinto, Toby worked for a financial services firm leading the share plans and employment tax functions globally and spent over 10 years at Deloitte working with clients to develop and implement equity and reward arrangements.

Tom Gwinnell

Tom Gwinell has worked in Financial Services marketing for over 10 years. Working for a retail stockbroker for over 8 years gave him great insight into why people save and invest - and the techniques to create clear and effective communication campaigns. Having now worked at Computershare for over 5 years, Tom focusses on creating great share plan communications and digital strategies for clients.

Vicki Wright

Vicki Wright is a communications consultant with 20 years’ experience in corporate comms and reporting, leading multi-disciplinary teams for flagship projects in FTSE and private organisations. She works with corporate communications, sustainability, investor relations and reward teams to develop powerful narratives and provide multi-channel creative solutions with impact.

Wendy Butcher

Wendy Butcher has worked for EQ since 1997, working in finance, relationship management and employee share plans. For the past eleven years Wendy has been Trustee for Equiniti Share Plan Trustees Limited and has a wealth of technical knowledge and experience of SIPs.