Panel members

Mandy has been CFO of Ascential plc, a specialist global information, data and analytics company, since 2013 and was a key member of the team that led the company’s IPO in 2016.

Before joining Ascential, Mandy was CFO at Torex, and helped manage the successful turnaround and sale of that business. Prior to that, she was CFO at Detica Group plc, a technology consultancy; Director of Corporate Development at Telewest; and Group Financial Controller at Dalgety. She began her career at Price Waterhouse, where she qualified as a Chartered Accountant. She also sat as a non-executive director of SDL plc where she chaired the audit committee.

Gary is Head of the Liquidity and Capital Markets team at BP p.l.c. He has worked for BP within the Treasury team for the past 27 years. On joining BP, he initially worked in the Risk Management team managing BP’s foreign exchange exposures before moving to the Capital Markets team, which is responsible for all aspects of its equity and debt activities as well short-term cash forecasting.

Gary joined the Board of Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing in June 2022 where he is the Chair of the Treasury Committee. 

Prior to joining BP, he worked within the banking sector concentrating on the new issue and derivatives markets where he had several trading and risk management roles.

Mark is a corporate partner at Latham & Watkins who has a particular specialism in capital markets. His areas of practice include public and private securities offerings of all types, along with mergers, acquisitions and general corporate work across a number of sectors. He regularly advises a range of corporate and investment bank clients.

He advised Lord Hill on the UK Listing Review in March 2021 and in October 2021 was appointed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to be the independent Chair of the UK Secondary Capital Raising Review, which reported to the Chancellor in July 2022.

He is a member of the Capital Markets Industry Taskforce (CMIT), the Digitisation Taskforce and also of the LSE's Primary Markets Group, an advisory group to the LSE on capital markets matters.

Dr Hans-Christoph Hirt is Managing Director and Head of Impact Engagement at UBS Asset Management, leading on focused corporate engagement.

Prior to joining UBS, Hans was the Managing Director and a member of the Board of EOS at Federated Hermes. EOS is a global provider of engagement and voting services. Hans is also a non-executive director of Hermes Pension Trustees Limited, the legacy pension scheme of Hermes Investment Management.

He began his career at law firm Ashurst in London, where he qualified as a solicitor, after teaching corporate law at the London School of Economics.

He is affiliated with the Law School at University College London (UCL). He is also author of articles and thought pieces on a range of corporate governance and sustainability topics and the co-editor of a forthcoming book on Investment Management, Stewardship and Sustainability.

Virginia is Head of UK & Ireland Equity Advisory at BNP Paribas.

Prior to this, Virginia was Head of UK Sponsor Services, responsible for FCA liaison and all sponsor matters for JP Morgan Cazenove having joined the UK IPO and ECM execution team in 2007 working across UK equity capital markets, M&A, Corporate Broking, Debt and debt capital markets. Virginia started her career in KPMG Corporate Finance focusing on public company and TMT advisory in her eight years there and she spent a year on secondment at the UKLA department in the former FSA.

Kathryn McLeland is CFO at M&G Plc. Kathryn joined M&G from Barclays PLC, where she served for over 20 years, most recently as Group Treasurer and before that as Head of Investor Relations.

Prior to that she worked in investment banking at Barclays, Merrill Lynch and Salomon Brothers, focused on Financial Institutions. In addition to her responsibilities overseeing M&G plc’s financial operations and strategy, Kathryn champions the company’s focus on sustainability and diversity and inclusion.

Aileen is a qualified lawyer who is currently the Group Company Secretary and Chief Governance Officer of HSBC Holdings plc, a position she was appointed to in November 2019.

Before HSBC, Aileen spent 19 years at the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, where she held various roles in legal, risk and compliance. She was appointed Group Secretary at RBS in 2010 and held the role of Chief Governance Officer and Board Counsel until her departure from RBS in 2019.

Aileen is also a member of the European Corporate Governance Council and the GC100.

James is Co-Head of Investment Banking at Deutsche Numis as well as heading their IPO business. He has over 20 years of UK ECM, Broking, Corporate Finance and FCA Sponsor experience, having worked for HSBC Investment Bank between 2000 and 2007, before spending 9 years at JP Morgan Cazenove as Head of their UK IPO and ECM Execution Team. 

He joined Numis in September 2016 and was appointed Co-Head of Investment Banking in March 2019, before becoming Co-Head of Investment Banking for Deutsche Numis following Deutsche Bank’s acquisition of Numis in 2023. Through his banking career, James has gained a broad experience of equity fundraisings, M&A and FCA Sponsor transactions, in addition to leading numerous UK IPOs. 

Prior to joining HSBC in 2000, James qualified as a chartered accountant with E&Y. 

Amanda has been a partner at Allen & Overy LLP since 2007. She is the Head of the London International Capital Markets group and heads up the International Capital Markets Know-How & Training team, in which role she is responsible for the development and management of internal and external knowledge resources and training programmes.

She is actively involved in many industry working groups on debt capital markets related issues, including the impact of the EEA Prospectus and Market Abuse regimes, the Transparency Directive, the PRIIPs Regulation, MiFID, IBOR discontinuation and Brexit on the markets.

Amanda is a regular speaker on Allen & Overy's internal and external training programmes and at external conferences. Prior to taking on a knowledge role, Amanda worked as an associate at Allen & Overy gaining experience of a wide range of international capital markets transactions, including vanilla debt issues, ECP, Global CP and EMTN Programmes, structured and equity linked issues and covered warrant issues.

Charlie is Deputy CEO of the London Stock Exchange plc having joined in 2018 to lead the Equity and Fixed Income Primary Markets businesses.   

Charlie is a capital markets specialist and previously worked within J.P. Morgan Cazenove’s Equity Capital Markets team responsible for originating and executing equity transactions. He has assisted in raising over £45bn of equity capital across five continents on behalf of clients. 

During his time at JPMC, Charlie also worked in Sydney raising capital for companies on the Australian Stock Exchange as well as taking primary responsibility for the South African equity capital markets practice. 

Sam Ward is Head of European Equity Capital Markets at Capital Group. His team works with investment analysts to source and access primary new issuance across European markets, as well as being responsible for a range of other capital market events across private and public markets.

Sam is actively involved in many industry working groups and is a regular speaker at external conferences. Prior to joining Capital in 2014, Sam worked at Barclays Corporate Bank, as well as in equities at UBS. Sam graduated from Aston Business School with a BSc in Management and Strategy and is CFA Charterholder and member of CFA Society UK.