Environmental, Social and Governance and Sustainability Reporting Conference

Mark Babington is the Executive Director of Regulatory Standards at the Financial Reporting Council. He leads the division responsible for the FRC’s technical and public policy work covering audit, corporate reporting, corporate governance and stewardship, actuarial and digital and taxonomies.

Prior to joining the FRC’s Executive Committee, Mark led the FRC’s UK Audit Policy programme, to set 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 Task Force, tasked with developing revisions to the International Independence Standards. He also represents the FRC on the International Sustainability Standards Board’s Sustainability Standards Advisory Forum.

Andrew Death is a Senior Civil Servant in the Department for Business and Trade and has been a civil servant for 23 years in a variety of policy roles. Andrew is currently Deputy Director for Corporate Reporting, Assurance and Governance. His responsibilities include leading a comprehensive review of corporate reporting for UK companies and leading the implementation of the ESG reporting commitments made in the green finance strategy. This includes the endorsement of ISSB standards and transition plan reporting.

Mark Manning is a Regulatory Specialist with the IFRS Foundation, supporting work on international regulatory adoption of the ISSB Standards. He also has a number of independent advisory roles on sustainable finance, including at the Grantham Research Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science, Chapter Zero, the World Bank, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and the International Organization for Standardization.

Mark has spent much of his career in the official sector, holding senior policy and research roles in central banking and securities regulation in London and Sydney – with the Bank of England, the Reserve Bank of Australia and the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). United December 2023, Mark was Strategic Policy Advisor on Sustainable Finance at the FCA.

Mark holds Master’s degrees in Economics and Finance, from University College London and London Business School, respectively.

Alicia Kedzierski is the Head of Department for ESG at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and is responsible for setting the regulatory ESG strategy and leading policy and technical work. This includes embedding ESG across the FCA’s activities. Alicia has led the Sustainability Disclosure Requirements (SDR) Policy, the Vote Reporting Group, as well as the FCA’s work on Transition Finance, Transition Planning, and other high profile projects. She is also Co-Chair of the IOSCO Assurance Workstream on Sustainable Finance.

Alicia previously led critical projects for the FCA, including the regulatory response to the Cost of Living Crisis. Her experience spans the UK and working across the Middle East and Africa, including development projects. Previously, Alicia worked at Deloitte, the Prudential Regulation Authority and the Bank of England. Her background is in Law.

Katrina is a regulatory lawyer with a focus on helping clients find a path to compliance when launching new products, entering new markets, and finding new routes to market such as DTC and subscriptions. She helps businesses and products comply with new regulation including consumer protection, food labelling, digital & e-commerce and advertising/marketing law.

Katrina has a particular interest in green washing and other ESG claims and has wide experience supporting clients in ensuring their claims are lawful. Katrina also supports clients to deal with investigations by regulators including the Advertising Standards Authority, Trading Standards, Competition and Market Authority consumer investigations, Medicines and Healthcare products, Regulatory Agency, and the EU’s Consumer Protection Corporation network. She has supported a number of clients to high-profile investigations in relation to green and sustainability claims.

Katrina has worked in private practice and in-house at Nestlé and Google. Before retraining as a lawyer, she worked for ten years as a client manager advising food and drink manufacturers on advertising and brand strategy.

Judith Houston is a Senior Associate at Mills & Reeve, specialising in Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting and governance. With a robust background in ESG, Judith advises clients across various industries on governance reviews, ESG disclosure requirements, and general corporate and commercial matters. Her expertise is rooted in her previous roles at the Institute of Business Ethics, Network Rail, and the LEGO Group.

Judith joined Mills & Reeve in 2019 and has since played a pivotal role in establishing the firm’s ESG Legal Services practice. She is recognised for her commercial acumen, developed through client secondments to in-house legal teams at GlaxoSmithKline and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).

In 2025, Judith was named in The Lawyer Hot 100, highlighting her contributions to the legal field. Beyond her corporate role, she founded “Courtroom Confident,” a non-profit organisation empowering women affected by domestic violence to navigate the legal system confidently.

Kai has been working cross functionally over the last three years implementing approaches to manage sustainability aspects at Merck Group. Merck is a science and technology company operating globally through its business sectors Healthcare, Life Science and Electronics.
In Sustainability Management, Kai and his team are developing metrics and concepts to support the operationalisation of Merck’s corporate sustainability strategy. This includes the definition of KPIs to measure the progress towards its sustainability goals, analysing and preparing for new sustainability reporting requirements as well as developing approaches to reflect sustainability considerations in Merck’s internal steering and decision making processes.
Before focussing on sustainability management, Kai has worked in different Finance functions at Merck including its Mergers & Acquisitions team and serving as the CFO of Merck’s subsidiaries in Spain and Portugal before assuming the responsibility as Senior Vice President for Merck’s Finance Operations organisation on a global level.

Martin Caunt has worked for the NHS for 9 years and is currently Deputy Director in the Greener NHS team responsible for its commitment to deliver a world-class net zero emission health service. Martin leads a world class healthcare carbon accounting / data and analytics function that is a key enabler in delivery of action nationally and locally to meet this commitment. Before joining the Greener NHS as Deputy Director, Martin led the analytics workstream for the Delivering a Net Zero NHS report providing the evidence base that enabled the NHS to be the first healthcare system in the world to commit to a net zero target.
Previously, Martin worked as a part of NHS England’s central data and analytics directorate leading a multi-disciplinary team of 50 analysts. Martin was also responsible for establishing the Improvement Analytics Unit, a joint venture between NHS England and The Health Foundation, to deliver independent and robust analysis to understand the impact of initiatives to improve care.
Prior to joining the NHS, Martin spent 10 years working in government, the majority as a Government Operational Research Analyst leading analytical projects to drive policy, operations and delivery in areas of major importance.

Meet Alice Nordvall, a seasoned professional in the sustainability sector with a strong background in data management. As the Customer Success Team Lead for Position Green’s UK operations, Alice leverages her expertise to collaborate closely with clients, elevating their sustainability efforts to new heights. With a keen focus on data management, she guides organizations towards impactful transformations. Join us to learn from Alice’s wealth of experience at our upcoming event.

Cathy joined Chancerygate as head of ESG in 2023, bringing almost 30 years’ experience of delivering environmental improvement and sustainable solutions in both the public and private sectors.
At Chancerygate, Cathy is responsible for defining, driving and executing the company’s ESG strategy, framework and targets, covering both UK and European operations. Building on the high specification sustainable product and Chancerygate’s track record of successful delivery, the strategy aims to drive positive change for the company and the wider urban logistics sector’s ESG activity.
Prior to joining Chancerygate, Cathy headed up delivery of environmental sustainability at Willmott Dixon. She has a wealth of expertise in developing, leading and directing environmental and sustainability strategies on large-scale construction projects, including 14 years at Crossrail where she was head of environment.

Steve has managed the Secretariat of the UN Global Compact Network UK since 2007, connecting UK companies and other organisations in a global movement dedicated to driving corporate sustainability and the Sustainable Development Goals. He has been Chair of the UN Global Compact’s Global Network Council and was a member of the UN Global Compact Board.

He was previously a Programme Director at the International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF) leading projects across a wide range of responsible business issue areas. Prior to joining IBLF, Steve was the founder and Managing Director of a successful retail sports equipment business in Canada.

He has a B.Comm from the University of British Columbia and an MSc in Business & Environment from Imperial College London.

Mark trained and qualified as a chartered accountant. He spent 15 years building a multimillion national business as CFO and returned to MHA as a partner. He has experience of large scale audit and assurance services and has cross-sector knowledge to ensure our clients’ needs are met at the highest standards. He specialises in agriculture and food manufacture, ESG high impact sectors including manufacturing, logistics and energy heavy industries. Mark leads MHA’s Sustainability ESG services team and authored the firm’s Dynamic ESG advisory services suite. He sits on management groups for the global Baker Tilly International ESG strategy providing international services.

Ian O’Donnell is Deputy Chair of UK Policy for Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), a business owner and non-executive director who’s excited by and loves sharing ways that creative thinking and new technology can help businesses succeed. A business owner since school days (Real Point – a design & marketing agency) he now also serves as a non-exec for other SMEs as well as volunteering with the FSB where he also leads on Net Zero, working with leading decision makers to develop policy solutions for a better environment for SMEs to thrive. Outside of work he’s a keen runner and cyclist and an advocate of active travel.

Steve has managed the Secretariat of the UN Global Compact Network UK since 2007, connecting UK companies and other organisations in a global movement dedicated to driving corporate sustainability and the Sustainable Development Goals. He has been Chair of the UN Global Compact’s Global Network Council and was a member of the UN Global Compact Board.

He was previously a Programme Director at the International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF) leading projects across a wide range of responsible business issue areas. Prior to joining IBLF, Steve was the founder and Managing Director of a successful retail sports equipment business in Canada.

He has a B.Comm from the University of British Columbia and an MSc in Business & Environment from Imperial College London.

Lydia Elliott leads the workstream on decarbonizing corporate supply chains at the We Mean Business Coalition.  In this role, she is responsible for developing and implementing the Coalition’s net-zero supply chain strategy, with an emphasis on accelerating supplier engagement and addressing shared barriers to effective supply chain action. A key area of her work involves the SME Climate Hub and creating the tools and guidance smaller businesses need to take meaningful climate action.  This includes the development of free carbon calculators, easy-to-use guidance, and reporting tools and frameworks to support businesses in demonstrating their progress.

All this work builds on her background of 10+ years in corporate sustainability consulting, during which she has supported large organizations in gathering sustainability data, formulating actionable sustainability strategies, and building sectoral collaborations.

As Chief Executive Officer of The Young Foundation, Helen leads a multi-disciplinary team of researchers and innovators to support stronger communities across the UK.
Prior to joining The Young Foundation, she spent nine years at Nesta as Executive Director, supporting, funding and scaling innovation in civil society, social tech, government, arts and education.
Previous roles have included work within the private sector developing digital strategies and solutions for global corporate clients. She spent five years consulting in the Cabinet Office, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, and then Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), developing national innovation programmes for local government and leading research and development for interactive TV public services.
Helen is also a Trustee of the Big Education Trust.
Helen was awarded an OBE for services to development of sustainable communities in the 2023 New Year Honours List.

James Alexander joined UKSIF as Chief Executive in October 2020, with a strong vision and mandate to further enhance the organisation’s key role in promoting and expanding sustainable investment and finance in the UK.
James has a background in international climate finance and infrastructure finance as well as many years’ experience in leadership roles in membership organisations. Most recently, James supported global megacities to overcome the substantial barriers to financing climate action as Director of the City Finance Programme at the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group and Head of the C40 Cities Finance Facility – a project preparation facility he developed, now supporting cities across the world to structure nearly a billion dollars of sustainable infrastructure transactions. James has worked on international climate finance issues at the UN level and supported cities across the world to invest their pensions and reserves more sustainably.
James is Treasurer of Eurosif, the European Sustainable Investment Forum, a member of the Green Technical Advisory Group (GTAG) providing advice to the UK Government on implementing a UK green taxonomy and a member of the Disclosures and Labels Advisory Group (DLAG) providing advice to the FCA on the UK’s SDR and fund labelling regime.

Toby joined ICAEW (Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales) in 2023, bringing over 25 years’ experience integrating nature & biodiversity into risk management, strategy, finance, reporting and policy. He leads the institute’s work on nature, supporting its global members and partners through training & capacity-building activities, collaborative projects, outreach, and engagement with policymakers & regulators. He is a member of the Global Accounting Alliance (GAA) Sustainability Working Group. He previously held senior roles at Deloitte and WWF-UK, and was an active member of the (former) UK Transition Plan Taskforce Nature Working Group and several working groups of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD).

Ben is responsible for the development and successful delivery of the John Lewis Partnerships biodiversity strategy, focused on measuring, monitoring and implementing interventions linked to high risk commodities in its supply chain.

Mark Babington is the Executive Director of Regulatory Standards at the Financial Reporting Council. He leads the division responsible for the FRC’s technical and public policy work covering audit, corporate reporting, corporate governance and stewardship, actuarial and digital and taxonomies.

Prior to joining the FRC’s Executive Committee, Mark led the FRC’s UK Audit Policy programme, to set 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 Task Force, tasked with developing revisions to the International Independence Standards. He also represents the FRC on the International Sustainability Standards Board’s Sustainability Standards Advisory Forum.