The Charity Accountants' Conference 2024 - Speakers

Having worked at Sayer Vincent for 11 years, Jonathan left in 2006 to work as a freelance internal auditor in the international development sector. Seven years later, and after a role with Mango setting up a new consultancy service, he returned – this time as a partner.

He has also been a charity trustee for the last 10 years – currently with INTRAC where he is treasurer and chairs the finance and audit committee.

Debra has worked in the charitable and voluntary sector for over 30 years. Amongst numerous other roles, she is Vice President of the Soldiering On Through Life Trust Awards and co-chairs the judging panel with General the Lord Dannatt. She is a Trustee of In Kind Direct, one of the Prince's Foundation Charities, and a trustee of the Berkshire Community Foundation. She is also an Africa Advocacy Foundation Ambassador for women and girls at risk of or affected by Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

She has served as a trustee of several charities including being the co-founder of the Small Charities Coalition and was its first Chair. She served on the Charity Commission's SORP committee for over 7 years and was the Vice-Chair of Governors of Whiteknights primary school for 6 years.

She is a renowned public speaker with many years' experience of training and coaching and internationally published author of several books on management and leadership including It's Tough at the Top; The Pleasure and the Pain; It's Murder in Management and It's a Battle on the Board. Debra has a regular monthly column in Third Sector magazine and has appeared on Radio 4's The Moral Maze.

Eileen joined DSC in January 2018, and having worked within the commercial teams in charities and social enterprises brought a wealth of experience of generating income and delivering high quality services into the DSC Sales team.

Eileen’s many years’ experience as a trainer in both the commercial and 3rd sectors was then employed as she became a member of the Training team, designing, updating, producing, retailing and delivering courses and workshops.

Eileen enjoys being part of a team that is genuine, professional and totally committed to building sustainable charities with well trained, confident trustees, employees and volunteers.

George joined DSC at the beginning of 2017 and, having previously led the sales and customer service teams, moved into training at the start of 2020.

He trains in Management & Leadership, Fundraising, Personal Development, Project Management and Wellbeing. He has extensive experience in helping organisations make positive changes to how they approach social change.

He is also qualified as a Mental Health First Aider, with additional time spent studying Psychosis.

The favourite part of his role is knowing that the work DSC performs has a major impact on both the charities and individuals that we are able to serve.

David was appointed as Chief Executive of the Charity Commission on 7 February 2024.

Prior to that, David served as Chief Executive Officer of the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA).

APHA is the UK’s biosecurity agency responsible for protecting the UK from zoonotic disease (those that can move from animals to humans) as well as pests and plant disease. There David led over 3,500 staff across England, Scotland and Wales, operating the UK’s world class science laboratories at Weybridge which on behalf of the UK have more global reference laboratories (laboratories that set the global standard for specific diseases, viruses or pathogens) than any other institute on the planet. The Agency prevents entry of disease and pests to the UK at the UK Border whilst also leading the governments global research and surveillance systems to detect new or exotic disease as well as the government’s response to any disease or pest incursions.

In his role he also had responsibility for:
rolling out a new post EU Exit Border Operating Model, implementation of the Windsor Framework leading the country’s National Disease Command Centre during the world’s largest ever outbreak of Avian Influenza.

Before that, he was the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO), an executive agency of UK Government responsible for intellectual property rights in the UK, where he had responsibility for delivery, policy and tribunals in relation to UK intellectual property rights, as well as representing the UK at international bodies.

Immediately prior to his role at the IPO David was Deputy CEO and Registrar of Charities for England and Wales at the Charity Commission.

Before this, David spent over a decade at the Home Office in various roles including senior operational roles in the Immigration Service where he led several large UK wide transformation projects. He also held different policy roles in the Home Office and was Deputy Chief Caseworker.

David has also spent 5 years in the private sector in senior executive positions of Managing Director and Partnership Director at 2 different FTSE 100 companies. David is a fellow of the Institute of Directors and is immediate past Chairman of the Liverpool city region branch. David prior to taking up his role as CEO of the Charity Commission was also a non-remunerated Board Trustee of the Council of Deans of Health – the voice of UK university faculties for nursing, midwifery and the allied health professions.

Cathy has worked in the voluntary and charity sector in the UK and Ireland for 25 years. As learning and development specialist, her career has focused on supporting individuals and organisations in the sector to be the best they can be for their beneficiaries.

In her role at DSC, Cathy designs and delivers training for our public courses, events and in-house training customers. She also provides coaching and mentoring support to senior managers and CEOs.

Aside from specialising in management and leadership topics, Cathy is particularly interested in how to have the best relationships at work, as well as our own personal effectiveness in performance at work. She strongly advocates that collaboration is a happier, more creative and sustainable way of working and enjoys helping individuals and organisations find ways to do this more often.

Cathy was on the DSC Leadership Team for 13 years where she gained all sorts of insights into the financial and practical challenges that charities face in the modern world. Previous roles as trustee, volunteer, project manager and PA to a charity CEO, give her an experiential understanding of working at all levels within an organisation.

Stuart leads the team behind DSC’s bespoke research, funding guides and Funds Online research. He is a member of DSC’s leadership team, and a Mental Health First Aider.

Stuart's work helps to inform policy and practice in the charity sector, and he won the 2021 FiMT Research Award for his work on armed forces charities, which is cited at government level. He has co-authored ten reports on the subject, including the definitive Sector Insight: Armed Forces Charities report (2020).

Stuart holds a BA (Hons) in Psychology and Sociology, an MSc in Applied Psychology, and a PGCE in Psychology. He is a qualified teacher and taught for five years before moving into applied research.

As well as managing a portfolio of audit clients, Judith loves advising on governance and risk issues and working with boards and committees to help them develop governance practices, financial performance management and risk management.

She leads many Sayer Vincent training and facilitation assignments, including away days for boards or training for non-financial managers. Judith also lectures at Bayes Business School and helps run the Inspiring Financial Leadership course to train future charity finance leaders and recently co-wrote The Honorary Treasurers’ Handbook, a practical guide for honorary treasurers.

As a partner at Sayer Vincent, she shares the responsibility for managing the firm and leads on HR issues. Learning and development is a field Judith loves. She believes that, with the right support and training, we can master many things we may be anxious about such as numbers and finances.

Ross left Sayer Vincent in 2018 and spent two years working at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport. Here he gained valuable experience of operational finance, as well as working within the Civil Service during the time of dealing with the challenges of exiting the European Union and the Coronavirus pandemic.

As a returnee to Sayer Vincent Ross is thrilled to have been given the opportunity to re-join in an advisory role, supporting clients on a range of issues but particularly taxation such as Gift Aid, VAT, and direct tax. He enjoys assisting clients that deliver work he can identify with and see the value of the work they undertake.

Ross loves problem solving too, and there are always new challenges and applications with tax! Engaging with clients though leading training seminars is also something he really likes doing as part of his job and allows him to meet a wide range of people.