Trustees of Foundation for Credit Counselling

Chris Wood

Chris joined the Board in 2021. He is a member of the Nomination & Remuneration Committee. He has significant Financial Services, Lending and Payments experience, and is a qualified chartered accountant.

For the last two years Chris has led the Worldpay from FIS SMB business in the UK, Ireland and for the direct channels in the US.

Prior to WorldPay he ran scale businesses and functions for Barclays and Barclaycard in the UK, Europe and North America, and he had extensive experience in both Executive and Non-Executive roles.

Chris’ career started as a consultant for Accenture with clients in Europe, North America and Australasia where he specialised in Financial Services and Comms / Hi-tech.

Chris Stern

Chris Stern, FCCA FCMI, was appointed to the Board in 2016. He is Senior Independent Director at StepChange and is a member of the Audit and Risk Committee. He has significant Financial Services and Customer Service experience gained across a range of roles and sectors in both senior Executive and Non-Executive roles. In addition to his role at StepChange, he is also a Senior Pension Trustee on the Centrica Engineers Pension Scheme. He also holds a number of trustee positions with the youth charity YMCA, and is on the boards of National YMCA E&W, and St Paul’s Group.

Chris previously held a number of senior Executive and Non Executive positions within the Centrica Group. These include Chairman of British Gas Insurance and British Gas Finance Ltd (A regulated Consumer Credit provider) and NED of British Gas Services (a regulated Financial Service intermediary) and Finance Director roles within the Financial Services, Customer and Retail Services, and Automotive sectors.

Chris is a qualified accountant and a Lay Minister within the Church of England.

Tim Frost

Tim joined the StepChange Board in 2017 and is Chair of the Audit & Risk Committee.

He is the Chair of Polus Capital, Chair of the risk committee of UK Export Finance and an Emeritus Governor of the London School of Economics.

Before Polus, Tim worked in a series of trading and management positions at JP Morgan, and was a Director of the Bank of England. He started work as an officer in the British Army serving in Germany and in the Falkland Islands.

Monica Kalia

Monica joined the StepChange Board in 2017. She is a non-executive director, trustee and business advisor with board experience in financial services, public policy and sustainability.

Monica is an Advisor to Clim8, the first fintech platform focused exclusively on investing for climate impact. She also works across the UK fintech ecosystem, advising start-ups and their founders – with a particular focus on advising and supporting female founders.

She is the Co-Founder of Neyber, a multi-award-winning Fintech firm focused on financial wellbeing. Neyber is included in KPMG’s 2018 list of top 50 established global Fintech companies and was awarded "Ethical Financial Services Provider of the Year" at the Money Age Awards.

Formerly, Monica was the Co-Head of the European Banks Equity Research team at Goldman Sachs. She is a regular speaker at Global Fintech conferences, sharing her perspective on financial inclusion, innovation and disruption in financial services.

Monica was recognised by Forbes as one of the top female leaders in Fintech, included in Women in Fintech Power List by Innovate Finance UK and is listed as one of the Top 100 most influential BAME leaders in UK tech by the Financial Times & Inclusive Boards.

Dame Suzi Leather

Dame Suzi Leather is Chair of the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education and also chairs the Devon Sustainability and Transformation Partnership. She is a member of the General Medical Council and is a patron of the Donor Conception Network.

Previous roles include chairing the Charity Commission, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, the LankellyChase Foundation and the School Food Trust. She was also a non-executive director of the United Kingdom Accreditation Service.

In 1994 Suzi was awarded the MBE for her services to agriculture and food safety and in 2006 she was awarded Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Suzi has a BA degree with honours in Politics, a BPhil degree in social work and an MA in European Politics.

Sue Lewis

Sue Lewis is Chair of the Remuneration Committee at StepChange. Her other Board roles include Trustee Director at award winning master trust The People’s Pension, and Trustee of Surviving Economic Abuse and The Fairbanking Foundation.

Sue is also a member of the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority's Occupational Pensions Stakeholder Group. Sue chaired the FCA’s Financial Services Consumer Panel until December 2018. She advises overseas clients on financial education, financial inclusion and financial services consumer protection regulation.

Previously a senior civil servant, from 2005 to 2011 she was Head of Savings and Investments at the Treasury.

Rt. Hon Alun Michael

The Rt. Hon Alun Michael is the Police and Crime Commissioner for South Wales. He is a member of the National Executive (Board) of the Cooperative Party, a Trustee of the Penarth Headland Link (a charitable company) and a Trustee of South Wales Police Youth Trust (also a charity).

He was Member of Parliament for South Cardiff and Penarth from 1987 to 2012, during which time he held office as Deputy Home Secretary, Secretary of State for Wales, Minister of State for Rural Affairs and Minister of State for Industry and the Regions.

John Griffith-Jones

John was appointed Chair of StepChange Debt Charity in 2019. He is also a member of the Nomination & Remuneration Committee. He served as the inaugural Chair of the Financial Conduct Authority from 2013 to 2018, during which time the FCA took on responsibility for regulating consumer credit.

Previously, John had a career at KPMG, culminating in him becoming their UK Chairman and Senior Partner, and also Chairman of their European, Middle East and Africa region.

John is currently a Governor of Brentwood School, and is a trustee of the Rifles Volunteer Trust. He is also a Deputy Lieutenant in Essex. John was formerly Vice Chairman of the National Numeracy Trust.

John studied Economics at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He is a chartered accountant and he was an officer in the Territorial Army for 14 years.

Helen Dean CBE

Helen joined the StepChange Board in 2019 and is Chair of the Nomination & Remuneration Committee, and the Board Champion for Equality, Diversity & Inclusion.

She has a strong background and long-standing interest in addressing financial inequalities and promoting financial resilience.

Working in the Department for Work & Pensions, she was one of the architects of the UK’s automatic enrolment programme and a leading figure in establishing the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST).

Since 2015 Helen has been the CEO of NEST, with over 10 million members, now the largest pension scheme by membership, in the UK.

Helen is also a member of the Council of Scholar Advisors, Centre for Recruitment Initiatives, Georgetown University in Washington, a Governor of the Pensions Policy Institute UK and a member of the Advisory Board to the Money and Pensions Service.

Helen was awarded a CBE in the 2021 New Year Honours list for her services to pension saving.

Lesley Titcomb CBE

Lesley joined the StepChange Board in 2019. She is the Board Champion for Consumer Duty and is a member of the Audit & Risk Committee.

She is an independent non-executive director of National Bank of Kuwait International and of Pay.UK. She is also a Governor of the University of Hertfordshire.

She was previously Chief Executive of The Pensions Regulator.

Lesley has worked in many different roles in financial services regulation since 1992 and before joining TPR was Chief Operating Officer of the FCA from 2010 to 2015.

She is also a qualified Chartered Accountant.

Nick Caplan

Nick joined the Board in 2019. He is a member of the Audit and Risk Committee. Nick brings technology, strategy and operational experience from a broad range of sectors. Most recently he co-founded Ordo which provides an open banking payments platform to help people gain better control of their payments.

Nick is a Director of Vitality Life and Health and Covea Insurance, and Chair of AND Digital and Pay Later Group. Significant prior roles included Chair of Faster Payments, a key part of the UK’s payments infrastructure; Chair of MyCSP a public sector pensions administrator and an executive director of Logica, a major IT services company.

Yvonne MacDermid OBE

Yvonne joined the StepChange Board in 2021. She is also a Non-Executive Director of the charity’s two trading subsidiaries, CCCS Equity Release Ltd and CCCS Voluntary Arrangements Ltd.

She has been involved in credit and debt matters for 35 years, and stood down in 2021 after almost 24 years as Chief Executive of Money Advice Scotland.

Yvonne is passionate about the provision of debt advice and financial education, and treating customers fairly. Given the current economic and cost of living crisis, she is particularly concerned about how we ensure vulnerable consumers are not left out in the cold.

Yvonne is a Non-Executive Board member and Director sitting on four Boards from across the public, private and voluntary sectors, including the Credit Services Association and its subsidiary, and The Scottish Rail Preservation Society.

She is also Trustee of Pollok Credit Union.

In 2002 Yvonne received the OBE for services to disadvantaged communities, and in 2018 she was awarded the inaugural “Women in Credit” Lifetime Achievement Award.