HMRC - Key Persons
Alan Evans - Chief Legal Officer
Job Titles:
- General Counsel
- Solicitor
- General Counsel and Solicitor for HM Revenue
Alan Evans was appointed General Counsel and Solicitor for HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) in January 2019. He has held a number of other senior legal posts in government - including Legal Director at Defra, BEIS and HMRC.
Earlier in his career, Alan was a legal adviser to the Cabinet Office and at the European Commission. Prior to working in Government, Alan practised as a commercial litigator in the City. He is a past member of the Law Society's European and Employment Law Committees.
Job Titles:
- Director of Public and Security Services
Alison Baptiste is the Director of Public and Security Services at the Infrastructure and Projects Authority.
Alison has extensive strategic and operational project and programme leadership experience gained both in private and public sectors. As Director of Strategy and Investment at the Environment Agency, she led both infrastructure and transformation projects and held senior operational delivery and emergency response roles reporting to COBR. Alison is a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers. Alison was appointed as Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to the environment in the 2019 New Years Honours.
Alison leads a team providing deep project delivery and technical expertise to departments on the Government's Major Projects Portfolio to ensure projects are set up for success and to drive improved project delivery.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Non - Executive Roles Including Chairman
Andrew holds several non-executive roles including Chairman of AW Hainsworth, creating woollen cloth under Royal Warrant. He recently completed a 9-year stint on the West Yorkshire LEP leading on manufacturing and innovation. Prior to this, he spent 10 years managing a high-tech engineering business in Yorkshire making motors for Space and instruments for life sciences; and 9 years on Teeside leading Johnson Matthey's chemical catalyst business, formerly ICI's Agricultural division.
He spent 18 years working for BP Chemicals in several roles, from industrial relations in Grangemouth refinery, to leading a large textile monomer business.
Job Titles:
- Deputy Chief Executive and Second Permanent Secretary
Job Titles:
- Managing Director at White Summit Capital
Angenika Kunne is a managing director at White Summit Capital (WSC), a specialised energy transition investor and manager, where she is co-leading the investment team. Prior to WSC, Angenika co-lead the investment team at John Laing, while she started her career at the Green Investment Group and Macquarie Capital.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Angus Knowles-Cutler served as London office Managing Partner of Deloitte for 7 years until 2020. He has worked in professional services for over 30 years and has advised 170 organisations on major investment decisions, operational execution and progress reporting.
He serves as business chair of the London Local Enterprise Partnership and is a member of the national LEP board. He co-chairs the London Royal Docks Enterprise Zone Development board.
Angus graduated from Cambridge with a history degree and has been a visiting professor at the University of Surrey's Centre for the Digital Economy.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Ben Alexander has over 25 years' experience in the financial services sector. He was a director at Deutsche Bank in London where he was co-head of derivatives trading and subsequently a partner of Close Brothers Private Equity where he was involved in institutional fund raising and sat on the boards of a variety of UK companies. He is currently a partner of a strategic consultancy, a non-executive director of a virtual reality content business, a commercial adviser to the Cabinet Office and a member of the Finance Committee of Cambridge University.
Job Titles:
- Director General Borders and Trade
- Director General for Borders
Carol Bristow was appointed HMRC Director General for Borders and Trade in April 2023, having been interim Director General since May 2022.
Carol had held a variety of leadership roles since joining the Inland Revenue and training as a Tax Inspector. This included programme management with the introduction of Self Assessment, international direct tax policy, operational management and Strategy and Planning.
Her previous role was Director of Individuals Policy Directorate. Prior to that she held other senior roles with HMRC, including Deputy Director of the Individual Customer Directorate, and then Central Policy. She was Director of Strategy, leading work on the 2010 Spending Review, Principal to the Chief Executive, Director of Central Policy and Head of HMRC's Policy Profession before moving to Personal Tax, leading Customer, Product and Process.
Job Titles:
- Chief Operating Officer
- Member of the Management Team
Job Titles:
- Director
- Member of the Management Team
- Director, Strategy
Chris Flatt was appointed Director in November 2018. He leads on strategy, rights and legacy matters. He first joined the Northern Ireland Office in 2002, working on various policy issues including the legacy of Northern Ireland's past, public inquiries and human rights as well as on corporate services delivery. Chris worked in the Scotland Office from 2010-2015, leading on constitutional issues during the build up to the 2014 independence referendum. He returned to the NIO in 2015.
Chris' previous roles in government include: Deputy Director, Legacy in the Northern Ireland Office - 2015 to 2018; Principal Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Scotland - 2014 to 2015; Deputy Director, Constitution in the Scotland Office - 2010 to 2014.
Chris Heaton-Harris was appointed Secretary of State for Northern Ireland on 6 September 2022.
He was previously Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Chief Whip) from 8 February 2022 to 6 September 2022.
He was Minister of State at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office from 19 December 2021 to 8 February 2022.
He was previously appointed Minister of State at the Department for Transport on 25 July 2019. He was previously a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Exiting the European Union from July 2018 to April 2019.
Previously he was Comptroller of HM Household (Government Whip) from 9 January 2018 to 9 July 2018. Chris was previously Vice Chamberlain of HM Household (Government Whip) from June 2017 to January 2018.
He was made an Assistant Government Whip in July 2016. He was elected Conservative MP for Daventry in May 2010.
Job Titles:
- Chief Digital and Information Officer
- Senior Technology and Data Executive
Daljit Rehal is a senior technology and data executive with broad experience in the sector, including modernising digital capabilities, adopting Big Data, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) technologies and Agile methods and leading change.
Before joining HM Revenue and Customs in September 2020, Daljit served as Global Digital and Data Services Director at Centrica. He has previously held senior positions at Talk Talk and Virgin Media.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Member of the Management Team
- Director General and Acting Permanent Secretary
Job Titles:
- Member of the Management Team
- Non - Executive Board Member
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Gail has significant experience in driving profitable growth and leading major change in large and small businesses in emerging and developed markets across Europe, US, Asia, Africa and Latin America. Over 20 years, Gail held senior executive roles in strategy, finance and business development; at Diageo, she took the lead on several mergers and acquisitions transactions and, as Group Strategy Director, helped transform SABMiller from a multi-local brewing business to a globally integrated branded beer business. Gail is a senior adviser to a variety of listed and private companies and is an independent non-executive director of Real Good Food plc.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Chief Financial Officer for the Port of London
Julie Tankard is currently the Chief Financial Officer for the Port of London. Previously she was Vice President at BT plc, responsible for group contract and commercial management. She was also the Vice President running BT's Global Services commercial finance team; Finance Director, Racal Datacom; and a divisional Finance Director at Unisys. She was a Non-executive Director for a mental health Trust in Leeds and York where she chaired the Audit committee. She has over 30 years' financial experience and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Advisory Board
- Chairman of Hybrid Air Vehicles Ltd
Kevin Taylor has previously been Chair of Hybrid Air Vehicles Ltd and before that was Managing Director of BAE Systems Applied Intelligence, the Cyber Division of BAE Systems Plc. He has also previously been the Group Strategy Director as well as the Managing Director of the Military Air Business, and of the Submarines Business. He is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology, having graduated from Oxford with a physics degree.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Management Team
- Lead Non - Executive Board Member
Job Titles:
- Parliamentary under Secretary of State
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Independent Member of Council of the London School of Hygiene
Mark was a partner at Clifford Chance, an international law firm headquartered in London, for 35 years, retiring at the end of April 2023. He advised corporates across a wide range of sectors on domestic and international acquisitions and disposals, business partnerships, restructuring and governance. During the COVID pandemic he was part of a team advising Her Majesty's Government on securing the development and supply of COVID-19 vaccines and investment to scale up COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing capability in the UK.
Through the second half of his career, he has held various management roles culminating in leadership of the firm's Corporate Practice in London for a 4-year term. He is a member of the firm's Inclusion Committee and sponsor of Accelerate, the firm's gender parity affinity group.
In December 2022, Mark was appointed as an Independent Member of Council of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, renowned for its research, post graduate studies and continuing education in public and global health.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
Paul has 33 years' construction experience at senior management or executive level, largely with building materials manufacturers. He also served for 6 years year as a non-executive director on the Builders Merchants Federation board, before transitioning to a portfolio career as Vistage Chair, Non-Executive Director at the Building Research Establishment, and advisor and technology investor for numerous companies.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Infrastructure and Project Finance Advisory Executive
Sacira Coric is a global infrastructure and project finance advisory executive with more than 20 years of experience in economic and social infrastructure, advising public sector authorities, equity investors and lenders on infrastructure strategy and procurement, development, operation and maintenance, privatisations, acquisitions and contract management.
Sacira is a Director, leading Business Case and Project Finance advisory at Turner & Townsend LLP, an independent, global professional services company specialising in programme and cost management and advisory on major capital programmes in infrastructure, real estate and natural resources.
Sacira has a strong knowledge of public sector value for money drivers, policy and regulatory objectives, investors' and lenders' interests and concerns, project sponsors' drivers and most prevalent challenges arising on transactions involving private capital.
She has developed, operationalised and managed private and capital markets investments and corporate spin-offs from large multinational advisory firms.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Board
- Head of Commercial Banking for BBVA UK
Silvia has been Head of Commercial Banking for BBVA UK since 2019, with specific responsibility to work with UK-based corporate companies and develop a global relationship model throughout BBVA's network providing solutions and expertise in each geography that supports their business. Prior to this role, she developed my career in Spain in various positions within the Business and Corporate Banking division and have over 26 years of experience in the financial services industry.
She is a qualified EFPA European Investment Practitioner (EIP) and ISF Advisor Level 1. In 2021, she also completed the MBA fundamentals online program at the London School of Economics. She is also a Member of the Board of Omnia Learning Trust since 2020 and a Mentor for IMFAHE and most recently Mentored at the University of Westminster.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Management Team
- Director, ICRIR Programme Secretariat
Job Titles:
- Member of the Management Team
- Director, Political