Guy Opperman is the Conservative MP for Hexham, and has been an MP continuously since 6 May 2010. He currently holds the Government post of Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions).

Gemma Gooch, CFA, is Co-Head of Global Social Impact at BlackRock. She co-leads the firm’s philanthropic arm deploying resources to address pressing societal issues, support local communities and empower employees. She was formerly Head of the UK Charities & Endowments team who manage relationships with BlackRock’s diverse UK charitable client base. Prior to joining BlackRock in 2016 as a Senior Relationship Manager for Charities, Gemma was a Partner at NewSmith Capital, a boutique investment firm focused on active equity and hedge fund strategies. Gemma started her career on the analyst programme for Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (MLIM) in 2001. During a brief career break from the industry, Gemma co-founded an online kids activity marketplace and participated on a Google Campus course for entrepreneurs. Gemma holds an MA degree in Geography from St Catharine’s College, Cambridge and is a CFA Charterholder.

Katie has worked in Human Resources for over 25 years, specialising in Pay, Reward and Benefits.   She is a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD and a graduate of CIPP, with a diverse portfolio of experience from managing large scale change initiatives for large employers to assisting SME’s with employment issues.

She currently leads the Global Payroll Services team as part of the wider People Operations space.

A vocal advocate for financial wellbeing, she has been instrumental in implementing various initiatives that make every pound of pay count, including leading the award winning roll-out of Earned Pay Access for UK and Ireland Bupa colleagues.

Tim helped launch D2D in 2001 and has served on the organization’s board of directors since that time, drawing on twenty-five years’ experience in the nonprofit and private sectors helping working people to build savings.

Jake is the Programme Manager for Strategy at Fair4All Finance where he leads on new initiatives and research to improve the financial services system for people in vulnerable circumstances.

Jake joined Fair4All Finance in September 2021 from the Money & Pension Service (MaPS) where he led the development of the delivery plans of the UK Strategy for Financial Wellbeing with a specific focus on creating a Nation of Savers and the role employers and partnerships should have in improving the financial lives of people across the UK.

Prior to MaPS, Jake was HR Director at T-Systems in the UK where he developed a holistic wellbeing and inclusion programme, implemented a responsible investment strategy for the company pension scheme and worked with partners and industry bodies to improve pension and benefit provision.

Jake has a BA in History of Art & the History of Scientific Thought from Leeds University and holds a master’s degree in Sustainability Leadership from the University of Cambridge.

Lauren is Director of Business Development of incuto, a platform for credit unions which allows them to become as flexible and responsive as payday loan companies. By improving the infrastructure of credit unions, incuto directly contributes to the impact they have on their members, presenting them as credible alternatives to less ethical finance sources, including buy-now-pay-later, payday and illegal money lenders.

Lauren’s previous role was as CEO of Northumberland Community Bank (NCB), which she took up in 2017. During her tenure, Lauren initiated NCB’s payroll partner programme, enabling local employers to offer NCB membership and financial education services to their staff.

From 2015, Lauren was a Founder Director of Tynedale Community Bank, which provided a banking alternative for affordable loans and secure savings for anyone working or living in Northumberland. She played an instrumental role in the merger of Tynedale and the Credit Union of South East Northumberland, which resulted in the formation of NCB in 2017.

Prior to working in community banking, Lauren had over 30 years’ experience working for Yorkshire & Clydesdale Banks, fulfilling various roles in private banking, compliance and marketing.

At MaPS, Roxana leads the evaluation function for the Financial Capability Lab – a partnership with major actors in financial services to generate, develop and test new, behaviourally informed ideas to tackle some of the most complex financial wellbeing challenges facing people across the UK. Before that, she led research, evaluation and learning strategy for the What Works Fund, a £12M grant funding programme aimed at generating robust evidence about what works to improve people’s financial wellbeing. Prior to joining MAPS, Roxana worked in various evaluation and research capacities for leading charities, private, public and international development actors.

Jo leads Nest Insight’s public-benefit research programme, working collaboratively with partners across the sector to better understand the challenges facing savers on low to mid incomes, and to develop and test potential solutions to those challenges. Current work includes a trial of a hybrid ‘sidecar’ savings tool with five UK employers, a programme of technology-based trials looking at how to support self-employed people to save for retirement and a series of projects looking at how to increase engagement in workplace pension saving to drive positive behavioural outcomes.

Before joining Nest Insight in 2018 she worked in a range of insight and strategy consultancy roles, leading innovation work addressing a future opportunities for clients across different sectors including financial services, government, charities and consumer goods.

Asesh is the Co-founder and Global CEO of Salary Finance, and the Chair of Trustees at MyBnk. Salary Finance is a global employee financial wellbeing platform, providing salary-linked employee benefits, including savings, loans, advances, insurance and financial education. The platform reaches 4.5M employees across the UK and US and is the UK’s 19 fastest growing tech company (Deloitte Fast 50) and Europe’s 44 fastest growing tech company (FT 1000). Salary Finance employs 500 people in 3 countries and has had over £100M invested to support its growth by Legal and General, Goldman Sachs, Experian and Blenheim Chalcot. MyBnk is the UK’s largest financial education charity focussed on the young and vulnerable, MyBnk has helped improve the lives of 300,000 young people, in collaboration with over 1,000 schools and 100 councils. Outside of work, Asesh is married to Somita, an NHS Surgeon, and has to two sons, Ayush (9) and Ari (6).

Michelle has been working in payroll since 1992 and moved into reward in 2018. She has been listed in the Reward300 for the past three years and loves what she does. Michelle says her current role as head of reward and pensions at Suez recycling and recovery UK is both challenging and satisfying, especially with the ever-changing world of benefits. She believes it is incredibly exciting to expand the organisation’s benefits portfolio, partnering with a variety of companies to help its employees understand and improve their financial wellbeing. According to Michelle, working in the HR industry is a lot of fun and very rewarding. She thinks it’s important to attend events – both online and face to face – for networking with like-minded professionals.

Ian oversees all aspects of reward including payroll, pensions, employee benefits, HR systems and executive remuneration. Having started his career in finance before moving specifically in to pay and benefits Ian has a background in both the public and private sector having previously worked for Moy Park, Mars, Prudential and Lincolnshire County Council.  A firm believer and champion in the importance of reward strategy as a driver for change and in supporting organisational success, Ian has previously overseen teams that have been acknowledged for their achievements at awards for their innovative work including winning the 2018 Best Voluntary Benefits.  Ian is the current Chair of the Northern Universities Reward Group and a board member of the Education Competencies Consortium. In 2014 Ian was chosen as the winner of the Pay and Benefits Career Accomplishment Award and was also the Employee Benefits Reward Professional of the Year in 2019. Ian also regularly contributes to professional publications and conferences within the sector.

Sarah Melvin, Managing Director, is Head of BlackRock’s UK Business. In this role, Ms. Melvin is responsible for leading the UK business including setting the UK strategy, delivering the full suite of BlackRock products & services to UK clients and engaging with key stakeholders.

Prior to this role, Ms. Melvin was Head of the Institutional Client Business (ICB) for the U.S. and Canada where she was responsible for leading BlackRock’s business serving clients across Public Pensions, Corporate Pensions, Family Offices, Endowments & Foundations & Healthcare organizations.

Ms. Melvin joined BlackRock in 2016. Prior to her current role, she was the Chief of Staff to BlackRock’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer from 2015 to 2017. In addition to being responsible for oversight of the Executive Office, she also led the firm’s Global Strategic Client Programme. Between 2012 and 2015, Ms. Melvin served as Chief Operating Officer of BlackRock’s EMEA Retail business based in London. She was previously Co-Head and Managing Director of BlackRock’s Strategy Group.

Ms. Melvin has a Master’s Degree in English from London University and is based in London

Will is the Managing Director of Strategy, Analytics and Nest Insight at Nest. He has spent almost 20 working in strategy, public policy, research and communications roles relating to personal finance and pensions, including working for the UK government on financial inclusion policy and the design and implementation of their landmark automatic enrolment programme. In 2008 he joined Nest, shortly after it was formed, and joined the Executive Team in 2010 as Strategy Director. In 2016 he oversaw the launch of the Nest Insight Unit, which he still leads alongside responsibility for Strategy, Data and Analytics for Nest more broadly.

In his role as Nest Will has published papers on pensions policy, workplace emergency saving and financial wellbeing in the AARP International Journal, the International Journal of Pensions Management and with the World Bank, among others, as well as authoring and contributing to a number of Nest Insight reports. He has spoken on these topics at conferences and events in the UK, Europe, Asia and North America.

Outside of Nest he has acted as an independent adviser and subject matter expert on research projects for Natcen and the Behavioural Insights Team. He previously served as a member of the International Centre for Pensions Management’s research committee.