Executive committees

Stephen Braviner Roman joined the FCA in February 2022 as the General Counsel and Executive Director of Legal. He oversees the Legal Division’s advice to the FCA across the full FCA portfolio on policy, rules, litigation, authorisations, supervision and enforcement, as well as the operational aspects of the FCA.

In June 2023, Stephen took responsibility for the Corporate Governance Division, which supports the Board and Executive Committees, decision making committees and independent panels.

In April 2024, Stephen became the Executive Director responsible for Risk and Compliance Oversight (R&CO), including complaints. R&CO is the second line of defence for the FCA, working with each of the Divisions to enable the FCA to successfully manage risks of harm and help ensure it achieves its statutory objectives.

Stephen is the Executive Director responsible for the FCA’s new office in Leeds. He also co-sponsors the Balance Network alongside Sarah Pritchard, which aims to challenge gender discrimination and positively promote gender equality. Stephen chairs the FCA Professions Board and is the Head of the Legal Profession at the FCA.

Previously, Stephen was a Director General in the Government Legal Department (GLD) where he was responsible for, among other things, GLD’s legal advice on the UK’s departure from the European Union. He was also the GLD Board’s lead on Diversity & Inclusion.

Therese Chambers began her career in private practice in the City as a commercial litigator. She has spent 20 years in UK regulatory enforcement at the FCA and FSA, running investigations and conducting litigation in relation to some of the most high profile, complex and challenging regulatory enforcement cases. She is an acknowledged expert on UK financial services regulation and her experience and expertise covers the full range of the FCA’s jurisdiction. Therese is the joint Executive Director of Enforcement and Market Oversight, which brings together the FCA’s investigation, enforcement, intelligence and market oversight functions.

Previously Therese has been the Director for Retail & Regulatory Investigations, responsible for the FCA’s retail investigations portfolio, which included anti-money laundering, pension scams and mis-selling investigations. She has also held the position of Director of Consumer Investments, responsible for leading the FCA’s work to protect consumers from the harm caused by scams, poor investments and unsuitable investment advice. During that time Therese was also responsible for the delivery of the FCA’s Consumer Investments Strategy.

As Executive Director, Sheree Howard oversees Authorisations for firms and individuals applying to carry out regulated financial services activity, as well as the Supervision Hub which acts as first point of call into the FCA for consumers and firms.

Prior to this, Sheree was Executive Director of Risk and Compliance Oversight (R&CO) from September 2019 to April 2024.

Sheree joined the FCA as a Senior Adviser in December 2017 after more than 25 years in Financial Services in the Insurance and Banking sectors. During this time, she held a range of senior roles and gained valuable experience of pricing, acquisitions, divestment, risk and compliance alongside the more traditional actuarial roles.

Sheree has been a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries since 1994.

Sheldon Mills joined the FCA in November 2018 and has been the Executive Director, Consumers and Competition since December 2020. He co-leads the Supervision, Policy and Competition (SPC) division, with a focus on retail financial services and cross-sectoral matters. He also oversees the FCA's competition market studies and competition enforcement activities.  

Sheldon is the chair of the FCA's Executive Regulation and Policy Committee. He is also the Executive Director sponsor for the Consumer Duty, the compensation and redress framework, as well as technology and artificial intelligence use in financial services. Sheldon is the Executive Director sponsor for the FCA's early careers.  

Sheldon is a non-executive member on the Board of the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR). Sheldon also co-chairs the Joint Regulatory Oversight Committee on open banking, and co-chaired the Climate Financial Risk Forum convened with the Bank of England.

Previously, Sheldon was Senior Director at the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), where he had overall leadership responsibility for the delivery of UK merger control across the entire economy and for the strategic design and implementation of the new UK State Aid regime. He is a qualified solicitor, and practised law at King & Wood Mallesons and Jones Day, counselling a range of UK and international clients in antitrust and competition law.

Sheldon holds undergraduate and postgraduate law degrees from King’s College, London and was born and raised in Cardiff, Wales. 

Sheldon's executive responsibilities are currently being covered by Sarah Pritchard and David Geale, Managing Director, PSR.

Sarah was appointed as Executive Director, Markets in June 2021 and took up her role as Executive Director, International in April 2023.

As Executive Director of Markets, Sarah is responsible for the delivery of the FCA’s statutory market integrity objective and co-leads the combined Supervision, Policy and Competition (SPC) division with Sheldon Mills.

As Executive Director of International, Sarah leads our international function, proving overall leadership for our international priorities in support of the FCA strategy.

Sarah is the Executive Director sponsor for the FCA's Edinburgh office, as well as sponsoring the FCA's gender diversity network. 

Prior to joining the FCA, Sarah was the Director of the National Economic Crime Centre (NECC), a multi-agency partnership housed in the National Crime Agency, created in late 2018 to deliver UK system leadership on economic crime. Before then she was General Counsel/Legal Director for the National Crime Agency as well as leading the NCA's transformational people programme.

Her career has involved stints in investigative, operational and legal roles in a range of government departments and in the private sector. Within the private sector she has led global financial crime compliance and reputational risk teams at HSBC and qualified as a commercial litigator with Dechert LLP.

Sarah is currently covering the Consumers and Competition, Executive Director’s role alongside David Geale, Managing Director, PSR. Specifically, Sarah is covering consumer finance, insurance, cost-cutting policy and strategy, and competition directorates (plus sustainable finance Executive Director oversight), whilst David is covering retail banking, and payments and digital assets directorates.

Simon Walls is covering Sarah’s Executive Director, Markets role. Sarah retains executive responsibility for International.

Nikhil was appointed Chief Executive of the FCA on 1 October 2020.

He began his career in HM Treasury before serving as Private Secretary to the Prime Minister between 2005 – 2008. Nikhil then became Head of the Financial Stability Unit, overseeing a number of the UK’s financial stability interventions before becoming HM Treasury’s Director of the Financial Services Group from 2009 – 2014. In that role, he also served as the UK representative to the EU Financial Services Committee.

Nikhil joined the London Stock Exchange (LSE) in 2014, and was appointed CEO in 2015.

Nikhil holds a BA in philosophy, politics and economics from the University of Oxford.

Jessica was appointed as the FCA’s first CDIIO in 2021.

Jessica leads the FCA's newly formed Data, Technology, and Innovation division, bringing together oversight of all FCA regulatory systems, including RegData, technology, including cloud, enterprise, and digital infrastructure, and Innovation Services, including the Regulatory and Digital Sandbox services.

The use of data, intelligence, information, and technology supports the FCA’s transformation to become a data regulator of the future.

Before joining the FCA, Jessica has 20 years of experience in analytics, risk management, and finance roles. Jessica’s previous roles included Chief Data Officer at Chetwood Financial, Senior Director of Finance & Analytics at eBay, and Head of Stress Testing and Analytics at GE Capital.

As Chief Operating Officer since January 2022, Emily is responsible for the FCA’s strategy, operations and business performance, systems and infrastructure, change and communications functions and finances.

Emily was Executive Director of Authorisations for 3 years from March 2021, overseeing firms and individuals applying to carry out regulated financial services activity, as well as the Supervision Hub which acts as first point of call into the FCA for consumers and firms.

Before joining the FCA, Emily was Director of Customer Services and Change at Aegon UK. Prior to this, Emily was EMEA Chief Operating Officer for Bank of New York Mellon where she led operations, technology and change across all businesses and support areas, ranging from global markets to asset servicing.

Outside, she has been involved in many industry initiatives including chairing the Association for Financial Markets in Europe technology and operations group.

Siobhán was appointed as the Chief People Officer in March 2021. She works with the Executive Committee and Board leading the FCA’s People Strategy; developing all our colleagues to ensure the FCA has the talent, skills and capabilities we require for the future.

Siobhán chairs our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programme board, implementing the FCA Strategy to ensure we are a diverse and inclusive organisation.

Prior to joining the FCA, Siobhán was the Civilian Human Resources Director in the Ministry of Defence, and has held a range of senior HR roles across the private, public and third sectors. Her career has included being HR Director in Defra and the Department for Work and Pensions, as well as a range of business and HR roles in financial services for the first 20 years of her career.

Siobhán holds Masters' degrees in coaching and mentoring and organisational change, is a Chartered Companion of the CIPD and was awarded a CBE in 2020. She has volunteered extensively in her career including trustee and voluntary roles with the Mental Health Foundation, Crisis and the CIPD.

Siobhan is a non-voting ExCo member.

Steve Smart, Joint Executive Director of Enforcement and Market Oversight

Steve has had a career spanning 30 years working within government against a range of national security threats. For the majority of that time he was focused on the threats from terrorism, extremism and hostile states. More recently, as the Director of Intelligence at the National Crime Agency, he has helped lead the fight against Serious Organised Crime.

He has built and led proactive investigative and intelligence functions in a number of organisations, including 2 years in a major banking group. He has extensive experience of working with partners in the police, wider law enforcement and intelligence agencies both in the UK and overseas.

Steve was awarded an OBE in 2003.