The Employee Share Ownership Centre
ESOP Speakers
Speaker line-up for the upcoming event:
Employee Share Schemes for SMEs to be held at the Institute of Directors, London (May 15).
To browse the complete 2012 speaker list by event go here.
Norman Lamb, UK Government. Norman Lamb is the Government’s Minister for Employment Relations, Consumer and Postal Affairs, with responsibility for employee ownership. After graduating in Law from the University of Leicester, Lamb worked as a solicitor, specialising in employment law whilst working for Steel & Co. One of his first political appointments was Lib Dem spokesman on International Development. After the 2005 general election, he was promoted and appointed Liberal Democrat Trade spokesman (2005–2006), securing the endorsement of the Liberal Democrat Spring 2006 Conference for a policy to part-privatise the Royal Mail, and to use the proceeds to invest in a publicly owned Post Office network. More recently, he served as the Party’s Health spokesman and was then appointed as parliamentary private secretary to deputy PM Nick Clegg, prior to his appointment as business minister in February 2012.
Graeme Nuttall, adviser to the British government. Graeme Nuttall is a partner at European law firm Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP (“FFW”) and the Government’s independent adviser on employee ownership. He is a solicitor and chartered tax adviser. Graeme belonged to the HM Treasury Employee Ownership Advisory Group that helped create the HM Revenue and Customs approved share incentive plan and enterprise management incentives arrangement. He also drafted the Employee Share Schemes Bill, a successful Private Member’s Bill. He is adviser to the Employee Ownership Association, the voice of co-owned business in the UK and has taken a leading role in the use of employee led mutuals to transform public services. He helps produce the UK Employee Ownership Index.
Ian Murphie, MM & K. Law graduate and barrister, Ian heads the share plan design and administration teams within MM & K Ltd, an employee-owned specialist pay and reward consultancy which was established is 1973. Ian has over 12 years experience in advising largely SME companies in the area of employee share schemes, including affiliated taxation, valuation and trust work. Ian is current chairman of ifsProShare’s SME Focus Group and is a member of the ESOP Centre’s International Steering Committee.
David Pett, Pett Franklin & Co. LLP. David Pett is a well known tax lawyer with over 30 years’ experience of advising companies on all forms of executive and employee share schemes. He is one of the co-founding partners of Pett, Franklin & Co. LLP (http://www.pettfranklin.com), an independent mixed-disciplinary practice specialising in advising on, and assisting companies large and small, publicly or privately owned, to design, establish and operate their employee share schemes. It advises on all UK tax and legal aspects of remuneration, incentives and employee share plans. The firm also provides advice in relation to accounting aspects of executive and employee share incentives, including Share Based Payments, share valuations and financial modelling.
David was formerly the head of tax at Pinsents and a member of the Government’s advisory group which put together the legislation relating to SIPs and EMIs. David is the author and joint editor (with David Cohen) of “Employee Share Schemes”, the principal textbook on the subject, first published in 1996 and which is a best-selling legal loose-leaf title published by Sweet & Maxwell.
David Craddock, David Craddock Consultancy Services. is an independent consultant specialising in employee share ownership and reward management. Following a successful corporate career in which he established numerous employee share schemes worldwide, he founded his own consultancy services company, David Craddock Consultancy Services, where he has developed a varied clientele ranging from major public limited companies to small-medium sized private concerns. David is a member of The Federation of Tax Advisors and The Institute of Directors.
Amanda Flint is one of the leading UK advisers on share incentives and Reward. She joined BDO in 2007, becoming Tax Partner and specialising in Reward in the Human Capital group. She has worked closely with HMRC as a trusted professional advisor for over 10 years and has regularly been asked to input on tax policy, contributing to drafting and implementation of new legislation. Amanda had been previously working at one of the ‘Big 4’ where she was a partner in the People Services team, having earlier qualified as a solicitor (although now non-practising). Her clients have ranged from UK and non-UK headquartered multinationals to UK listed and larger unlisted companies. She also advises on employee benefits communication, reward issues on transactions and corporate structures together with related corporate tax planning and accounting issues.
Matthew Findley, New Bridge Street. Matthew advises both quoted and unquoted SMEs in relation to the design, implementation and operation of employee incentive arrangements in the UK and internationally. His experience extends to both executive plans (including tax-driven structures) and all-employee arrangements. Matthew also has considerable experience of incentive arrangements in the context of IPOs and M&A activity.
Catherine Gannon, Gannons Solicitors. Catherine Gannon is unusual in being both a solicitor and a chartered tax adviser with substantial tax and financial experience gained in the accountancy profession. Catherine is the founding partner of Gannons a leading specialist firm of share plans and related issues.
The firm specialises predominantly in the law relating to employment, company and tax focused on the SME market. Catherine has advised on many company acquisitions, investments and sales and has over 20 years experience in the share plan market. The team at Gannons have many years of experience in delivering practical solutions for both individual clients and corporate clients.
Catherine advises on a range of issues for all sorts of clients with a focus on plain speaking, commercial analysis and getting past the finishing line.
Peter Matthews, RM2 Partnership. Peter has worked in, managed and built a number of successful consulting and advisory businesses over the past 25 years. In 2000, Peter joined global employee owned science and technology experts SAIC, to build SAIC Consulting into a thriving business providing products and services to clients in the UK, Europe and the USA, across both public and private sectors. Peter has worked with clients across a range of sectors, but has particular experience in IT services, utilities and the sustainability and renewable energy sector. He has a degree in agriculture and an MBA from Strathclyde Business School.
Colin Kendon, Bird & Bird. Colin heads the Employee Incentives and Benefits team of Bird & Bird, London. He acts for a wide range of international and domestic companies advising on employee share plans and tax issues for employee and director shareholders. Areas Colin deals with include advice in relation to plan design, performance targets, corporate governance, remuneration committee support, corporate law and regulatory issues; incentives aspects of acquisitions, disposals, IPOs, re-structuring and fund-raisings; tax-efficient structuring of share based incentives, PAYE/social security issues, corporate tax, HMRC negotiations and employee share ownership plan trusts; and carried interest arrangements for management of venture capital funds. Colin has specialised in employee incentives for over 22 years since he qualified as a solicitor in January 1990. He joined Bird & Bird in January 2006 having practised at Clifford Chance and prior to that at KPMG. Colin contributed a substantial section on share based employee incentives in the second edition of “Internet Business Commerce and Tax” published by Jordan on 17 March 2012.
William Franklin, Pett & Franklin LLP. William is a share schemes advisor and a Chartered Accountant. He is also a member of the Chartered Institute of Taxation and a physics graduate. William is widely recognised as a leading adviser on the accounting and financial aspects of all forms of remuneration, incentives and employee share schemes. He has considerable experience of determining and agreeing with HMRC the market value for tax purposes of shares in unquoted companies. Together with David Pett, he invented the joint share ownership plan (“JSOP”). William was previously at Ernst & Young, and for ten years he worked with David at Pinsent Masons. In 2009, he joined David Pett & Co. which converted into Pett Franklin & Co. LLP on May 1 2010, becoming one of the first multi-disciplinary law firms.
Robert Postlethwaite, Postlethwaite LLP. Robert is an esteemed share plan specialist, recently interviewed by the Motley Fool, who has particular expertise in helping private and smaller listed companies find the right share plan to match their needs, then looking after all aspects of legal implementation. Other areas of his work include: ownership succession through employee trusts, all-employee share ownership plans, ownership models for the delivery of public services through employee-led mutual companies and share valuation agreements with the HMRC. Robert is a member of the Employment Lawyers Association, the Share Plan Lawyers Group and the Share Plan Committee of the Quoted Companies Alliance. A graduate in law from the University of Bristol, Robert was a partner in a national firm of corporate lawyers before founding Postlethwaite in 2003. He is described as a Leader in his field in the 2012 Edition of Chambers Guide to the Legal Profession.
Ron W Forrest, Perkins Slade. The first 37 years of Ron’s Insurance Broking career were with one company, Alexander & Alexander. He started as a Junior Clerk in his hometown of Manchester and rose via posts in Birmingham and London to become Chief Executive of the Company based in New York. Subsequently he became Chairman and Chief Executive of Aon Inc (who acquired A&A) in Chicago and London. Post retirement Ron partnered with his old friend David Slade as Chairman and major shareholder of Perkins Slade Forrest Holdings Ltd, one of the UK’s leading independent Insurance Brokers, which is committed to encouraging wide employee ownership.
