UK Finance, the general body which acts as representative of finance and banking industry operations in United Kingdom has announced addition of two new senior level executives to its team in its latest announcement. As per statement released by the firm, it has onboarded Mr. Karen Baxter and Mrs. Jana Mackintosh to serve as its Managing Director – head of intelligence strategy for economic crime and Managing Director – head of payments & innovation respectively. Both the executives are expected to join the firm in autumn this year. UK Finance acts as a collective body representing more than 250 firms from banking and finance industries with goal of enhancing competitiveness and facilitating innovation. Some of its services include – research, policy expertise and advocacy as well as operational and project implementation to enhance services of its member organisations during events which necessitate collective activity of industry participants.
Karen Baxter is highly experienced executive with more than three decades of service in law enforcement. She is currently serving as Commander for economic crime for City of London Police which acts as national lead force and co-ordinator for Fraud investigations, economic crime and as head of Cyber Protect across UK policing. Karen joins UK finance in October and will be responsible for leading the firm’s intelligence strategy. She will also work closely alongside Mrs. Katy Worobec – Managing Director of Economic Crimes division to lead development and implementation of coherent and comprehensive strategy for intelligence sharing across economic and cyber enabled crime in UK finance. Both Karen and Jana will report directly to UK Finance CEO and Chiarman of Economic Crime Product and Service Board.
Jana Mackintosh is currently serving as Director of Government Relations and Public Policy at FIS and is also responsible for the firm’s global strategic policy programme. Jana will take on her new role at the firm in September and will lead the trade body’s payments and innovation policy and programme development. Jana was originally serving Worldplay and became a member of FIS when it acquired the former. Similar to Karen, Jana is a highly experienced executive and specialises in competition and regulatory policies. Earlier in her career, she served at UK FCA she played a key role in delivering its newly formed competition mandate which led to creation of the Payment Systems Regulator. She also played a similar role in PSR primarily during the development of its initial regulatory and policy strategy and during implementation of key pieces of regulation in second payment services directive.
Commenting on her new role at the firm, Karen said “The challenges to tackling economic crime are both diverse and growing and it’s vital that the public and private sectors play their parts in helping prevent this scourge on our society. Intelligence sharing of criminal activity is key in achieving this and I look forward to working with UK Finance’s team, members and partners in helping the industry tackle economic and cyber enabled crime”.
Speaking about her new role, Jana said “Having worked closely with UK Finance since its formation, I am very much looking forward to joining the team and supporting our members as they face a series of ‘in-flight’ mandatory change programmes while also navigating the challenges and opportunities presented by innovation and digital technologies”.
Speaking on same note, Bob Wigley – Chairman of UK Finance said “With significant experience in their specialist areas, spanning commercial operations, law enforcement, regulation, policy and the public sector, Karen and Jana both bring a wealth of knowledge and expertise which I know will prove to be significant assets to the UK Finance team and invaluable to all our members in this sphere. We are very much looking forward to their both joining us in these key roles”.
