Our team
The Money Advice Trust is led by a senior leadership team and wider management team. We also benefit from the knowledge and experience of our president, ambassadors and board members who offer their time to help us achieve our vision.
Steve Vaid
Chief Executive
Steve Vaid is the Money Advice Trust’s Chief Executive Officer and joined the charity in early 2024. Steve has extensive leadership experience in a wide range of commercial and third sector organisations, and joined the Money Advice Trust after five years as Director of Client Services at Australia Mutual Provident (AMP). He previously served as Deputy CEO and Acting CEO of Guide Dogs for the Blind Association, following roles at Royal National Institute of Blind People and Voluntary Service Overseas.
Steve has a particular depth of experience of harnessing digital technologies to transform service delivery and impact, crucial in supporting growth and innovation in debt advice delivery.
David Cheadle
Chief Operating Officer
David Cheadle is the Money Advice Trust’s Chief Operating Officer, having previously served as the charity’s Acting Chief Executive, Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Strategy and Services.
David joined the Trust in 2004, and during nearly two decades at the charity has led major projects including the acquisition and expansion of our Business Debtline service, the introduction of omni-channel advice and the growth of the Trust’s commercial training and consultancy enterprise.
As Chief Operating Officer he has played a key role in securing major debt advice contracts in England for National Debtline and Business Debtline, and led an ambitious programme of technological change in our debt advice and training services.
David holds an MBA from Aston University.
Jane Tully
Director of External Affairs and Partnerships
Jane Tully is the Trust’s Director of External Affairs and Partnerships, and has served on the charity’s Senior Leadership Team since 2014, including as Director of External Affairs and Partnerships and Head of Insight and Engagement. In that time she has led on building and strengthening partnerships with creditors and overseen the charity’s external affairs, business development and insight functions, and its training and consultancy services.
Jane leads on the Trust’s business planning as well as commissioning and contract management, having led the Trust’s recent successful bids for debt advice contracts in England.
Before joining the Trust, Jane led the policy and public affairs team at Charity Finance Group and worked for the Charity Commission, NSPCC and the London Borough of Camden. Jane also volunteers for a number of London based community groups.
Mark Day
Director of Corporate Services
Mark Day joined the Trust in September 2023 and is responsible for leading our IT, HR, Business Support, Compliance and Risk and Finance departments. Mark is a Chartered Accountant and has worked in a range of finance roles, including as part of the leadership team of a national property and investment company owned by the Department of Health. His roles there included Investment Director, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer, and a period as Acting Chief Executive.
Most recently Mark has worked in the private sector supporting the NHS in service innovation. He is also Chair of an NHS subsidiary company providing estates management services, Senior Independent Director of an NHS Foundation Trust, and a lay member of Cornwall Council’s Audit Committee.
Joshua Parkes
Head of Operations
Joshua Parkes is the Trust’s Head of Operations, responsible for leading the Trust’s contact centre operations and client experience departments. Joshua’s role includes overseeing the resourcing and delivery of our telephone and webchat advice channels, and our range of online advice tools and resources across National Debtline and Business Debtline.
Joshua is responsible for our 230-strong contact centre based in Birmingham, and has successfully delivered several major expansions of our debt advice services in recent years.
Joshua joined the Trust in 2009 having previously worked as a mortgage adviser for Portman Building Society. He has a wealth of advice and contact centre experience having worked in a range of roles at both National Debtline and Business Debtline, including providing advice direct to clients and managing advice teams.
Matt Hartley
Director of Marketing and Engagement
Matt Hartley is the Trust’s Influencing and Engagement, responsible for our influencing, communications, marketing and business development functions. In this role he leads our work to raise awareness of National Debtline and Business Debtline, influence and improve public policy, and establish partnerships with a wide range of other organisations to support people in financial difficulty. Matt also oversees the Trust’s engagement with government, including the devolved administrations.
Matt joined the Trust in 2014 and has worked in the debt advice and financial capability sectors for more than 12 years, including previous roles at the Personal Finance Education Group and StepChange Debt Charity. He holds an Executive MBA from Leeds University Business School, and serves as a local councillor in the Royal Borough of Greenwich.
The Money Advice Trust benefits from the knowledge and experience of a president and nine ambassadors who offer their time to help us achieve our vision.
Our president is Baroness Tyler of Enfield, and our ambassadors are Adam Sharples CB, Bim Afolami MP, Otto Thoresen, Baroness Coussins, Sir Ian Cheshire, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles KCMG LVO, and Simon Walker CBE.
The role of the president is to bring important issues of relevance to government and other key sponsors, as well as to represent and raise the charity’s profile. The role of our ambassadors is to champion our work amongst a range of key stakeholders.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield
President
Baroness Tyler of Enfield is a life peer in the House of Lords and chaired the Lords Financial Exclusion Select Committee. A former chief executive of the charity Relate and chair of CAFCASS, she is currently Liberal Democrat spokesperson for mental health in the House of Lords, serves on the Lords Select Committee on Public Services, co-chairs the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Social Mobility and the All Party Group on Children, is Vice Chair of the APPGs on Mental Health and on Wellbeing Economics and is a Board Member of Social Work England.
Adam Sharples CB
Ambassador
In a career spanning 23 years in the civil service, Adam Sharples most recently served as Director General for Employment (2009-11) and Director General for Work, Welfare and Equality (2004-09) at the Department for Work and Pensions, following several senior posts at HM Treasury including Director of Public Spending (1998-2003).
Since 2011 he has served in a variety of non-executive roles across the public, private and third sectors, including as non-executive Chairman of Ixion Group and a Governor of Anglia Ruskin University. Adam is a non-executive director at University College Hospital and the former Chair of the Money Advice Trust.
Sir Ian Cheshire
Ambassador
Sir Ian Cheshire was Chair of Barclays until January 2021, and holds a number of roles including as Honorary President of the Business Disability Forum, and Chair of the Heads Together campaign – set up by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Sir Ian has also held the role of Government Lead Non-Executive, responsible for overseeing scrutiny of departments’ work and improving the way public services are delivered.
Otto Thoresen
Ambassador
Otto Thoresen is a former Director General of the Association of British Insurers and former CEO of AEGON UK. In 2008 he authored the Thoresen Review of generic financial advice that helped lead to the creation of th Money Advice Service (now the Money and Pensions Service).
Otto is a former Chair of the Personal Finance Education Group and a former Trustee of StepChange Debt Charity. He now has a portfolio career including as Chair of NEST, Aviva International Insurance, Aberdeen Standard Investments Life and Pensions and the BT Pension Scheme.
Baroness Coussins
Ambassador
Baroness Coussins, a life peer and independent cross-bencher, has worked in the public sector, the charitable sector and for an industry-funded education and regulatory body in paid for, non-executive and advisory capacities. She has held positions including Non-executive Director of The Advertising Standards Authority, Chief Executive of The Portman Group, and Director of social policy and equality assurance for the Commission for Racial Equality.
Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles KCMG LVO
Ambassador
Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles KCMG LVO is Group Head of Government Affairs at HSBC Holdings and Chairman of the Financial Inclusion Commission. Sir Sherard spent more than 30 years in the British Diplomatic Service, serving in Cairo, Washington and Paris, as Principal Private Secretary to the Foreign Secretary and latterly as the UK’s Ambassador to Israel, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan.
Simon Walker CBE
Ambassador
Simon Walker was Director General of the Institute of Directors until early 2017 and has previously served as Communications Secretary to HM The Queen at Buckingham Palace, Director of Corporate Affairs at British Airways, and as a special adviser in the Prime Minister’s Policy Unit at 10 Downing Street from 1996-97.
Christine Farnish CBE
Chair
Christine joined the Trust as an Ambassador in 2022 and became Chair in July 2023. She is a former Managing Director for Public Policy at Barclays and earlier served as CEO at NAPF and Consumer Affairs Director at the Financial Services Authority (now the FCA).
Christine has wide board experience including as Chair and NED at Consumer Focus (the statutory consumer watchdog) from 2008 to 2014 and more recently as Non-Executive Director at Ofgem and Ofwat. She previously served on the boards of the ASA, OFT and ABTA and, more recently, challenger bank Zopa.
In 2014, she led the HM Treasury commissioned independent review of the Money Advice Service. Christine was awarded a CBE for services to consumer affairs and financial services in 2013.
Rebecca Wilkie
Vice Chair
Rebecca joined the Trust’s Board in September 2018, is Vice-Chair and a member of the Finance and Strategy and Nominations and Remuneration Committees. She is currently Chief Executive of Advocate (previously the Bar Pro Bono Unit), who match members of the public who cannot pay for advice with a pro bono barrister. She was Director at the Litigant in Person Support strategy.
Rebecca holds a number of government and professional advisory roles, including sitting on the HMCTS Reform Programme and the Litigant in Person Engagement Group and has held non-executive positions at the National Pro Bono Centre, the Advice Services Alliance and Blackfriars Settlement.
Mark Allison
Mark Allison is the former Leader of a London council, and a community activist with more than three decades’ experience in local and national politics.
As a councillor, he was responsible for maintaining council tax discounts for lower-paid households and he led his borough’s response to Covid-19, including supporting those most affected by the pandemic. He also helped establish food distribution services, including a local foodbank.
Mark’s professional experience is in communications and public affairs, having worked in the public and private sectors and been an advisor to a number of MPs.
Laurence Burgess
Laurence joined the Trust’s Board in September 2019 and is a senior director and chartered accountant with extensive programme leadership and multi-disciplined global management experience. Laurence is currently working with NHS England as part of a significant organisational change programme.
His previous experience includes twenty years at Credit Suisse working in a variety of senior positions based in London, New York and Zurich latterly as Chief of Staff and Chief Operating Officer for Corporate Services Technology in Zurich. Laurence has also worked in the publishing and automotive sectors in a variety of financial roles.
Sarah Desai
Sarah joined the Trust’s Board in December 2022 and is a member of the Audit, Risk and Quality ,Nomination and Remuneration Committee and Chairs the People Committee.
Sarah is the Director of Reward for Marks & Spencer and has over 20 years’ experience working in pay and benefits. She started her career as an executive reward specialist with New Bridge Street Consultants, advising remuneration committees on a range of executive pay matters. In 2012 she joined Sainsbury’s, becoming Director of Reward in 2016 where she was responsible for the pay and benefits of 150,000 colleagues, before moving to M&S in 2024.
Sarah is a committee member of The Remuneration Group (the independent group of FTSE 100 reward directors).
Adam Khan
Adam Khan joined the Board in August 2023 and has more than 20 years of tech experience. He is currently the Google Cloud UK Ecosystem Lead for Retail, CPG & Travel. Before joining Google in 2018, Adam spent 15 years at Microsoft building trusted partnerships and launching new solutions. His last role was the Enterprise Lead for Office 365, Windows & Security,
Adam’s expertise lies in leadership and management, strategy, planning and coaching. He has extensive IT experience, focusing on Cloud since 2007 and more recently Gen-AI and the significant benefits it can provide organisations and society.
Lucy Malenczuk
Lucy joined the Trust’s Board in September 2019 and is a skilled consumer advocate with a background in law and experience in policy influencing.
Lucy is currently working with the Joffe Trust to support cross sector responses to economic crime. She was founding CEO of Stop Scams UK and formerly Senior Policy Manager at Age UK, leading on the charity’s public policy work on financial services, utilities and scams. Lucy’s previous roles include leading projects in Rwanda and Ethiopia to combat rights abuses and providing legal representation and counselling support for victims of sexual violence.
Zitah McMillan
Zitah McMillan is CEO and Co-Founder of Predictive Black, a predictive business intelligence B2B SaaS FinTech start-up. She has more than a decade’s experience in financial services, previously as CEO & EVP Rest of World at DFC Global, and Director of Communications and International at the Financial Conduct Authority. She previously led communications for the Department for Work and Pensions.
Zitah joined our Board in August 2023. She is an alumni of Said Business School, a member of Women of FinTech, and a Fellow of the Society of Leadership Fellows, part of St George’s House.
Alexandra Meagher
Alexandra Meagher joined our Board in August 2023 and is Group Head of Regulation at Octopus Energy Group, a global energy and technology group and the UK’s second biggest energy supplier, working on regulatory policy and strategy.
Alexandra has over a decade’s experience at the heart of government and in fast-growth business helping accelerate the purpose-led economy. She previously held roles at Bulb and in the Cabinet Office as a senior member of the Prime Minister’s impact investment team. She started her career as a competition lawyer at Freshfields.