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ABOUT OUR TEAM
Nicer was created by leading industry executives with the experience, insight and connections to make a leading career development solution for financial services & fintech professionals.
Our People
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Katy Maguire
CCO
An ex-serving officer in the military with over 25 years' experience, Katy has worked with a number of highly established and global organisations both in the UK and internationally such as Disney, Google, McLaren and Maersk. An expert in business development, transforming senior leadership teams, launching new brands into the market, and with extensive experience of physical and digital products.
Maurice McDonald
Consulting partner
Maurice has more than 25 years experience working across all sectors within financial services, but primarily focused on the Banking and Wealth Management sector. He has practical experience of supporting firms with implementing and embedding regulatory change (MiFID II, SM&CR and Consumer Duty) and more recently has been focused on supporting firms through the merger & acquisition process
Saeed Saddique
Legal Counsel
Saeed has over 15 years’ experience as a legal, commercial & contracts executive with both UK and International companies. He has extensive experience with national and global corporate businesses working with legal, procurement & finance teams. He specialises in contract & vendor management, working with corporate clients, third party vendors in IT transformation for technology companies. Saeed’s has advised many global organisations including the ECB, Equinix, Capita Group and CSC.
Dr Guillermo G. Schiava D’Albano
Head of Data Science
Guilhermo is an internationally recognised leader in advanced data engineering within the Financial Services, Logistics and Retail sectors where huge data volumes drive complexity in design and place the most demanding expectations on technology solutions. Guilhermo leads our data science capabilities. Guilhermo has worked with some of the largest organisations including Nordea, Barclays & Databricks.
Our Advisors
Anne Adams
ACS
Anne has worked with many Fortune 50 companies and educational institutions both nationally and internationally for more than 30 years. Anne's work has been with senior leaders and their teams from companies as varied as IBM, Mars, Heinz, AT&T, Lucent Technologies, Procter & Gamble, Prudential UK, The Hershey Company, EZ Communications, to government entities like the Pentagon and nonprofits, e.g. Institute of Noetic sciences (IONS), and schools throughout the United States and India.
Lawrie Philpott
CEO - Philpott Black
Lawrie Philpott, formally head of Coopers & Lybrand's UK Human Resource Advisory Group and Partner-in-Charge at PwC, is a human resource, change management and organisation consultant with over 25 years' experience in the UK and internationally in both the public and private sectors. Lawrie leads his own consultancy organisation 'Philpott Black', that builds exceptional skills in business leaders and develop high performing leadership teams to deliver strategic business change.
Danuta Gray
Chair - Direct Line
Danuta has over 30 years experience in leadership, sales, marketing, customer services and technology. Danuta has held numerous Executive, Non-Executive and Chair positions at industry leading organisations such as: CEO of Telefonica O2 Ireland for 9 years and acting as a Non-Executive Director at Michael Page, Paddy Power and Aer lingus. Danuta has been working as Chair of Direct Line Insurance Group for the last 4 years.
Sarah Inigo-Jones
Professional Development Consultant and Coach
As a professional development consultant and coach, Sarah provides strategic advice, talent development programme design and delivery of training and workshops for leadership and career development. Her 30 years of experience started in strategy consulting followed by director roles at Coca-Cola and WPP; more recently she was head of professional development at London Business School. Working with a number of leading business schools, she has advised and designed programmes, both in person and digital, for individuals wanting to accelerate their career in their current fields, as well as those wanting to pivot to a new field or function.
Peter Ward
Chairman - Telos Partners
Peter is a chartered accountant and was a partner with Deloitte and, through merger, Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC) for 15 years. He was a member of the Tomorrow’s Company Inquiry, which inspired his move to consulting on the development of businesses and organisations to achieve long-term sustainable success. Peter works internationally with chief executives on the transformation of their businesses and their growth, both organically and through acquisition. Engagements have included the creation of strategic frameworks for long term growth, support for the execution of strategy, senior team development, the development of corporate culture, post-merger integration and the management of investors, customers and other key stakeholders.
Rob Millar
Director - Devonshire & St Andrews
Rob has over 20 years' experience of working globally with major brands across multiple industries. Rob is an internationally recognised thought leader in the discipline of customer-led change. Rob has worked across Financial Services, TMT, Retail, Utilities, B2B, Logistics, Real Estate, Utilities and Events. He has held senior MD and Partner roles in several leading international consulting organisations
Emma Movitz
Senior People & Data Transformation Consultant
Emma is a senior executive leader with a solid operational experience from the world of Finance, both locally in Nordics and internationally. As a leader Emma has conducted many change management journeys, both strategic and with practical implications through regulatory change, technological innovations, merger and acquisitions, other investments and cost efficiency initiatives. Emma has a broad international and global network through work and studies in the Nordics, UK, Europe and India.
Barry Gould
CTO - Concord Resources Limited
Barry has held various senior executive roles in technology, including over 26 years working in Investment banking, physical commodities and other areas of the financial services industry. He has worked for Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Citibank and Noble Group and has also worked for the UK Government at the Home Office. Barry is currently Global Head of Technology at Concord Resources Limited. Barry has a very broad range of experience and skill sets together with a track record of building, implementing and remediating large complex technology solutions for many organisations. Barry is also involved with a number of UK Internet start-up companies and also works as a mentor for TechStars UK.
Zenon Gray
CEO
Zenon has held senior board level roles as CEO and Group CIO with 30 years experience across Capital Markets, Commodities, Retail Banking, Food Retail, Logistics, Consulting and Software sectors. Zenon has managed 1000's of resources in global multi-cultural teams driving major operational transformation, and mergers and acquisitions programmes. Zenon founded the Nicer Group with Sterling to focus on people, their career aspirations, to empower individuals to maximise their true value and to fulfil their desired work and personal lifestyles.
Sterling Grychowski
CPO
Sterling has used his experience of product management at tech start-ups and leading teams of software developers to help create Nicer technology solutions. Sterling believes that the current recruitment and networking landscapes are outdated and failing. As Product Owner, Sterling and his team have developed solutions with the aim of modernising the existing recruitment model and creating a career development tool for our members to use to design their career path, and achieve their career goals.
David Bainton
COO
David has held senior roles in Human Resources and General Management and has over 25 years consulting experience in the Automotive, Energy, Financial Services, Leisure Retail, Logistics and Telecommunications sectors. A certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and a member of the British Institute of Psychology, his passion is maximising value by enabling individuals to achieve their full potential and overcome the apparent constraints in corporate life.
James Sperring
CTO
James has over 20 years in software engineering leading SaaS product development in the B2B and B2C environments as well as acting CTO leading complex enterprise projects for multi-national corporations like Anglo American. James brings a wealth of experience of building and managing high-performing teams across the UK, South Africa, and India