Standards committee

Michelle Highman was appointed as the independent chair to the standards committee in April 2023 and an independent non-executive director in December 2023.

She is the chief executive of The Money Charity, the UK’s financial capability charity. The Money Charity’s vision is for everyone to be on top of their money as part of everyday life. And so, it empowers people across the UK to build the skills, knowledge, attitudes and behaviour, to make the most of their money throughout their lives.  It provides education, information and advice on money matters to young people and adults across the UK

Previously she was a trustee of GambleAware for 6 years, a member of Pay.uk’s end user advisory council, the Financial Inclusion Commission’s advisory panel, the London Institute of Banking & Finance’s validation panel for their post graduate certificate in financial capability and of the Institute of Inertia.

Michelle was instrumental in setting up the consumer financial education body, the Money Advice Service where she was manager of the chief executive and chair’s office. Prior to that Michelle worked for 13 years at the Financial Services Authority and the Personal Investment Authority, undertaking roles in pensions, regulation, communications and financial capability.

Liz started her career as a mortgage and protection adviser. After several successful years she joined Personal Touch Financial Services (PTFS) in 2007 excelling in various functions including compliance and operational support.

Following the acquisition of PTFS by LSL Group in early 2018, and the subsequent rebrand to PRIMIS, Liz moved into the proposition team. Her role is within this dynamic department is to lead and develop relationships with lenders and providers to ensure delivery of commercially favourable terms, and a product strategy that consistently delivers good customer outcomes.

She has been instrumental in developing the specialist proposition for the Network, working closely with both equity release and later life partners. Liz is unashamedly passionate about the later life market as a whole.

CEO & founder of Bower, the UK award-winning, whole of market equity release advice company.

Since starting Bower in 2006, I have worked to find entrepreneurial ways to drive positive change in protecting vulnerable clients and raising standards of advice in our industry. Serving and helping customers find home finance solutions that improves their lives, is something that provides me with great satisfaction. With the whole Bower team focused on positive and sustainable customer experiences, we are proud of the customer feedback that reflects this. Bower has a Private Client equity release department for the discerning client. All customers receive independent, whole of market advice, and are dealing with a long-standing specialist in the over 55′ advice market. I am passionate about working with my peers that share and value our high standards for customer outcomes, protecting vulnerable customers and providing quality advice.

Sam is a Senior Product Manager for Mortgage Customer Development at Lloyds Banking Group with a sole focus on equity release and later life lending. She joined LBG in 2021 from Legal & General Home Finance where she was Head of Residential Mortgages and Product Policies leading on the development and launch of their Retirement Interest Only mortgage as well as overseeing key enhancements to the lifetime mortgage underwriting policy.

Prior to this Sam spent over 4 years at Nationwide Building Society developing later life mortgages including the lifetime mortgage proposition which was launched in 2017 as well as representing Nationwide as the sole lender on the Financial Services Steering Group chaired by the Ministry of Defence to address commercial disadvantage faced by forces personnel in the mortgage market.

Sam is passionate that customers have more options for borrowing in later life in order to achieve their aspirations leading up to/in retirement and has a keen interest in wider issues faced by these customers with regard to pensions and long-term care costs.

Paul Saroya is co-director at Viva Retirement Solutions, which has a stellar reputation in the later life market. Paul started his career at Aviva and was a top adviser and then top manager for many years before taking the plunge into the whole of market intermediary world.

Paul is absolutely committed to raising standards in the industry and making a difference for the greater good.

Paul has worked in the Financial Services Industry for almost 30 years, beginning his career back in 1994 at one of the country’s largest mortgage brokers and remaining there until 2007.

Since leaving Paul has founded a number of firms in the sector and alongside training many other successful brokers and is well known in the broker community.

Over this time, he has gained a vast amount of experience in the mortgage industry as a whole but specifically; in residential mortgages, buy-to-let, equity release, the 2nd charge market, bridging finance, mortgage protection, and wills and estate planning.

For almost 20 years Jon has provided training, consulting, and authoring services for financial services businesses of all sizes. He was one of the youngest people ever to become a Fellow of the Personal Finance Society. He now has the ‘complete set’ of Fellowships – LIBF, CII, PFS and CISI as well as the CFP and a Master’s degree in Financial Planning.

Peter Barton is the managing director of Barton Law Ltd, a dedicated equity release firm which launched in 2022 following the exit of his 30 strong team from Ashfords. He was one of the first lawyers in the country to specialise in equity release law in the late nineties and has overseen hundreds of thousands of transactions since then.

Charlotte brings nearly 20 years’ experience in compliance and risk and most recently was Chief Compliance & Risk Officer at the UK’s largest credit management services provider, Cabot Credit Management and Wescot Credit Services.

Previously, she worked at Deloitte and started her career at Barclays, before joining the Intertrust Group. At Key Group, she focuses on overseeing the Key Risk Management Framework to ensure it’s aligned to the Group’s strategic objectives, as well driving effective risk management and supporting regulatory compliance.

Having joined Legal & General Home Finance from inception in 2015, Nick works with existing and new strategic distribution partners to develop retirement lending distribution and advice opportunities and to help those businesses broaden their customer propositions. He has worked in both the adviser and provider sides of the industry since 1994 and has a deep understanding of both retirement mortgage and wealth management customers having led national advice distribution networks at both L&G and Aviva.

In addition to the significant intermediary and D2C experience, Nick has worked closely with bank and building society partners and understands the challenges of meeting customer needs across all sectors.

James is a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), and formerly Technical Director at Legal & General Surveying Services where he initiated and built their New Build offering, Triage valuing and developed market leading risk management services.

In 2019, he became L&G Group Residential Portfolio Manager, overseeing L&G Group’s property assets in Equity Release and broader residential lending. Here he led assessments of value, risks and policy across the portfolios.

In May 2021, he joins e.surv as Technical Director where he will develop lender and consumer risk propositions.

James lives in Yorkshire with his wife and children.