Executive committees

Stephen Braviner Roman is our General Counsel and the executive director of the General Counsel's Division (GCD). He advises the FCA on all regulatory legal issues except those in enforcement cases.

Previously, Stephen was Director General of Litigation, Justice and Security at the Government Legal Department (GLD). He oversaw legal advice given to the Home Office, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Justice and Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Stephen was previously responsible for the GLD's advice on the UK’s departure from the European Union. He was also the GLD Board’s lead on Diversity & Inclusion.

Sheree Howard took up her role as Executive Director of Risk and Compliance Oversight (R&CO) at the FCA in September 2019.

To date, the Director of R&CO has been an Advisory member of the Executive Committee (ExCo). However, given the critical role the division plays in supporting, challenging and reviewing the first line, the role will now be a full member of ExCo.

Sheree joined the FCA as a Senior Adviser in December 2017 after more than 25 years in Financial Services in the Insurance and Banking sectors. During this time, she held a range of senior roles and gained valuable experience of pricing, acquisitions, divestment, risk and compliance alongside the more traditional actuarial roles.

Sheree has been a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries since 1994.

Sheldon was appointed Executive Director, Consumers and Competition in December 2020. He was previously the Interim Executive Director of Strategy and Competition at the FCA. Sheldon joined the FCA in November 2018.

Previously, as Senior Director at the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), Sheldon had overall leadership responsibility for the delivery of UK merger control across the entire economy and for the strategic design and implementation of the new UK State Aid regime. He is a qualified solicitor and prior to joining the CMA he practised law at King & Wood Mallesons and Jones Day, counselling a range of UK and international clients in antitrust and competition law.

Sheldon Mills holds undergraduate and postgraduate law degrees from King’s College, London and was born and raised in Cardiff, Wales.

Sarah is responsible for the delivery of the FCA’s statutory market integrity objective in the combined Supervision, Policy and Competition (SPC) division and co-leads the SPC division with Sheldon Mills. 

Sarah was previously the Director at the National Economic Crime Centre (NECC), a multi-agency partnership housed in the National Crime Agency (of which the FCA is part) – which was created in late 2018 to deliver an improved response to economic crime.

Before her role in the NECC, Sarah was General Counsel/Legal Director for the National Crime Agency and led the NCA’s transformational people programme.

Her career has involved stints in investigative, operational and legal roles in a range of government departments and in the private sector. Within the private sector she has led global financial crime compliance and reputational risk teams at HSBC and qualified as a commercial litigator with Dechert LLP.

Nikhil was appointed Chief Executive of the FCA on 1 October 2020.

He began his career in HM Treasury before serving as Private Secretary to the Prime Minister between 2005 – 2008. Nikhil then became Head of the Financial Stability Unit, overseeing a number of the UK’s financial stability interventions before becoming HM Treasury’s Director of the Financial Services Group from 2009 – 2014. In that role, he also served as the UK representative to the EU Financial Services Committee.

Nikhil joined the London Stock Exchange (LSE) in 2014, and was appointed CEO in 2015.

Nikhil holds a BA in philosophy, politics and economics from the University of Oxford.

As the FCA’s first CDIIO, Jessica leads the FCA's analysis and use of the data, intelligence and information that we receive.

Before joining the FCA, Jessica was Chief Data Officer at Chetwood Financial and previously Senior Director of Finance & Analytics at eBay in Europe.

Jessica has also worked in credit analytics at Ford Motor Company and in stress testing at GE Capital.

Mark Steward was appointed the Executive Director of Enforcement and Market Oversight for the FCA in October 2015.

Mark joined us from the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), where he was a member of the SFC board for 9 years and Executive Director of Enforcement. While in Hong Kong, Mark was also a non-executive director of the Financial Disputes Resolutions Centre. Mark’s role brings together our Enforcement function with a new Market Oversight Division, which was created by combining our UK Listing Authority and Market Monitoring functions in January 2015.

Before joining the SFC, Mark was Deputy Executive Director, Enforcement, with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. He has been involved in corporate, financial services and securities regulation since 1987 in Australia, Hong Kong and in the UK, specialising in investigatory work and resulting litigation. He completed a law degree at the University of Melbourne in 1989, and has practised extensively in Australian courts.