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Aly Young is a solicitor with 30 years’ experience of advising companies on legal issues.

She has previously worked as a GC in Plc’s and traditional law firms, also as a consultant. Since 2022 she has run her own law firm specializing in helping business owners prepare for and complete an exit strategy. Particularly focusing on exit through sale. She regularly delivers training sessions to business owners, finance, procurement and sales teams and fellow legal and other professionals, covering a wide range of business law issues.

Recognised for her ability to find simple solutions to apparently complex problems and is known for her no-nonsense approach.

Lungi trained with PwC in Johannesburg and specialised in external audit of mining companies. She completed part of her training as an academic at Wits University where she completed her Master of Commerce degree. Lungi has worked in external audit in Canada as an audit senior and Ireland as an audit manager.

Outside of her accounting qualifications Lungi is a hobby baker who volunteers by baking for the homeless in Dublin City

Emma Rawson is Director of Public Policy at the Association of Taxation Technicians (ATT), leading their tax technical and professional standards work. Her focus is on emerging tax policy, and she works closely with HMRC and the Treasury. She also strongly believes in sharing her knowledge about and love of tax with others. Whether that’s members of the accounting and tax profession through articles and talks, or the general public through media work and school visits.

Emma frequently contributes articles on topical tax issues to leading tax and accountancy publications. She has presented talks and webinars around the country, as well as appearing on BBC radio and television to discuss tax issues and providing oral evidence to committees of both the House of Lords and House of Commons.

Emma is a member of the Association of Taxation Technicians (ATT) and Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT), and a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales (ICAEW).

In 2026 she was awarded an OBE in the King’s Birthday Honours List in recognition of her contributions to the tax profession. She also received the ‘Outstanding Contribution by an Individual’ award at the 2026 Tolley’s Taxation Awards and the ‘John Stokdyk Outstanding Achievement Award’ at the 2026 Accounting Excellence Awards.

After initially working in a range of bookkeeping and accounting roles, Lucy took up a role in a team administering the £17 billion pension fund of one of the Top 3 UK banks. Later moving on to a project working with an international partner to scope a new pensions administration system. This work drew on expertise in:

• Workflow Management
• Process mapping
• Systems design
• Test design and implementation
• Interpretation of scheme rules and legislation

After a career break, Lucy went into practice as a bookkeeper, growing and developing a successful bookkeeping practice that she then sold. Whilst in practice as a bookkeeper, Lucy developed and implemented policy and processes to ensure that the business was compliant with all legislative requirements, including Anti Money Laundering legislation.

Having successfully sold the business, Lucy worked for one of the supervisory bodies supporting members to meet their legislative obligations and satisfy professional standards. In this role Lucy provided training, worked to raise awareness, and provided advice to a wide variety of members – alongside overseeing the mandatory penalty regime and developing an independent appeals process.

As a head of Strategic Solutions at OmniPro, Lindsay’s focus is on helping practices achieve on-going best practice compliance, providing in-house training and technical assistance in audit and financial reporting.

Lindsay is a member of the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants and Chartered Accountants Ireland. She trained with KPMG in Johannesburg and specialised in external audit of financial services companies. She then spent six years lecturing audit and financial reporting to under-grad and post-grad students at Rhodes University in South Africa before moving to Ireland and returning to practice in a small, and then a medium sized firm where she was an audit manager. She is passionate about combining her academic and practice backgrounds to provide technical information in a useful and practical way.

Outside of her accounting qualifications Lindsay holds a PGDiploma in Higher Education from Rhodes University, an MBA from Trinity College Dublin and a Diploma in Forensic Accounting from Chartered Accountants Ireland.

Christo is the CTO and co-founder of Rubli, a lease accounting platform helping companies comply with standards such as IFRS 16, FRS 102 and ASC 842. He has 14 years’ experience in financial services and has spent the past 11 years building SaaS products. Christo combines accounting, software and product experience to help finance teams manage complex lease accounting requirements in a more practical and efficient way.

Marius Olivier, CA(SA), is a Chartered Accountant and former PwC Audit Manager with more than five years’ experience at Rubli. He helps organisations implement lease accounting software and supports clients with the practical challenges of IFRS 16, FRS 102 and ASC 842. With a background in audit and hands-on lease accounting implementation, Marius helps finance teams move from complex accounting requirements to clear, reliable processes for compliance and reporting.

Constantin Gurdgiev is the Associate Professor of Finance with University of Northern Colorado (USA) and an Adjunct Professor of Finance with Trinity Business School, Trinity College Dublin (Ireland, since 2000). His expertise and research are concentrated in the fields of investment markets, and geopolitical and macroeconomic risk, uncertainty and complexity analysis. Professor Gurdgiev advises a range of institutional and professional clients in the areas of macro and political risks and uncertainty analysis through his consulting practice, www.macroview.eu.

Professor Gurdgiev is a co-Founder and the Board Member of two charities working with the issues of financial empowerment in Europe and a Chairman of the Board of the Irish Mortgage Holders Organisation (https://www.mortgageholders.ie/).

In the past, Professor Gurdgiev served as Associate Professor of Finance with Middlebury College (MIIS, California, USA), the Head of Research and Partner with St Columbanus AG (Switzerland), the Head of Macroeconomics with the Institute for Business Value, IBM (U.S.), and the Director of Research with NCB Stockbrokers, Ltd (Ireland).

Professor Gurdgiev regularly contributes to a range of international financial publications, including the The Currency, International Banker, Euromoney, and other. 

Professor Gurdgiev received his PhD in macroeconomics and finance from Trinity College Dublin. He and his family are currently residing in Fort Collins, Colorado, USA and Dublin, Ireland.

Richard brings more than 18 years of experience in UK policing, specialising in cybercrime investigation, fraud, digital forensics, and complex case management. He has held national coordination roles and is a recent graduate of both the College of Policing’s Fast-Track Leadership Programme and an Information Security postgraduate. Alongside his policing expertise, Richard brings private sector experience from running his own SME, giving him a unique understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing London’s business community.

Sarah joined the Civil Service as a patent examiner at the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) in 2009. Since then, she has held a variety of policy and operational roles at the IPO, before joining Companies House as Director of Strategy, Policy and External Communications in July 2023.

Sarah has experience of domestic legislation, international, trade and innovation policy. In 2019 she was chair of the WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Patents. Prior to her current role at Companies House, Sarah was Acting Director of Business and International Policy at the IPO and Deputy Director for Customer Experience within the IPO’s Business Operations Division.

Sarah holds a Masters in Biochemistry from the University of Bath and a PhD from the University of Manchester.