Board

UK

John Davies

John is a qualified and experienced company secretary and a fellow member of ICSA – The Governance Institute. He worked for many years as a policy and research official for a major representative body in the accountancy profession, specialising in the areas of company and business law, governance and financial crime.

Between 2010 and 2014, he headed the body’s Technical Department, leading its policy and representational work across the range of its activities, from auditing and financial reporting to sustainability and taxation. John has written widely on business law matters, including a comprehensive study of the legal responsibilities of UK company directors and given presentations and chaired conferences on five continents.

He has served as a member of a number of professional and business committees in the UK and Europe, and is currently a director of a national sports regulatory body, where he has particular responsibility for governance matters. He speaks English, French and Welsh.

John believes that PFW can make a significant contribution to the cause of expanding opportunity in the global public sector, a cause which, ultimately, has great potential for enhancing the quality of governance in public sector finance.

USA

Michaela Lavender

Michaela Lavender began her career in scholarly and technical journal publishing, ending up as managing editor of a group of life and social science journals with Taylor & Francis. She rehabilitated underperforming journals during her time at Taylor & Francis, conceived of, researched and launched a number of new titles, and integrated take-overs into the company.

She moved to CIPFA in London in 1990 to rescue their journal Public Money & Management. She remains the managing editor of that journal, which now publishes eight issues a year with a healthy rejection rate and an academic and practitioner readership. At CIPFA, she handled the publishing for the then Public Finance Foundation, later the Public Management and Policy Association. She also organized popular monthly lectures and managed the Public Services Yearbook.

As a mother of two daughters, Michaela is a passionate supporter of women’s issues in the workplace and looks forward to the full involvement of women in public finance.

Michaela was made an honorary member of CIPFA in 2019.

UK

Rachael Tiffen

Rachael was head of audit and counter fraud in three London Boroughs. At the National Fraud Authority, Home Office in 2010 as head of public sector fraud, she researched and drafted the first local government counter fraud strategy Fighting Fraud Locally ( FFL) and created pilot data hubs using partnerships.

In 2013 she joined the Ministry of Defence as manager of the Fraud Defence Unit. The following year, she created the CIPFA Counter Fraud Centre - creating qualifications and services, drafting the second FFCL Strategy for HMG. Whilst there, she created a consortium of data partners leading the team to win the contract for the London Counter Fraud Hub.

Rachael is a well-known speaker and author on counter fraud and corruption, sitting on a number of industry boards. She is the independent person for standards and ethics at the LB Tower Hamlets. In 2017, she won the Stella Walsh Award ‘Lifetime Achievement in Countering Fraud’. Rachael currently hosts a regular spot on CLGdotTV interviewing other counter fraud experts. Rachael is director of Local Government at Cifas – the UK’s Fraud Prevention Service.

UK

Mitzi Wyman

Mitzi began her career as a lawyer in the City of London specialising in the management of risk and reputation. Over time she developed an interest in people and organisational culture and retrained, gaining an MSc in Organisational Psychiatry and Psychology (KCL) along the way. Today, through Wyman Associates, she works with boards and executive teams helping foster environmentswhere true engagement, intellectual honesty, trust and transparency are expected and the norm.

Mitzi has been a non-executive director in the NHS, Head of Practice Management at the Law Society and a Consultant with the Centre for Public Scrutiny. She is the Founder and Chair of Fulcrumleaders.com, a forum for senior leaders across health, social care, the arts and business. She is a member of the HFMA’s sustainability group, an Ambassador with the influential International Integrated Reporting Council and sits on the faculty of the NHS’s London Leadership Academy. Mitzi has an LLM in International Environmental Law (UCL) and is a Thinking Environment^TMpractitioner, pioneering a leadership model developed by Nancy Kline, with whom she has trained extensively.