Secretary General - Alasdair Warwood
Since 2003 he has published monthly briefings on legal and regulatory changes in the UK and Europe which would have a practical impact on clients in the consumer and business credit, insurance, telecomms and marketing industries. For a number of years he was also an external auditor for CIFAS - the UK’s fraud prevention service. From 2005 - 2008 he was also the Secretary of the UK Data Protection Forum. He is also the author of the second edition of the British Standards Institution’s “Guide to the Practical Implementation of the Data Protection Act 1998” and is a member of the BSI’s DP/FoI Editorial Board. He is a member of the Information Rights Tribunal He was formerly Director, Consumer and Legal Affairs at Experian, Europe’s largest credit reference agency. His responsibilities included the development and management of the consumer database, new product development, data protection compliance and the policy management of the Consumer Help Service dealing with 750,000 subject access request a year. He was also deeply involved in the planning and implementation of the Data Protection Tribunal Ruling on the use of Third Party Data. From 1991-96 he was also Secretary General of ACCIS - the European Association of Credit Reference Agencies and an Alternate Director of Registry Trust - responsible for managing the Registry of County Court Judgments. Prior to that he was Assistant Secretary at the then Finance Houses Association and, simultaneously the Equipment Leasing Association (now merged as the Finance and Leasing Association) where he was responsible for government relations, consumer credit, data protection, statistical surveys and events organisation. He was also responsible for encouraging the development of data sharing, for establishing the Rules of Reciprocity governing data use within the financial services sector and, as co-author of the Guide to Credit Scoring, for encouraging the use of credit scoring in the UK. During that time he was also Secretary of the Credit Industry Forum on Data Protection. Between 1994 and 1998 he also held the positions of Secretary then Chairman, ICM - Sussex and Surrey and was a Fellow of the Institute before retiring from it. Educated largely in Scotland he holds a Master’s degree in economics and philosophy from Aberdeen University. Founding Member -
|
Alasdair Warwood has been involved with consumer credit matters since 1977 and with data protection matters since 1983. Since 1998 he has run his own consumer credit and data protection consultancy business in which capacity he has provided consultancy and training services to a range of blue chip companies in the public and private sectors. He was appointed, via Credit Professionals Ltd., to undertake the audits of DEMSA members as part of their vetting to achieve OFT Code approval. Amongst his current briefs he acts as an independent compliance consultant and external compliance auditor to Pentagon (UK) Ltd.
Melanie Giles is the Insolvency Practitioner and leading force behind three successful insolvency and business recovery businesses, providing a wide range of debt solutions operating across the UK. Melanie’s personal mission is to identify and meet the needs of consumers in financial difficulty, with the main aim of providing a more efficient and cost effective solution to stakeholders and clients alike, in line with moving changes in legislation and lender focus. Within Philip Gill & Co, her national business support and turnaround practice, Melanie successfully rescues a number of struggling SME businesses each year, enabling the preservation of employment, customer base and local enterprise.