UKEB 2026 Conference

Mark Clatworthy is Professor of Accounting at the University of Bristol. His primary research interests are in the use of accounting information by capital markets. He is joint editor of Accounting and Business Research and past President of the European Accounting Association.

He is a member of the ICAEW Research Advisory Board and the EFRAG Academic Panel. He was previously a member of the Research Panel of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland and the Academic Panel of the UK Financial Reporting Council.

He obtained his BSc and PhD in Accounting from Cardiff University. He teaches postgraduate and undergraduate courses in financial reporting and financial statement analysis.

Steve Cooper completed a 10-year term as a board member of the IASB in 2017. Prior to that he was a Managing Director in the equities division of UBS.  Steve’s earlier career includes auditing and corporate finance. He qualified as an accountant in 1983.

Steve is now an independent analyst, writes The Footnotes Analyst blog, and provides consulting and education services for investors. He is also a member of the ICAEW financial reporting committee.

Kumar Dasgupta is visiting faculty at the Judge Business School, Cambridge, and a specialist consultant with the World Bank on IFRSs. Kumar also works part-time with the IVSC on global valuation standards on financial instruments. Kumar is a chartered accountant and prior to joining Judge Business School Kumar was the Technical Director responsible for the Financial Instruments Standards at the IFRS foundation, the body responsible for setting global accounting standards. Kumar also has considerable experience in the area of accounting practice as partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers. Kumar has a doctorate in Accounting / Regulation and a master’s specialising in quantitative finance from London Business School. Kumar’s research interests are Accounting Standards, the process through which such standards are set, their efficacy and efficiency.

Seema Jamil-O'Neill is the Technical Director of the UK Endorsement Board (UKEB). Seema also represents the UKEB on the Government’s Policy Implementation Committee (PIC), which advises on the UK endorsement of ISSB Standards.

From 2017 until 2020, Seema worked as the Head of Accounting and Reporting Policy at the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. In that role, she represented the UK at the European Commission’s Accounting Regulatory Committee, European Council working groups, the UN’s Accounting Expert Group and at numerous UN conferences.

Seema’s previous experience includes working as an accounting standard setter at the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), and at KPMG as an auditor of listed and investment banking clients.

Seema is a fellow of the Institute for Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

Paul is an investor who worked in the City of London for more than 25 years, most recently as Head of Stewardship and Sustainable Investment Strategy at Redington. After a time as Head of Investment Affairs at the National Association of Pension Funds (now Pensions UK) he was hired by Aberdeen Asset Management as its first Global Head of Corporate Governance and Stewardship. He also spent four years as a member of the Committee of Reference for the Premier Miton Responsible UK Fund.

Paul was a member of the Capital Markets Advisory Committee of the IASB, the main formal grouping for investor input on the development of IFRS standards, from 2015 to 2020, and of the Financial Stability Board’s Enhanced Disclosure Task Force from 2012 to 2015. He was also a member of the Auditing Practices Board (which became the FRC’s Audit and Assurance Council) from 2007 to 2014, and in 2019 was on the secretariat for the Brydon Review into the Quality and Effectiveness of Audit. Paul is a Senior Adviser at technology startup Impactive Tech Limited. He also writes a respected blog on fairness.

Paul is the UKEB's representative on the UK Sustainability Disclosure Technical Advisory Committee, established in May 2024 to provide technical analysis of the International Sustainability Standards Board’s corporate reporting standards, and advice to the UK government on their adoption.

Nicolo Lussana is a Senior Credit Manager in Wholesale Credit Risk at NatWest Group, with over 18 years of experience in banking, financial analysis, and credit risk management. He currently oversees credit risk for a portfolio of sponsor-backed leveraged finance transactions and has worked across both corporate and financial institution clients, including as Head of Credit Risk in continental Europe.
He has deep expertise in financial statement analysis and credit decision-making, and is entrusted with sanctioning complex structured finance transactions across a wide range of sectors. He also plays an active role in internal risk governance and policy oversight.
Nicolo holds the CFA charter and an MSc in Finance from Bocconi University.

Julia Morley FCA is an Associate Professor (Education) in Accounting and Finance at UCL School of Management. Before joining UCL, she held academic and programme leadership roles in the Department of Accounting at the London School of Economics, where she also completed her PhD in accounting following studies in philosophy and economics. A Fellow of the ICAEW, Julia brings over 15 years of professional experience in media, venture capital and consulting to her teaching and research and is a non-executive director of a US tech start-up.

Her research examines how accounting ideas, standards and reporting practices develop and acquire influence, including publications on board deliberation and influence at the IASB, the regulation of ESG accounting, social-impact measurement and reporting, and ongoing research on the use of generative AI in accounting education.

Stephen Morris is an experienced preparer of financial statements and is currently Group Financial Controller at Ultra Electronics, a leading global technology and services innovator in the Aerospace and Defence industry. Driven by a desire to promote clear and value-adding financial reporting he has served on a number of Committees, including the 100 Group Financial Reporting Committee, and is currently Vice-Chair of the IASB Global Preparers Forum. In addition, Stephen has held voluntary positions in the Charity sector and is a long-serving Trustee of a large defined benefit pension scheme.

Danielle Stewart OBE was one of the 5 partners who staged the April 2020 boardroom coup at RSM UK, completely changing the firm's ethos and ownership profile by putting the current working partners in charge. She then went on to facilitate the new Board's strategy to 'play in the Big Pool' by forming and developing a highly regarded Financial Accounting Advisory department, that is now one of the largest such teams in the country. Danielle has long been deeply involved in the regulatory side of the profession, including serving as Vice Chair of the ICAEW Financial Reporting Committee as well as being a member of our the UKEB’s AFIAG and the CCAB Technical Partners Group. She was awarded an OBE in 2013 in recognition of her significant contribution to the development of accountancy regulation and standards.