IFRS 17 Technical Advisory Group

Seema Jamil-O'Neill is UKEB Technical Director. From January 2017 to April 2020, Seema was Head of Accounting and Reporting Framework at the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, where she led the team responsible for maintaining the integrity of the UK’s Accounting and Reporting Framework as the UK exited the European Union. In that role, Seema also represented the UK at the European Commission’s Accounting Regulatory Committee, European Council working groups, the UN Accounting Expert Group and at numerous UN conferences. Prior to that, Seema worked as an accounting standard setter at the Financial Reporting Council, specialising in the development of financial instrument and insurance standards. Seema started her career as an auditor and is a fellow of the Institute for Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

Andrew Spooner is a Partner of Deloitte LLP. Andrew is an IFRS technical partner based in the UK leading Deloitte’s UK national office, advising on IFRS in the UK and internationally as well as UK GAAP. Andrew specialises in financial services including being Deloitte’s global IFRS lead on financial instruments and part of Deloitte’s IFRS leadership. Andrew is a former member of EFRAG’s technical expert group from 2015 to 2020 and chair of EFRAG’s financial instruments working group.

Anju Bell is a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA). She has approaching 25 years of experience in many areas of non-life insurance (reserving, pricing and capital), with particularly extensive experience in the valuation of liabilities. In Willis Towers Watson’s Insurance Consulting and Technology division, Anju is the UK Property and Casualty (P&C) IFRS 17 Lead and the Global P&C IFRS 17 Technical Lead, developing the technical approaches and calculations within ResQ Financial Reporter, Willis Towers Watson’s IFRS 17 P&C solution. Anju is an active member of the IFoA IFRS 17 for General Insurance Working Party and the ICAEW IFRS 17 Discussion Group.

Danny is an accounting advisory partner at KPMG, serving the insurance market. He has worked in audit and advisory capacities with life, general and Lloyd’s market insurers for 25 years. Recent experience includes operating as the interim financial controller for a UK life group. He is the UK representative on KPMG’s global topic team on IFRS 17. He is a member of the ICAEW’s Insurance Committee, for which he currently co-chairs the IFRS 17 Discussion Group.

Gail is an experienced audit partner with PwC in the UK and has worked with insurance companies for over 28 years. In the three years to July 2015 she was the lead IFRS global technical partner responsible for financial instruments and insurance technical advice to clients and audit teams throughout the world.  She is a member of the EFRAG Insurance Accounting Working Group in Brussels, the IASB IFRS 17 Transition Resource Group, the ICAEW Insurance Committee and the Financial Reporting Group of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries in the UK. Gail has extensive knowledge of the requirements and financial reporting implications of IFRS 17 having been involved in its development over the past 20 years.

Jo Clube is Director of Accounting Policy Developments at Aviva PLC, currently focusing on implementation of IFRS 17, the new standard for insurance contracts. Jo also has responsibility for all aspect of reporting developments and is actively tracking developments in Sustainability/ESG reporting where Aviva has a market leading position. Jo is a member of ICAEW’s Financial Reporting Committee and represented the UK Insurance industry on the IASB’s Transition Resource Group and was a member of the UK Endorsement Board’s Technical Advisory Group for IFRS 17. Prior to joining Aviva Jo was part of the technical accounting team at Pricewaterhouse Coopers which she joined after graduating from the University of Edinburgh.

Kevin is a partner at EY who leads the UK Insurance Accounting Advisory group. He is EY’s Global IFRS 17 Lead and a member of the IASB’s IFRS 17 Transition Resource Group. Kevin has significant experience working with UK and international insurers on the implementation of IFRS 17 and over 20 years’ experience providing accounting technical advice in the sector. He is Co-chair of the Insurance Working Group of the Global Public Policy Committee, a body representing the six largest global accounting firms in their interactions with global accounting and financial regulators. In this capacity he is working on a publication addressing the application of international auditing standards to the audit of IFRS 17.

Mark Spencer leads the Financial Services’ Accounting and Corporate Reporting Advisory team for financial services at BDO LLP.  He leads this BDO offering across accounting change, advisory services on the structuring of groups of companies and transactions so as to achieve desired accounting outcomes, the use of financial instruments, ESG and corporate reporting and all other aspects of accounting.  He has 18 years of experience advising and providing assurance to financial institutions and corporates situated in EMEA, the Americas and Asia Pacific.

Richard Crooks is IFRS 17 Technical Lead at Legal & General Group Plc.  With over 20 years’ experience in the life insurance industry, Richard has led Legal & General Group’s contribution to the development of accounting standards and is currently responsible for the Group’s IFRS 17 accounting policies and transition implementation.  Previous roles within Legal & General include as Head of Group Accounting Policy and Head of Group Financial Reporting. Richard is currently a member of the ICAEW Insurance Committee, the European Insurance CFO Forum Steering Committee and was a member of the UK Endorsement Board’s Technical Advisory Group for IFRS 17. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and received both his BSc and PhD from the University of Southampton.

Sian Morgan began her career in investment at Autonomous Research LLP, a specialist research house focused on the Financials sector, before joining Allianz Global Investors in 2010, where she spent 8 years within Equity Research specialising in UK Financials.  Sian is currently an Equity Research Analyst at Columbia Threadneedle Investments, covering European Insurance, and has been a non-executive member of the FRC's Corporate Reporting Council for over 4 years.  She is also a CFA® charterholder.

Stuart is an accountant who has over 20 years’ experience working in the insurance industry, in external reporting and accounting and regulatory development teams. In his current role at Direct Line Insurance Group he is the Technical Accounting Lead on their Group IFRS 17 Implementation programme.  He has worked on a considerable number of projects to implement new accounting standards, accounting regulation and insurance regulatory change over the last 15 years.

Tony Silverman is a Director at AM Best in London, primarily concerned with the generation, implementation and maintenance of industry leading and globally consistent credit rating criteria for the insurance sector. Previously, he was responsible for credit analysis of major European insurers. AM Best is the largest rating agency in the insurance sector. Earlier in his career, Tony was a Director in the European Insurance team at Deutsche Bank Equity Research. He received top rankings in industry standard (Reuters – Extel) fund manager surveys, including a “top twenty” ranking across all analysts and all sectors. Additionally, Tony has a background of wider commercial experience, including with a patent monetisation company, and consulting with PwC. Tony is a member of the IASB’s Capital Markets Advisory Committee (CMAC). He is also an FIA (Fellow of The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries) and holds a Mathematics degree (Cambridge University).

Vasilka leads Guy Carpenter’s IFRS 17 and regulatory advisory services.  She specialises in reinsurance and helps companies optimize the economic benefit of reinsurance within financial targets and operational budgets. Vasilka has over 15 years of experience in the UK insurance market. Prior to joining Guy Carpenter, she led Capital Aggregation and Risk & Actuarial assurance teams at Aviva, Prudential and Swiss Re. She also held senior technical roles with Big 4 practices advising non-life and life (re)insurers and Lloyd’s vehicles. She sat on the IASB’s IFRS 17 Transition Resource Group and is a member of the ICAEW Insurance Committee.

Wijdan is a life actuary and brings over 10 years of experience in life insurance across pricing and financial reporting. As a Capital Solutions Actuary at Aon, he supports clients by providing relevant IFRS 17 expertise in capital optimisation projects. Previously, Wijdan was a member of the IFRS 17 project team at Zurich UK Life where he developed several IFRS 17 methodologies and led the financial impact assessment for Zurich’s UK life business. Wijdan is a member of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries Financial Reporting Group and previously chaired an IFRS 17 working party that assessed complexities associated with the CSM from a life insurance perspective.