The judging panel for the FST Awards 2010, to be held on 25 March at the Lancaster London Hotel, Bayswater, has been announced. It includes a number of well known and respected industry representatives. The judges are looking forward to receiving your nominations and reviewing the advances and innovations made over the last year 

Peter Golden – Chairman of the British Computer Society’s Financial Services Specialist Group (BCS FinSig) 

Peter heads up the BCS’ FinSig group whose aim is to identify and promote good practice in the design, development and use of financial services IT systems and to support research and the development of cross-industry standards. For his day job Peter works as a consultant for the jmg partnership and is an accomplished IT strategist, technical architect, programme director, CI(T)O and technologist. He has 35 years experience in systems development, business analysis and IT strategy and hands-on experience in senior management roles.

With 25 years experience specifically in the financial services sector, Peter has worked for investment, retail and commercial banks, stock exchanges, and independent software vendors. He has extensive international experience including residential periods in Switzerland, Belgium and the US. He was formerly IT Director for BZW (now Barclays Capital) and VP for trading systems at Citibank.

Barry Holland – Advisor to FST magazine & ex-Director of Operations, Barclays Capital (now retired)

Barry joined Barclays Capital in 1975 and moved around the group covering different areas such as Factoring & Leasing, Group Treasury and Treasury Operations, where he rose to the position of Director of Operations. After 30 years with Barclays he decided to retire in September 2005. Barry still maintains a keen interest in the Financial Services sector, however, and is looking forward to seeing some old friends at the FST Awards and to acting as our impartial industry representative and roving industry expert.
During his time at Barclays, Barry had responsibility for all money market and Foreign Exchange (FX) operational and settlement issues for London. He also dealt with all FX issues for New York. Barry was very active with the CLS system (Continuous Link Settlement) in his role as project manager for the Barclays CLS project and he oversaw the smooth implementation of the project within Barclays Capital. He chaired the CLS London & European User Group, an active forum of banks that meets regularly to discuss, debate and plan implementation and operational business details for CLS. He also sat on the CLS Services Board. As a member of the London Investment Banking Association Treasury Operations Committee, Barry was also involved with the Bank of England Money Market Liaison Group. He was actively involved with the development and implementation of Real Time information within Barclays Capital, ensuring that controls, cash and liquidity management and client service were all enhanced.

Graeme Whippy, senior manager, IT accessibility, Lloyds Banking Group

Graeme won the outstanding individual award at the FST Awards 2009 and returns this year as a judge. He has worked in IT since 1984, starting as an undergraduate teaching at the University of Westminster. Since then, Graeme has performed a variety of technical roles in client-facing and end-user organisations, including the Bank of Tokyo and the London Stock Exchange, gaining wide-ranging experience of the software/web development process throughout the project delivery lifecycle. In 2001 he joined LloydsTSB as a project manager, but gradually his passion and enthusiasm for disabled accessibility took hold and in 2005 he succeeded in persuading the bank’s directors to set up the IT Accessibility Centre of Excellence which he now leads. Graeme’s team is responsible for defining accessibility standards (both for customer and staff facing IT solutions) and supporting adherence across the Lloyds Banking Group via governance and education. He is a member of the Employers’ Forum on Disability, BSI, British Computer Society and the EU Unit for ICT Inclusion.

Paul Ross, a director of Retail Banking (credit), British Bankers’ Association (BBA)

Paul Ross is a director of retail banking at the British Bankers' Association. He is currently responsible for consumer credit issues, but has previously had responsibility for current accounts, savings accounts, and small business banking at the BBA. He is the author of the Lending Code, and a key industry figure with responsibility for the industry standard Banking Codes from 2005 onwards.

Stephen Lathrope, Accenture, Partner, UK Financial Services: Insurance

Steve joined Accenture in 1991 and has worked across several industry sectors over the course of his career from banking to insurance. He has been a senior executive partner since September 2001 and works in the management consultancy practice within Accenture's Financial Services & Insurance market group. Steve advises on business and IT strategy for insurance firms, and has led several large business and IT change programmes over the years. He is a regular presenter at industry conferences and events organised by trade bodies such as the Institute of Economic Affairs, Association of British Insurers, Chartered Insurance Institute, and American Insurance Association.

Neil Ainger – Editor, Financial Sector Technology

Neil joined Financial Sector Technology as editor in January 2005 after moving down to London from Reed Elsevier’s offices in Oxford where he was previously employed as a technical journalist. He has worked on publications for BT Global, PwC, and Lucent Communications, in New York City. He has been employed as a writer and editor on B2B magazines and online publications for more than fourteen years since graduating from the University of Leeds in 1995 with a degree in English. Neil is looking forward to welcoming some of the industry’s leading players to the FST Awards.

Please check back for further additions.