Tracey’s team provide class leading corporate governance and company secretarial support to clients, from FTSE100’s through to private companies.

Her role encompasses technical, financial and team management responsibilities.

An experienced company secretary, Tracey has worked extensively on a diverse portfolio of main market and AIM companies, both UK and offshore domiciled. Tracey is a Chartered Governance Professional of 20 years and a member of various Corporate Governance groups, including the All Party Parliamentary Corporate Governance Group.

Under Tracey’s sponsorship the first of Link Asset Service’s Ahead Programmes started in Q2 2017, providing a platform for governance professionals to meet, network, receive training and influence the future of the profession.

Simon Witney is a Special Counsel based in the London Office of Debevoise & Plimpton. Simon is one of the market’s most prominent private equity lawyers and Private Equity International has named him one of the 30 most influential lawyers in global private equity.

Simon is a regular speaker and commentator on company law, corporate governance and regulatory matters, and has advised private equity clients as well as the UK Government on a wide range of fund and transactional matters over the last two decades.

Simon has served in senior positions within the British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (BVCA) over a number of years. He is currently a member of the BVCA Council, which is responsible for its strategic direction and oversight, and previously chaired the BVCA’s Legal and Accounting Committee. He is also a past Chair of Invest Europe’s Tax, Legal and Regulatory Committee and has been a member of the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association’s Legal and Regulatory Council.

Simon holds a PhD in corporate governance from the London School of Economics, where he also teaches company law and private equity.

Eamonn McGrath has been an audit partner for over 20 years and is based in EY’s London office.

He specialises in advising listed companies that are multinationals and multi–locational and also property groups. His clients are across the quoted spectrum including FTSE 100 and 250 and small caps. He has advised boards on three continents – Europe, Asia and North America – on topics including Stock Exchange transactions, e.g. new listings, acquisitions and disposals and rights issues and refinancing. Eamonn is member of EY’s UK Professional Standards Panel.

Murray launched Cranfield School of Management’s Non-Executive Director Seminar in 1997 and has also delivered NED development programmes for the UK Venture Capital [since 2002] and Eastern European Investment Banking industries [since 2001]. In total over 5000 current and aspiring NED’s have attended his programmes both in the UK and internationally.

Murray likes to practise what he preaches and during his career has held over 25 NED and chairman positions in virtually every type of organisation. He is currently Chairman of LINX - the London Internet Exchange; Octopus Apollo plc – one of the largest listed VCT’s in the UK and Surface Generation – a fast growing high tech advanced manufacturing company and a NED of James Walker Group – an international engineering group.

Murray is the Course Director for the FT Non-Executive Director Diploma, the FT’s flagship NED Development Programme and the FT’s two day Effective NED programme.

Patrick Dunne has extensive experience of working with boards in Europe, Asia and North America. He is currently Chairman of board consultancy Boardelta, the charities the EY Foundation and ESSA- Education Sub Saharan Africa and also of the Chartered Management Institute’s Board of Companions. Patrick is also member of the advisory boards of Bridges Social Entrepreneurs Fund and the FT NED club and a former chairman of smart materials business D3O.  His executive experience includes 26 years in a variety of investment and management roles with 3i Group plc where, until 2012, he was Communications Director, a member of its Operating committee and Chairman of its Operational Risk forum. From 1990 to 1997 he built a resource of over 600 experienced directors who were appointed to over 2,000 boards for 3i in 14 countries across Europe, Asia and North America. The programme he established became widely recognised as a model of adding value and a leader in best practice. As a member of the Higgs review in 2003 Patrick has also played a role in shaping governance policy for UK listed companies.The author of three successful books on the subject, Patrick has helped to establish many successful courses on board skills over the last twenty years including for the BVCA, EVCA, FT and ICAEW and helped Chairman across a wide range of sectors to transform the effectiveness of their boards. These have included start-ups; buy out businesses, long established family companies as well as major public organisations. Today he provides this service through Boardelta. Patrick has a passion for education and was a member of the General Council of the University of Warwick from 2006 to 2015. He is a Visiting Professor at Cranfield School of Management, an Associate Fellow at Warwick Business School and former member of Business in the Community’s education leadership group. He also has extensive experience of developing social enterprises using venture philanthropy techniques, most notably with Leap where he was Chairman, from 2006 to 2015, and with Warwick in Africa which he founded in 2006. Warwick in Africa has now benefited over 280,000 young Africans with transformed Maths and English teaching. 

Lesley Stephenson is the Publisher of the Financial Times Non-Executive Directors' Club and also of the Financial Times Non-Executive Director Diploma.

Lesley has worked in legal and regulatory publishing since 1984, working for most of the leading Publishers including Butterworths (now Lexis Nexis) and Professional Publishing (now Thomson Reuters).

She has specialised in corporate governance since publishing the Cadbury Report on behalf of the London Stock Exchange in 1992. Lesley has written for the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN), the European Corporate Governance Institute and the ICAEW NED Special Interest Group.

She has been the Publisher of the Club since 2003, she was the driving force behind the development of the FT NED Diploma and continues to oversee it.

She also publishes the leading monthly newsletter on corporate governance, Governance, which has been around for over 20 years covering governance developments and best practice world-wide.

Steve has 24 years experience in the commercial departments of global news content providers, firstly with The Telegraph Media Group where he ran various vertical sector print and digital publications and latterly with The Financial Times, where he is currently the Global Director of Financial Times Career Management (FTCM). His remit includes the running of exec-appointments.com, the FT Non-Executive Directors' Club and the FT Non-Executive Director Diploma and the Business Education franchise. He has been involved with the FT NED Diploma from conception through to it's current state of being the most recognised, robust and credible formal qualification for independent directors in the world.