Announcement
The FS Expert Group is pleased to announce further growth to the composition of the Group with the recent addition of Anthony Ward, Mark Davies, Spencer MacLean, and Andrew Winyard. The Group now consists of nearly 70 Financial Services Experts, covering the full spectrum of expertise across the sector, including recent enhancement in mortgages, investment banking, and insurance underwriting.
Anthony Ward: With over 50 years of leadership in treasury, risk management, and structured finance, Anthony offers foundational expertise in UK mortgage lending, securitisation, and derivatives. His career began in 1975, and as Group Treasurer of Mortgage Funding Corporation plc, the pioneering multi-originator vehicle established by Kleinwort Benson in 1986, he acted as one of the original pioneers of mortgage securitisation in the UK.
A technical innovator, he integrated derivatives within mortgage product design by structuring and hedging one of the UK’s first fixed-rate mortgages in 1987. His executive career combines this technical risk-mitigation focus with operational leadership across the mortgage market. He has served as CEO of First Active Financial plc, and founded and led both Home Funding Limited and WestLB’s Basinghall Finance PLC.
Currently, he serves as non-executive Chairman for Landbay Partners Limited, Gen H, and BCMGlobal Mortgages Limited, and is FCA-approved as an SMF 9 (Chair). This exceptional blend of primary mortgage lending leadership, foundational securitisation innovation, and current regulatory standing well qualifies him to provide expert testimony.
Mark Davies: A chartered accountant (FCA) by profession, Mark Davies’ career has spanned the mortgage industry for some 30 years as a director, interim manager and most recently a specialist advisor to a leading London law firm. His experience includes mortgage portfolio acquisition and disposal; securitisation and portfolio funding; mortgage distribution and origination; supporting new market entrants and mortgage investors; portfolio trading and due diligence. An FCA approved person (SMF1&3), Mark has implemented MCOB, the SMCR and Consumer Duty in a mortgage servicer and regulated lender and the mortgage deferral and customer vulnerability programs required by the FCA.
Mark’s experience and industry expertise covers all aspects of the mortgage market ecosystem, both regulated and non-regulated. His executive career has been built around an operational focus on processes, systems, technology, and data required to deliver best in class, effective, robust, and regulatory compliant services to investors and consumers.
For 10 years he was the Managing Director (SMF1&3) of BCMGlobal Mortgage Services Limited, a third-party mortgage servicing business, and Rooftop Mortgages Limited, a lender of record and legal title holder of closed mortgage portfolios. The broad range executive responsibilities and C-Suite leadership experience give Mark the necessary commercial and technical expertise to provide operational, regulatory, and technical input in this area.
Spencer MacLean is a seasoned financial markets professional with over 25 years of experience in capital markets, bond syndication, and investment banking. He is currently CEO and Co-Founder of BondAuction Limited, an FCA-approved fintech venture he co-founded in 2021, where he holds regulatory approvals in UK and Europe as CEO, Compliance and MLRO.
Prior to this, Spencer held a series of Managing Director roles at Standard Chartered Bank, spanning over a decade. As Global Head of Bond Syndicate, he was involved with a wide range of issuers geographically, by industry sector and ratings. He had responsibility for underwriting a multibillion book of business and led compliance and DEI training for financial markets. He also held senior positions at Crédit Agricole CIB, Deutsche Bank, and Credit Suisse.
Spencer was a member of The International Capital Market Association’s (ICMA) Primary Market Practices Committee and holds leadership qualifications from INSEAD and Cass Business School.
Andrew Winyard is a very experienced Lloyd’s Underwriter, having spent his entire 40-year career underwriting for Atrium Syndicate 609 in Lloyd’s, before retiring in January 2026. A specialist in the US Casualty Market, he was Head of Casualty Treaty at Atrium for 26 years, and a well-recognised market lead in the US Casualty Treaty sector. In addition to his underwriting role, Andrew has, for the last 25 years, also managed all the outward reinsurance purchasing at Atrium and has extensive knowledge of the outward reinsurance market and buying process. At Atrium he handled all his own contract wordings for both his inward account, and the outward purchasing, giving him a unique view across the business overall.
Andrew qualified as a Fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institute in 1992 and was the initial Chair of the LMA Casualty Treaty Panel from its formation in 2002. He has been a panel speaker at a number of the major US industry conferences including PCI and NCCI over the years.
Andrew spent eleven years as an Executive Director of Atrium’s Managing Agency, as well as being a member of the core operating committees in the business: Investment; Reserving; Underwriting Review and Reinsurance Buying. He is an experienced peer reviewer across a range of classes of business, including professional indemnity (US and International), general liability insurance (US and International), as well as US property binders, all of which he peer reviewed within Atrium.
The expertise of these additional Experts has significantly enhanced the experience across the Group, especially in the fields of mortgage lending, securitisation, mortgage finance and regulation, loan portfolio trading, capital markets, bond trading, underwriting and reinsurance.
In welcoming these Experts to the Group, Oliver Lodge, Managing Director, said “The experience and expertise of these additions to the Group make a further contribution to what is already a group of exceptional depth and breadth across the financial services sector. The expertise that we are able to offer to litigants and others provides world-class credibility as well as highly respected independence of perspective. We know that solicitors and their clients need that credibility from Experts and that the courts require that independence. Solicitors also need to find the right Expert and do not want to spend weeks of their valuable time in the process. Our Group of Experts provides an easily and swiftly accessible resource of financial services expertise. As we continue to grow our Group, we are delighted to welcome our newly joined Experts.”
The FS Expert Group focuses entirely on the financial services sector and provides expertise to litigants and others engaged in disputes and investigations relating to this leading professional sector in the UK and globally. In court, the Group provides independent expert witness evidence, based on extensive personal experience.