Additional Board member biographies

Steve Bell

Steve Bell is an Independent Member of the RTGS/CHAPS Board and its Risk Committee. 

Steve has over 30 years’ experience in financial services, including 21 years as a Technology Risk Partner at EY. He was Service Quality Leader for EY’s FS Advisory business where he operated as first-line risk management leader and a member of the Advisory Leadership team driving strategy for the business from 2013 to 2020. He was also the Quality & Risk Management leader for the UK FS Advisory practice from 2012 to 2020. In parallel, his client work as a Partner included advisory and auditor assignments across the financial services sector on areas such as IT change programmes, resilience, cyber security and regulatory investigations.

Steve is currently a trustee and Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee at Action For Children. He is also the Chair of Trustees at The Country Trust.

Kevin Brown

Kevin Brown is an Independent Member of the RTGS/CHAPS Board and its Risk Committee and Chair of Strategic Advisory Forum.

Kevin has 35 years of experience in banking. He was Global Head of Transaction Services for RBS. Kevin had direct involvement in the design and development of the UK’s Faster Payments Service and became the inaugural Chair of the UK Faster Payments Scheme from 2011 to 2013. He was also on the inaugural Advisory Panel for the UK Payment Systems Regulator until mid-2015.  He is a male ally of the European Women Payments Network encouraging greater diversity in Payments.

Kevin is currently a member of the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) Regulatory Decisions Committee and also a member of the UK Payment Systems Regulator Enforcement Decisions Committee.

Michael D’Souza

Michael D’Souza is an Independent Member of the Bank of England’s RTGS/CHAPS Board and is Chair of its Risk Committee.

Michael is also an independent senior advisor at the Bank’s Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA). In this role he focuses on corporate governance and risk management across the UK financial services sector. He chairs or acts as an independent member of a range of formal PRA Senior Management Regime interview boards bringing an informed and experienced practitioner's perspective to decision making. In addition, Michael is the independent Chair of the Regulatory Arbitrage and Market Consequences Committee and an independent member of the Bank’s Resolvability Assessment Framework Steering Committee.

Michael has over 30 years of experience in investment banking having held senior executive positions in the UK, USA, Canada and Japan.  Michael was a Managing Director and member of the board of directors of Merrill Lynch International, a global broker-dealer, and was also Chair of the board Risk Committee. Prior to this, he was Chief Executive Officer of Merrill Lynch Capital Markets Bank, which managed the firm’s derivatives and foreign exchange business internationally.

Michael is currently an Independent Non-Executive Director of the Council of King’s College, University of London. As part of this role, he is Chair of the Finance Committee and a member of the Nomination Committee and Remuneration Committee.

Noel Gordon

Noel Gordon is an Independent Member of the RTGS/CHAPS Board.

Noel has 35 years’ experience in financial services, advising banks on business transformation using digital technologies, analytics, and new business models. Until his retirement in 2012, Noel was global managing director of Accenture’s Banking Industry Practice responsible for innovation and client services for the largest multi-national banking clients of the Firm including major technology renewal programmes. He was also a non-executive director of the Payment Systems Regulator and held Board and Chair positions in the NHS including Chair of NHS Digital, the technology captive of the NHS. 

Noel currently holds Board positions at Assura plc, Bestway Panacea Holdings Ltd and Telstra Health and advises start-ups in Medtech and Fintech. 

Michael Jones

Michael Jones is Head of Payment Operations. He has responsibility for the Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system and the CHAPS payment scheme. He is a member of the RTGS/CHAPS Board. 

Michael has undertaken a wide variety of roles across our operational and policy areas over the last 20 years, including acting as an advisor on operations in the International Banking Directorate of the PRA (2015-16) and running the RTGS system (2014-15). 

Michael has a BA and MPhil in History from Birmingham University.