Sector Leader and Head of Capital Adequacy Policy - Richard Thorpe

Richard Thorpe is Accounting and Auditing Sector leader and Head of Capital Adequacy Policy at the FSA, and is responsible for policy developments across the three regulated sectors (banking, insurance and securities). He represents the FSA in IOSCO and CESRfin, and has participated on behalf of those bodies in IASB advisory groups on financial instruments and financial activities, as well as the Standards Advisory Council and IFRIC and EFRAG. Notably, he worked on the IOSCO endorsement of IASs which was published in 2000, and the CESRfin recommendation to the EC on equivalence of Canadian, Japanese and US GAAP, which was published in 2005. Richard is a chartered accountant and has worked in financial services regulation for over twenty years.

Manager - Pat Sucher

Pat Sucher is the manager of the Accounting & Audit Sector and Policy Team for the FSA. Along with her sector responsibilities, Pat is responsible for the team which deals with accounting, audit and disclosure policy issues that affect the FSA e.g. around fair value. This role involves advising supervisors and other policy areas on complex aspects of accounting, audit and disclosure issues. Pat, and members of her team, also represent the FSA's interests on a number of international committees such as Basel, IOSCO, IAIS, CEBS, CESR & CEIOPS.

Pat is a qualified accountant, with a Masters in International Accounting & Finance from the LSE. After some years in industry, and 19 years in academia, during which she published various articles and undertook consultancy work on aspects of international accountancy and audit, she joined the FSA in 2004.

Technical specialist- Ian Michael

Ian is the technical specialist in the Accounting & Audit Sector and Policy Team. His role relates to the team's work on complex accounting issues raised by supervisors; accounting aspects of the development of prudential policy (domestic and international); interaction on technical issues with accounting standard setters, especially the development of accounting standards; and FSA representation in key international  committees concerned with bank accounting (such as Basel and CEBS).

Ian is chair of the Financial Practices sub-group of the Basel committee's Accounting Task Force and of the Accounting sub-Group of CEBS' Expert Group on Financial Information. He is also a member of the ICAEW's Banking Committee.

Ian joined the FSA in 2005, having previously worked at the Bank of England for over 20 years on a wide range of macro-economic, financial stability, international, regulatory and accounting issues. He has published a range of papers on these subjects. At various times he was responsible for the Bank's economic modelling and forecasting of the UK economy, analysis of systemic risk, staff work on the design of Basel 2 and its interests in accounting issues. He holds a first class degree in economics from the University of Cambridge.

Associate –Shiva Iyer

Shiva joined the Accounting & Audit Sector and Policy Team in August 2008 on a one year secondment from E&Y London. His role relates to actively influencing the development of Pillar III disclosures; dealing with technical accounting issues on IFRS; interaction with the Solvency II team on the accounting issues; and developing Level 2 text under Solvency II. Shiva represents the FSA in key international committees on insurance accounting, Solvency II and Pillar III disclosures (CEIOPS, IAIS and Basel PDG sub-group).

Shiva qualified as an ACA in early 2004 before joining E&Y. He has managed audits of broker dealers and banks under UK GAAP and IFRS. He was also involved in prudential regulation work reviewing the Pillar I computations of investment banks.

Associate –Ian Hersey

Ian joined the Accounting & Audit Sector and Policy Team in November 2008. Ian provides support to supervisors on complex accounting issues, analyses Pillar III waiver requests and leads a project analysing financial statements for the larger firms regulated by the FSA. He also represents the FSA's interests on the accounting committees of Basel, CESR and IOSCO.

Ian is on secondment for a year from BDO, where he is a senior audit manager in the Financial Services Group. His client portfolio includes banks, brokers, funds and asset managers. Ian has also led projects advising blue-chip clients on the required accounting for financial instruments, IFRS conversions and forecasting regulatory capital requirements for complex groups. He was a principal author of the BDO publication IFRS 7 and Pillar 3: Disclosure made clear, has presented on accounting technical matters for the financial training company, Euromoney, and sat on ICAEW working parties responding to FSA Discussion Papers.

Ian is a qualified accountant and holds a Masters degree in computing.

Associate -Mohammed Shahed Ali

Mohammed joined the Accounting & Audit Sector and Policy Team in October 2008.
Prior to this he worked at the UK Listing Authority, vetting debt and GDR prospectuses as part of the Global Debt Group. Mohammed also completed internships both at the FSA, undertaking supervision work in RFD, and at the Civil Service (ODPM) in Local Government Finance.

Mohammed holds a degree in economics from Warwick University and is currently in his second year of the Graduate Development Programme. He is currently working towards the Chartered Financial Analyst designation, having completed the Level 1 exams in his first year as well as the Investment Management Certificate.

Associate – Osman Sattar

Osman joined the Accounting & Audit Sector and Policy Team in January 2009 on an 18 month secondment from PwC London. Osman's role in the team includes providing advice on IFRS accounting and disclosure issues for listings transactions, audit policy and general accounting issues. He also represents the FSA on the CESRFin accounting subgroup.

Having initially run his own retail clothing business for a number of years, Osman graduated in Economics and joined PwC in 2001, working in audit and assurance. He qualified as a chartered accountant in 2004 and managed the audits of UK and European listed companies, as well as private-equity backed companies in the UK. In 2007, Osman joined the Capital Markets Group in PwC, advising companies raising equity capital or undertaking other significant transactions in the London capital markets. This included advising on compliance with the listing and prospectus rules as well as IFRS accounting matters.

Associate – Robert Seward

Robert joined the Accounting & Audit Sector and Policy Team in March 2009. His role in the team includes providing advice on accounting and disclosure issues, with a primary focus on insurance and IFRS 7. He will also be involved with work relating to the IAIS accounting and insurance contracts sub-committees and the ICAEW insurance working group.

Robert joined the FSA from KPMG's Financial Services Technical Advisory group, where his main focus was on providing UK GAAP and IFRS accounting advice to insurance and banking clients on issues such as insurance contract accounting, consolidations, debt/equity and financial instrument derecognition. Robert worked on a number of IFRS conversion projects during this time, including a year on secondment to UK-listed insurers. Prior to KPMG, Robert worked in the audit and technical accounting functions at Mazars, where he qualified as an ICAEW chartered accountant in 2003.  He is also a graduate of Oxford University.

Associate – Louise Eggett

Louise joined the Accounting & Audit, Sector and Policy Team in April 2009.  She will work on providing advice and policy development on Pillar 3 disclosures, general accounting and other disclosure issues.  She will also represent the FSA at various international accounting committees, including within CEBS and Basel.

Louise joined the team on her return from a graduate secondment to the Banking and Financial Conglomerates Unit at the European Commission.  Before her secondment, she worked in the Financial Crime Sector team, and in Small Firms Division.  She graduated with a degree in mathematics and philosophy, and is currently working towards her ACCA accountancy qualification.

Associate - Sofia Pisanello

Sofia joined the FSA and the Accounting & Audit Sector and Policy Team in March 2008. Sofia was previously working with KPMG as a principal consultant in the strategy team in the financial sector. Prior to that she was an auditor with KPMG in Milan and London in the banking and asset management business unit. Her work experience includes audits to HSBC, Banco di Roma, Yamaichi, Credit Suisse. Sofia has spent a few months working as an economist at the DG1 developing countries policies at the European Union. Sofia holds a degree in Economics from the University of Bari in Italy and a MA in Economics and European Studies from the College of Europe in Bruges. She is also a member of the Italian institute of chartered accountant.

If you have any queries please contact us by email:

Richard Thorpe
Pat Sucher
Ian Michael
Ian Hersey
Shiva Iyer
Osman Sattar
Mohammed Shahed Ali
Robert Seward
Sofia Pisanello