PSR governance

Aidene Walsh joined the PSR Board on 1 June 2020 and served as its Interim Chair from 1 April 2022.  On 1 February, the PSR confirmed Aidene had been appointed as the PSR's first, dedicated permanent chair for a term of three years, effective immediately.

She is currently an Executive Director with Banking Competition Remedies Ltd (BCR), the Independent Body established to implement the Alternative Remedies Package of measures agreed between the UK Government and European Commission.  

Prior to joining BCR, she was CEO of The Fairbanking Foundation, a charity supporting organisations to put customer financial well-being at the heart of their propositions. In her 26-year banking career, she held various leadership roles in international and domestic Commercial and Transaction Banking businesses. These included European Transaction Banking in Citigroup and ABN Amro, Global Network Banking in RBS and Merchant Acquiring and Commercial Cards in Lloyds Banking Group. 

David joined the PSR Board in 2020.

David is the Director of Retail Banking at the Financial Conduct Authority. He is responsible for the supervision of retail banking groups the UK and policy development for retail banking and mortgages. Prior to this role David was the Director of Policy, with responsibility for policy development across a wide range of areas both retail and wholesale, and oversight of the FCA’s Innovation Hub.

David has worked in regulation at the FCA (and its predecessor the FSA) for more than 20 years, spanning several different roles in both Policy and Supervision. During his time at the FCA, he has been involved in leading and delivering a number of large scale initiatives including the Retail Distribution Review, the development of the Senior Managers and Certification regime and implementation of PSD II.

David is a previous Chair of the G20/OECD Task Force on Financial Consumer Protection. Prior to joining the regulator, he worked in the financial services industry for 10 years gaining experience in banking, financial advice and mortgages.

Tommaso Valletti joined the PSR Board in 2020.

He is Professor of Economics at Imperial College Business School, and also Professor of Economics at the University of Rome. He has previously taught at the London School of Economics, Telecom ParisTech/Ecole Polytechnique, and Turin.

He was the Chief Competition Economist of the European Commission (Directorate General for Competition) between 2016 and 2019. He was a board director of Consip, the Italian Public Procurement Agency. He has advised numerous bodies, including the EC, OECD, OFCOM, and the World Bank.

Tommaso’s main research interests are in industrial economics, regulation, and competition economics. He has published numerous articles in academic journals. He has a magna cum laude degree in engineering from Turin and holds a MSc and a PhD in economics from the London School of Economics.

Tommaso also sits on the FCA Board.

Simon Ricketts has been a non-executive director of the PSR Board since 1 July 2017, and is currently the PSR Deputy Chairman and Chair of the PSR Risk Committee. He is also a member of the FCA's Audit committee.

Prior to this he was a non-executive director of the HMRC Board between 2014 & 2021 and NS&I between 2007 and 2014. Elsewhere in Government, he is a technology advisor to the Home Office - also chairing the Independent Assurance Panel for the Emergency Services Communications Programme. Until 2021, he was an Honorary Professor at Warwick Business School.

He held executive leadership positions as Chief Information Officer for Rolls Royce PLC, Scottish & Newcastle PLC and Cadbury Schweppes PLC, and a number of non-executive roles within both private and government organisations.

Joanna has held a number of different senior roles in the energy and transport sectors and in economic regulation. She is currently an independent Non-Executive Director at SGN, a gas distribution business and she was Director General, Energy and Security at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) from October 2018 to December 2022.

Joanna was the Chief Executive Officer at the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) from January 2016. She joined the ORR in 2014 as Director of Railway Markets and Economics with responsibility for ORR’s economic regulation and competition roles.

Prior to this she worked at Ofgem where she held a number of senior posts. In her last role as Partner for Markets, she was responsible for regulation of the wholesale gas and electricity markets.

Edward has held a number of non-executive director, board advisor and senior executive roles, with particular expertise in financial services, technology, strategy, risk and transformation.

He is a FTSE 100 non-executive director and Audit Committee member at F&C PLC, and Chair of both the Board Risk and Compliance Committee, and the Board Environmental, Social & Governance Committee for Mattioli Woods PLC, where he also serves on the Audit Committee and Nominations Committee.

He advises a wide range of organisations worldwide, including Perenna in Financial Technology.

Edward is also a member of the UK Endorsement Board, and serves as Chair of the Board Audit Committee and Chair of the Board Investment Committee at Asia House.

He was previously a Managing Director at HSBC Bank PLC, and prior to that a Director at Barclays Bank PLC, both in global roles, particularly focused on risk, technology and transformation. Prior to that he spent many years at McKinsey & Company advising clients worldwide.

Lara is a competition and regulatory economist with over 20 years’ experience. She is the founder of Sigma Economics, a boutique strategy and economics consulting firm. She is also a non-executive member on the boards of the Jersey Competition Regulatory Authority and Portsmouth Water, where she also chairs their Audit and Risk Committees.

Prior to setting up her own company Lara was a partner at Flint Global, where she set up their Competition and Regulatory practice. She also worked in senior roles at Ofcom (the UK communications regulator) and the CMA (the UK competition authority).

Lara is a trustee at Reform think-thank, dedicated to improving public services in the UK.