Meet our team of cyber resilience, risk management and insurance experts

Chris, a veteran of Cyber Security, Defence and Resilience, has been advising on the adequacy and suitability of security controls that assure and enable successful business operations for the last 35 years.

Having begun his security career with 14-years service in the British military, he moved on to information security management positions in communications, retail and consultancy. Chris joined National Grid, working as VP of Global Cyber Security designing, building and managing first and second line functions.​

Since leaving National Grid, Chris has worked in Financial Services focusing on cyber resilience, building orchestrated and automated frameworks of threat management and assurance to determine an organisation’s preparedness, capability to withstand, and ability to recover from Cyber threats.

Nick heads our commercial and corporate teams, and leads our insurance solutions proposal alongside Independent Broking Solutions Ltd, http://ibsbroking.com 

Nick is a risk and insurance specialist with 30 years’ experience in the Energy, Risk Management and Insurance sectors. He has worked in a variety of leadership and advisory roles within oil companies, major insurance brokers including in Marsh Marine and Energy, and underwriting operations. The latter has included board roles in captive insurers, and a FCA-authorised Lloyd's of London coverholder, an underwriting agency operating on behalf of five leading Lloyds syndicates. In the latter role Nick was a Board Member and the Operations Officer with sole “overall responsibility for the operation and control” of the Lloyd’s underwriting binding authority agreement (“binder”).  

Nick is a certified management accountant and Chartered Insurance Institute certified in Cyber Risks, Insurance and Cyber Broking. 

Nick Readings has been in the insurance industry for over 40 years in most roles encompassing specialist consulting, underwriting and latterly broking.   

He qualified as a chartered accountant in a specialist West End accountancy practice and, after gathering other experience within the accounting profession, he joined a major Lloyd’s broker to manage their relationships and their business relating to Pool insurance companies. He has held a number of other insurance appointments including the Lloyd’s Market where roles included reserving and the development of in-house systems capability, followed by consultancy work including a major part in the Equitas project. 

Having been involved in discontinued portfolios since 1991, he continues to support this aspect of the business but is more recently focused on service support of both underwriters and brokers together with the introduction of new capital to the market.  Nick now is the Chairman of Independent Broking Solutions Limited (IBS) a commercial London based network for international insurance specialists.   

Nick is both approved for Senior Management Functions under the UK’S FCA Senior Managers Regime and an Approved Person under the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority Approved Persons Regime. 

John retired following more than 30 years in the Risk Management industry to pursue academic, consulting, and personal interests. In his career, he has held several executive positions in the UK and USA including Managing Director of Marsh & McLennan, Chairman of Marsh Marine & Energy, founder and CEO of Benfield Corporate Risk, Chairman of Aon Marine & Energy, and partner of Matterhorn Advisors.

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His extensive background, particularly with international mergers and acquisitions, both from management experience and in advisory roles, adds a fresh perspective to any commercial strategy.

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Dr Lapsley has published several journal articles on Brexit, Energy, and Managing ESG (Environmental, Social & Corporate Governance) in global enterprises. He envisions cybersecurity as the emerging risk management challenge threatening business growth and sustainability. John is excited to assist successful companies carefully identify, treat, and reduce cyber exposures to control their economic destiny.

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John holds a BSc in economics & finance from Southern New Hampshire University, an MBA in finance from Fordham University, and a Doctorate of Business Management in global business specialisation from Keiser University.

Gary has over 25 years of in-depth experience in cybersecurity, focusing on the development and operation of large-scale information security and risk management programmes. As an architect, practice leader and consultant, he has worked with a wide range of public and private sector organisations around the world to design, build and maintain small to large security capabilities.

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His specialty is the improvement of hybrid cybersecurity operations, helping customers to develop suitable strategy and designs to drive improvement. He helps focus on combinations of self-managed, provider and cloud capabilities to deliver core incident response, cybersecurity analytics and cybersecurity intelligence services, including the design, build and evaluation of cybersecurity operations centres, core platforms and Blue Team workforce development.

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Gary is now a Managing Director of an international IT and cybersecurity consulting company, focused on global strategy and new solution development.

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He is co-author of 'Security Operations Center: Building, Operating and Maintaining your SOC'. He is also a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and Certified Information Security Manager (CISM).

Louis has over 20 years of executive experience in the risk and financial Industries with a proven track record in setting and executing new business strategies in SME and Retail sectors with particular insight into emerging markets. 

From 1994 to March 2014, Louis was part of the Marsh & McLennan Companies, a global professional services firm and world leader in the Insurance Broking Industry. As Managing Director of Marsh Europe, he was CEO of Marsh operations in Eastern Europe and member of the board of Marsh in Switzerland. He was also CEO of INSIA Europe, the retail distribution network that Marsh acquired in 2011. 

Louis now has a diverse range of private business interests and is also the West Switzerland Representative of the Swiss Chamber of Commerce for Central and Eastern Europe. 

Louis is a Master of Sciences in Management, Solvay Business School (Université Libre de Bruxelles) and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Management Sciences from Vrije Universiteir Brussel. As well as his native French, Louis is fluent in Dutch and English, and intermediate in Russian and also speaks some German. 

Louis was an officer in the Belgian reserves for over 36 years. 

Richard is a risk and insurance consultant who has over 30 years’ experience in insurance in a wide variety of classes and territories, including in Asia, India, Africa, the CIS and the Middle East.

Richard started his career as the Senior Trade and Political Risk Underwriter at AIG, and then moved to the Isle of Man. He was the founder and Managing Director of the largest independent Captive Manager on the island. Captive clients were primarily large multinationals from a wide range of industries, with assets insured over $100bn+.

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Having sold this company, Richard is now the Managing Director of a Risk and Insurance Advisory company, with clients from a range of territories and industries. He also serves as a Non-Executive Director for a number of Isle of Man FSA Regulated insurers.

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Richard is an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers (ACIB) and was formerly Chairman of the Isle of Man Captive Association. Richard has a BSc (Hons), Financial Services, and a BA (Hons), Law and Psychology.

Mark is a highly experienced risk management and insurance professional with experience in the public, private and charity sectors, Mark has spent 25 years advising major corporations on risk management best practice, designing resultant insurance programmes and placing them in the international markets. 

 
After 7 years’ service in the British Army as an infantry platoon commander, Mark’s risk and insurance career has included involvement in 3 successful broker start-ups specialising in reinsurance and energy. These were HSBC Energy, AAA Insurance and Reinsurance Brokers and Tysers where he was appointed Managing Director of their new energy division. 

 
It was at this point that Mark for personal reasons had to withdraw from the insurance market. He became the Founder and CEO of Robbie’s Rehab Charitable Trust. In this role he negotiated an umbrella arrangement with Southampton Hospitals Charity and raised funds in the community providing 100% funding for a 3-year pilot trial within the NHS. He then obtained NHS commissioning for Robbie’s Rehab and the service now resides within the NHS with Robbie’s Rehab Ward due to be opened in 2023. 

 
Mark holds an MSc in Risk Management and Insurance from London’s Cass Business School, is an Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute, is a Chartered Insurance Broker, sits as a magistrate on the North Hampshire bench, and is since summer 2024 a trustee of The Lloyd's Patriotic Fund, the oldest military fund of its kind, uniting the Lloyd’s insurance market for the last two hundred years to support veterans and their families today.