ACTAC Speakers

Douglas began his career with Peat Marwick Mitchell & Co. (now KPMG) where he trained as a chartered accountant and specialised in banking, multinational financial reporting, treasury and securities trading operations, group re-organisations and litigation support. He joined the HSBC Group in 1995 and was appointed Group Chairman of HSBC Holdings plc in December 2010.

Douglas is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland and the Association of Corporate Treasurers. He is a Fellow of The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.
In June 2006 he was honoured with a CBE (Commander of the British Empire) by Her Majesty the Queen in recognition of his services to the finance industry.

Douglas was Chairman of the Financial Reporting Council and has served on the Accounting Standards Board and the Advisory Council of the International Accounting Standards Board. He also recently served as a non-executive director of BP plc and was Chairman of its Audit Committee.

John Grout is Policy and Technical Director of the ACT. He left Cadbury Schweppes plc in 1999 having been Finance Director of the Global Confectionery division (now Cadbury plc) and previously Director of Treasury (responsible for Tax, Treasury, Corporate Finance (including M&A and long-term planning), Property and Insurance). Before that he was Director of Treasury at BICC plc (now Balfour Beatty plc) having had his early career in BL plc in an number of financial control and treasury positions, finishing as Deputy Treasurer. He is a previous Chairman of both the ACT’s Council and its Education Committee.

John has an MSc from London University and an MBA from Manchester, is a Chartered Secretary and a fellow of the ACT. He lives near Cambridge where he is involved as a business angel with a number of early stage companies.

Dr Peter “Pete” Hahn is FME Senior Fellow at the City University London’s Cass Business School. Since 2009 he has been Special Advisor to the Financial Services Authority on risk and stability issues, often related to governance and strategy. He is frequently quoted in major business media, has given evidence in Parliament, and founded Finance for Governance Ltd, a consulting firm that works with boards of directors.

Pete has had a 20+ year career in banking on Wall Street and in The City of London before returning to business school to study for a PhD in Finance. The Financial Times published 3 extensive articles about his experiences as a ‘mature’ PhD student. He now teaches undergraduates, MBAs, and executives principles of finance, corporate finance, company valuation, and bank strategy & management.

Anthony Hilton has had an extensive career in journalism both in the UK and USA, having worked on newspapers and publications including the Guardian, the Observer, the Daily Mail, the Times, the Sunday Express and Accountancy Age.

Anthony won the 2007 “Decade of Excellence Award” for business and financial journalism given annually by the World Press Awards. In 2007 he was named as the UK Pensions Journalist of the Year by AON, the Commentator of the Year by the Private Equity and Venture Capital Association and was runner-up as Financial Journalist of the Year by the Institute of Internal Auditors. In 2009 and 2010 he was the winner of the Association of British Insurers ‘Commentator of the Year’ award.

In addition to journalism he has also had a commercial career, serving as Managing Director of the Evening Standard company and also been a trustee director of the investment advisory board of the Daily Mail pensions schemes.

Andrew McLaughlin is Group Director, Communications and Group Chief Economist for the Royal Bank of Scotland Group. Before joining the Group, he spent three years with Ernst and Young working in corporate finance. Andrew holds a first class honors degree in Economics and Politics, and a PhD, for which he was awarded the Walter Bagehot prize for best UK dissertation in the field of government and public administration. He published a book on the automobile industry in 1998. He is a member of the University of Nottingham Globalisation and Economic Policy Advisory Board, the UK Government’s Business Forum on Tax Competitiveness and sits on the CBI Economic Affairs Committee.

Hamish McRae is Associate Editor of The Independent Newspaper in London and Principal Economic Commentator for The Independent and The Independent on Sunday. He has written a number of books including ‘The World in 2020’ which has been translated into more than a dozen languages and is currently working on a new book on ‘excellence in the world economy’. He also broadcasts on BBC radio and has received a number of awards including ‘Financial Journalist of the Year’ and ‘Business Columnist of the Year’.