Charity founded in 2018 to support children in London state primary schools who are behind in maths. Success in this one area can have a postive impact on children's engagement with education and improve their life chances.The vision is to build the charity to help children across London, and to attract copycat organisations to deliver the same help in schools in other parts of the UK. I look forward to seeing volunteers supporting numeracy in primary schools as widely available as literacy support.https://numberchampions.org.uk@NumberChampionsThas become effectively my full-time job, as the results have been positive and the demand is huge. There is a real opportunity to build this to a national scale over the next decade.We started in 2018 with two partner schools and six volunteers and an untried model. We now partner with 35 schools across 15 London boroughs, with 115 volunteers supporting some 330 children using an now-established programme with consistently high evaluation of positive impact by teachers.I would welcome contact from anyone interested in becoming involved - or from companies interested in becoming sponsors - or in having a volunteering opportunity for their staff.

Implemented GDPR for the subsidiaries of a European conglomerate with a turnover of about £500m and interests in Central Europe and the UK.

The service company for Bernard's interim management and project assignments. A selection of assignments are given below.

Interim Head of Finance. Reporting to the Managing Director, reviewed the Finance function in the context of a business growing 50% over two years and mapped out a plan for development, while contributing to the resolution of operating and strategic issues. The key deliverable was to identify an operating model for finance in an organisation too small for a full-time Finance Director. Deliverables included:• Maintained finance processes, including production of year-end accounts and satisfying auditor• Mapped change project to create a Finance function able to support a fast-growing business• Created process documentation, identifying efficiencies and control improvements• Reviewed key legal documentation, identified issues, and implemented corrective action• Improved alignment of Finance with business including recovering lost revenue• Recommended an operating model for finance based on recruitment of a Director to manage finance part time while fulfilling a separate senior business role. This structure was successfully adopted.

Developed and controlled the modelling of projected bank financials for NBNK's bid for 632 branches of Lloyds Bank. The model took business drivers for each product and calculated the product financials by month for five years, together with regulatory capital and liquidity asset requirements. This was used to iterate the plan for the new bank, to stress-test performance under risk scenarios, and to provide a basis for valuation.

From April 2009 Joint Venture Manager, Corporate BankingThis involved structuring, negotiating, and implementing a series of joint ventures, typically to distribute products through third parties. Examples include:• Banking on Essex – A joint venture with Essex County Council in which Essex sourced small business borrowers in the county and Santander provided the banking service under a ‘white label’. • Agreeing with a car fleet maintenance company the joint sale of leasing and maintenance. • A joint venture with a pharmaceuticals wholesaler. This had introduced pharmacists to RBS which made loans for business expansion. Santander took over the loans and made new loans on the wholesaler’s introduction. Bernard introduced an innovative structure using funds held in trust to protect both partners from legacy credit risk.Up to 2009 Change Manager, Corporate BankingBernard joined the new Division to support the Directors in all aspects of planning and implementation. Achievements included:• Producing strategic analysis and business cases for the new Corporate Banking Division.• Creating a Deposit Product in Corporate Banking. This required breaking out processing from the existing retail Deposit Product, setting up an operating model to include all of the legal, regulatory, and business requirements of managing balances and transactions, and setting up a business model to support the sale and transacting of deposits, together with getting approval from all stakeholders. Managed the product for six months during recruitment of a permanent head. • Producing an MI pack for the Executive Committee combining key financial, risk, business, operational, and HR performance indicators.• Setting up stress testing for Commercial Property Lending for Basel II reporting.• Executing a loan transaction of £100m from the European Investment Bank to Santander as part of its ‘Loans to SME’ programme. This supported new lending by Santander to smaller corporates.

Independent consultant to the financial sector, specialising in execution of projects requiring coordination across organisational boundaries. Clients included UBS, Abbey National, Barclays, and Mizuho. Projects included structuring the regime for a bank to obtain CAD II treatment for market-risk capital, carrying out a forensic exercise to correct an £800m intercompany reporting error, establishing a framework for transfer pricing of treasury funding, and evaluating the financial soundness of bidders for a tender.

From Sep 2001, Risk Director, Group Finance, reporting to the Director, Group Finance. Responsible for risk management, governance, and end-to-end process controls for the Finance function across the Group. Achievements included:• Identifying lack of a proof for consolidation of financial reporting across the core UK bank. Explained the issue together with a recommended solution to the Finance Director and obtained his buy-in. Project-managed implementation of a proof process involving rigorous mapping of cost centres and account lines to owners. • Initiating use of SAP for reporting all strategic investments across the Group, replacing a spreadsheet process and improving accuracy and timeliness. From Feb 2001, Project Director Personal Financial Services Finance. Reported to the Finance Director. Achievements included taking over a failing IT project to report customer-level p/l and balance sheet for 15 million retail customers and seeing it through to successful implementation. From Jul 2000, Finance Director for Mortgages and Investment Management (IM). Reported to the Finance Director of Retail and to the Managing Directors of the two Strategic Business Units (SBUs). Managing about 100 staff, created a finance function within each SBU under consolidated control, and met the business needs of the new SBUs. Achievements included supporting the transfer of new life assurance to Legal & General.From Jun 1999, Finance Director, Product, Retail Financial Services (RFS). Reported to the Managing Director Product and to the Interim Finance Director of RFS. Responsible for integrity of financial reporting for Product (with income about £2bn) and for supporting the Product business area. Managed initially about 240 staff. Achievements include:• Supporting the reorganisation of RFS; this required production of the first plan and budget before the final structure was defined.• Reducing finance staff through efficiencies and transfers from 240 to 110.

From Oct 1997, Deputy Treasurer, Barclays Capital. Reported to Treasurer and Head of Market Risk Management, Barclays Capital. Responsible for analysis, planning, and control of balance sheet resources including assets, regulatory capital, risk capital, and legal entity structure, with shared responsibility for policy on liquidity, funding, and collateral management. Achievements include:• Following Barclays Capital’s losses in Russian debt in mid 1998 and a consequent diktat from the Barclays CEO to reduce the Division’s capital usage by 40% by year end, managing reduction of regulatory capital usage by 43% in four months. • Structuring and negotiating a joint venture with a USA hedge fund.From Jun 1996, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Markets Division. Reporting to the CFO, Barclays Capital, was responsible for the integrity of financial reporting for Markets and for supporting the CEO, Markets Division in finance, strategy, and planning. Managing 80 staff, successfully supported a developing business and met an income budget of £600m.From Nov 1993, Controller, Markets Division. Reported to the CFO, Markets Division. Responsible for financial and management accounting and control, and for integrating risk and financial reporting.