UK Finance lands two new managing directors

UK Finance, the 2017-formed trade association for UK banking and financial services, has appointed two new managing directors.

Both new appointees will join the trade body in the autumn

Karen Baxter, a UK police veteran, will head up UK Finance’s economic crime intelligence strategy.

Baxter was head of terrorism investigations in Northern Ireland for two years. She then moved to City of London Police where she still commands its economic crime unit.

Jana Mackintosh, a FIS executive, will head up UK Finance’s payments and innovation operations.

Mackintosh currently directs UK, Europe and Asia government relations for FIS, the major US financial software provider which owns WorldPay.

Both new appointees will join the trade body in the autumn.

Economic crime intelligence strategy

Joining in October, Baxter will lead the development and implementation of “a coherent and comprehensive strategy for intelligence sharing across economic and cyber enabled crime”.

She will work alongside Katy Worobec, UK Finance’s managing director for economic crime.

As well as heading up London’s economic crime unit, Baxter is also the national coordinator for fraud investigations in the region.

Specifically, in South East London, she is a national lead for Cyber Protect – a regional organised crime unit.

UK Finance says it chose Baxter for her experience “working in partnership across the public and private sectors”.

Payments and innovation

Starting in September, Mackintosh will lead the trade body’s “payments and innovation policy and programme development”.

The role, newly created, sees Mackintosh deepen her relationship with the trade body. She said in a statement that she’s worked “closely with UK Finance since its formation” in 2017.

Mackintosh previously worked on the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) competition mandate after she joined the regulator in 2014.

Her work led to the creation of the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR). This is now the economic regulator for the UK’s £75 trillion payment systems industry.

This saw Mackintosh play a key role in the development of major fintech regulation such as the second Payment Services Directive (PSD2).

The new UK Finance managing director has also sat on a number of boards at the Bank of England, the European Payment Council, and Pay.UK.