Services — UKCBC

Governance

The Policy Council plays a pivotal role in shaping the agenda of the UKCBC's initiatives and establishing key strategic policy positions. Guided by the elected Chair, who is chosen by the membership for a one-year term, the council comprises Working Group Chairs and two additional members.

Together, they contribute to the formulation of impactful policies and the advancement of the UKCBC’s objectives.

Matthew Gravelle
Chair

Matt leads on policy and government relations for Kraken in the UK, Canada and Australia.

Matt has worked in financial services policy in London since moving to the UK in 2013. Before joining Kraken, he spent more than 5 years in Standard Chartered's regulatory affairs team, where he focused on capital market regulation and digital policy across the bank’s global markets. He previously held roles at Deutsche Bank and CME Group where he was focused on post-financial crisis regulatory reforms.

Matt is originally from Ottawa, Canada, where he worked for the Canadian government and a public policy think tank before moving to the UK. Matt studied at Queen’s University (BA) and McMaster (MA) in Ontario and the University of British Columbia (PhD) in Vancouver.

Dr Ann Sofie Cloots, Chair, DLT Working Group

Dr Ann Sofie Cloots is General Counsel at Summer.fi, a DeFi web-based user interface. She is also an affiliate lecturer at the University of Cambridge, where she teaches a course on blockchain, AI & law. She is an advisor to several blockchain companies, including an on-chain gaming start-up.

Prior to this, Ann Sofie was a lecturer at the University of Cambridge, where she taught corporate finance and company law. She practised corporate and competition law with two international law firms and qualified with the Brussels Bar in Belgium. She holds an LLM from Columbia Law School and a PhD from the University of Cambridge.

Dr Andrew Whitworth, Chair, Intermediary Working Group

Andrew is a public policy specialist with extensive international experience in financial services, payments and fintech policy and regulation. He is currently Ripple’s Policy Director for EMEA, where he leads Ripple’s engagement with policy-makers in the UK, EU, Middle East and Africa. Before Ripple, Andrew led the policy work of a UK-headquartered fintech payments start-up and previously spent four years as an official at the Bank of England, where he worked on prudential policy, international engagement, and fintech/crypto policy analysis.

He started his career in Brussels working in the EU public and private sectors. He has a PhD in International Political Economy from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), based in Washington, DC and Bologna, Italy; and a BA/MA from the University of Oxford. His latest book is ‘Regulating banks: the politics of instability’. Andrew is Chair of the Blockchain for Europe association and is a Director of the Digital Pound Foundation.

Katie Harries, Policy Council Member

Katie is a Director for International Policy at Coinbase where she leads on UK policy. Prior to this, Katie was an Executive Director in the Executive Office at Goldman Sachs, where she worked for 16 years. Katie has a first class degree in Social and Political Sciences from Jesus College, Cambridge University.

Sean Kiernan, Policy Council Member

Sean Kiernan is the Founder and CEO of Greengage, a digital finance pioneer. He has extensive experience in financial services, having worked in various executive management positions. He founded Greengage after working at the first bank in the world to offer crypto products to clients, Falcon Private Bank, where he served as the COO and Interim CEO of the London operation until leaving to establish Greengage. Prior to that, he held management positions at Clariden Leu, a division of Credit Suisse, and Zurich Financial Services. Mr Kiernan has an MBA from the University of St. Gallen and a BSc from Georgetown University.