Michelle Russell
Biography
Michelle was appointed as Chief Executive in October 2020. As Chief Executive she is the Accounting Officer responsible for setting SIA strategy and leading and managing the SIA and its operations on a day-to-day basis.
Michelle has over 25 years of experience working in regulation and regulatory environments in both the public and private sectors, particularly in investigations and supervision. Michelle has held various inspection and enforcement roles.
Immediately prior to joining the SIA, Michelle was at the Charity Commission. Whilst there she instigated and led major strategic changes to its regulatory regime, including its move from reactive to proactive regulation and supervision. As an Executive Director as well as leading the Commission’s high-risk investigations, monitoring and compliance work, Michelle also managed specialist outreach and accountancy functions.
Michelle has worked on legislation and developed national regulation strategies on counter-terrorism, fraud, financial abuse, and safeguarding. Over her career she has sat on numerous cross-government and industry groups, particularly those with a focus on terrorism and serious crime issues, as well as working on international programmes of work with the United Nations’ UN-CTED and FATF to improve consistency in international standards and introduce new regulatory regimes.
Michelle began her career as a qualified solicitor working in the private and then public sectors. She served 10 years as an Independent Member of Lord Chancellor’s North East London Advisory Committee, supporting recruitment to the magistracy.
Michelle is also a Board Member of the Association of Chief Executives.
Previous roles in government
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Director of Investigations, Monitoring and Enforcement