Members Board – composition and current members
The Members Board aims to be representative of the ICAS Membership, taking account of factors such as geography and industry sector.
Composition
The General Regulations provide that the Members Board is made up of the following:
- A Chair, who is also a member of Council.
- Not less than two other Council members.
- The Chairs of each of any panel or body whose work is relevant to the Board.
- The Executive Director of Member Engagement & Communications.
- Up to two relevantly experienced ICAS employees.
- Such other persons as Council may deem appropriate.
Role of Members Board members
As set out above, the Members Board is comprised of a range of individuals with varied backgrounds and experience. ICAS’ Regulations do not provide distinct roles or responsibilities for Members Board members, with all members expected to:
- Engage in setting and delivering the Members Board’s objectives.
- Ensure the ongoing relevance of the Members Board’s work.
- Provide robust oversight and challenge to ICAS’ Member Engagement Team.
- Deliver effective influence in the interests of Members, Firms and the general public.
Appointments
Individuals are appointed to the Members Board by Council, on consideration of recommendations from ICAS’ Nominations Committee (with the exception of the Executive Director of Member Engagement & Communications, who sits on the Members Board by virtue of his or her employment in that role).
Appointments to the Members Board are for an initial period of three years, which may be extended for a second term of three years.
Current members
The Members Board is currently formed of the following individuals:
Members Board Members
 | MICHAEL KAY CA (CHAIR) Michael qualified with Arthur Andersen in Edinburgh, with secondments to London and Melbourne. He joined a sales promotion plc in London, before he and fellow directors established their own below-the-line agency backed by 3i. The majority of his career was then spent in financial services, with senior regional and global finance and operational roles in Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and HSBC. Michael subsequently moved to the public sector with NHS Digital, leading the Commercial function through a period of significant transformation. Brought up in Ayr, Michael is a keen Burns enthusiast, winning the “Tam o’Shanter World Championship” in 2018. He is also an Honorary Steward at the Wimbledon Championships. |
 | SOBHAN AFZAL CA Sobhan was elected unopposed to the Scotland West electoral area seat at the 2019 AGM. Sobhan Afzal is currently a senior auditor at Audit Scotland. Sobhan began his career at Audit Scotland as a trainee auditor in 2013, having graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in accounting and finance in the same year. Sobhan completed the ICAS qualification and was admitted to membership in 2017. Sobhan has been involved in financial audits and performance audits across all sectors of the Scottish public sector during his time at Audit Scotland. This include audits of charities, pension funds and government agencies. More recently, Sobhan's role has involved leading on the delivery of audits within the health and local government sectors. Sobhan joined the ICAS Council in May 2019. |
 | LUCAS ALEXANDER-CRICHTON Lucas grew up in rural Aberdeenshire and attended The Gordon Schools in Huntly. Rather than taking the traditional university route into the profession, Lucas elected to join the flagship EY School Leaver programme in September 2013, based in Aberdeen and specialising in audit. He qualified in late 2018 and was formally admitted as a member of ICAS in March 2019. During this time, Lucas was heavily active in the EY Unity Network (LGBT+ network) and held the position of Co-Chair of the EY Scotland branch.After making Audit Manager at the age of 25, Lucas sought new challenges and joined Hutcheon Mearns in January 2022 as a Resourcing Manager. In his current role, he specialises in Scotland-wide accountancy practice recruitment, as well as industry accounting roles in the Tayside area.Lucas has been a member of the ICAS Grampian Network since 2020 and was officially appointed as the Grampian representative in September 2022. He wants to bring a new perspective to the Board and represent not only the Grampian region but also the minority voice. As a champion for diversity, equity, and inclusion, he wants to ensure that the voice of the LGBT+ community is also represented. He truly believes that having a more inclusive and diverse Members Board will facilitate wider perspectives to be integrated when brainstorming, problem-solving and developing new ideas, and people can learn from each other. |
 | ALAN J BEGG CA Alan Begg CA is a retired corporate executive director experienced in the private, not-for-profit, public, charity and commercial sectors having acted as the Executive Director of Finance and Corporate Services in the Valuation Tribunal Service in London prior to retirement. As a graduate chartered accountant Alan’s career has extended to being a Chief and Deputy Chief Executive, Accounting Officer, practice partner and Finance Director in various customer servicing organisations. Alan has an in-depth knowledge of finance, corporate governance, risk management, business planning and strategic development; he has also a mentoring qualification from his Institute. Alan is an independent member of Islington Town Council’s audit and risk committee; as a pensions board member at Islington Town Council; and as an elite panel member of LV= the London & Victoria mutual insurance company. Alan served as Chair of the Board at Queen Mary University of London until 2018. His portfolio extends to being on the Board and a member of the Finance and Audit Committee of Penge Churches Housing Assoc. |
 | ALAN BURNET CA Alan qualified with Deloitte Haskins & Sells in Edinburgh, spending 3 years in Sydney, before returning to work in London. On leaving the profession, Alan returned to Edinburgh as Head of Financial Reporting at Scottish Widows and has spent the majority of his career in financial services, with senior roles in HSBC, E&Y Consulting and most recently as part of the Management Team at NatWest Trustee & Depositary Services, with responsibility for strategic and product development. Alan remains a keen golfer and is a former winner of the St Andrews Boys Open Championship. Alan is a member of the Lothian & Borders Area Network Committee and was previously Chair and Trustee of the Scottish Chartered Accountants Benevolent Association. |
 | KEN CROARKIN CA Ken Croarkin is an audit partner with EisnerAmper LLP and leads services to the insurance industry. Ken has been resident in the USA for over 20 years. He originally qualified with what was then Kidsons Impey in Glasgow, before working with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, both in Glasgow and the USA for several years. He also worked in industry with the Marsh & McLennan Companies in New York. Ken is the Member Representative for ICAS and a board member of Chartered Accountants Worldwide Network USA. As well as a CA, he is also a licensed Certified Public Accountant. Ken is married with 2 children and lives in a suburb of New York City. |
 | SAMANTHA FROST CA Samantha has lived and worked in Australia for 15 years and relocated with her husband and children back to the UK at the end of 2018. Since then, her work has increasingly focussed on helping organisations to enhance their understanding of what wellbeing should ‘look like’ and ‘how to get it right’. Samantha is passionate about mental health. She have recently been appointed as a school governor, and is a mentor at Exeter University for current and recent graduates. These roles stem from a deep desire to have a good understanding of the issues facing the next generation, so we can best equip them to realise their full potential. Samantha has supplemented this personal interest by becoming an accredited adult and youth mental health first aider. This underpins why Samantha has been so interested in following the work ICAS is doing in the wellbeing space. There is a wonderful opportunity for ICAS to be a thought-leader and she is hugely excited to have the opportunity to help make that happen. |
 | SEAN GRUBB CA Sean Grubb was born and raised in Dundee where he attended school, University and completed his ICAS training contract with EQ Accountants LLP. Since qualifying in 2020, Sean has moved into industry and now holds the position of Finance Director at Double A - John Deere, Scotland’s leading supplier of ground care equipment. Within this role Sean is responsible for the finance, import & export, HR, and IT functions of the business. In addition to his role at Double A, Sean is also a dedicated member of the ICAS Members Board where he was appointed in 2019 to represent the interests of the student members. Sean is also a Trustee of SCABA where he provides guidance on the operational and strategic direction of the charity to ensure its run in the best interest of the beneficiaries. Outside of work, Sean is also a proud mentor of the ICAS Foundation, having been a student of the foundation himself. In his spare time Sean enjoys playing golf from a scratch handicap and spending time with his family. |
 | RAHUL HANDA CA Rahul is the Head of Commercial Finance for a private equity owned services company that operates and maintains water infrastructure for cities & businesses, serving over 4m customers. Rahul started his career at Arthur Andersen UK (now amalgamated with Deloitte) in Audit & Corporate Finance. He worked on a number of transactions and was lead worldwide instructor on private equity deal modeling. From there, he joined a client’s internet startup, before moving to Xchanging, a global BPO company launched by General Atlantic & McKinsey, where he led the commercial finance department in Europe and the USA executing over $1.4Bn/ yr in contracts and a number of digital transformation initiatives. He is passionate about lifelong learning and was recently awarded Stanford University’s “Financing Innovation” award under their Corporate Innovation LEAD Executive Program. In his spare time he enjoys playing with his 2 year old toddler, running and yoga. |
 | DOUGIE HAWKINS CA With over 25 years experience, Dougie has spent his career in the private equity industry. He was a partner at Clyde Blowers Capital for 10 years after spending 8 years as Managing Director at RBS’ private equity business. Before joining RBS, he was employed at Bank of Scotland for 12 years, half of which he spent in leveraged finance after starting his career in retail and small business banking. For a period during this time he also operated his own M&A advisory business. He is now CEO of Newlands (Elgin) Holdings Ltd, the Robertson family investment office. Dougie is a CA, having trained under the TOPPS scheme with Bank of Scotland and also a Member of the Chartered Banker Institute. |
 | FRASER HIDDELSTON CA “Fraser Hiddelston is Executive Director and Head of Governance Services at Northern Trust International Fund Administration Services (Guernsey) Limited. Fraser trained with Milne, Craig and Corson in Paisley and qualified as a CA in 1994 then relocated to Guernsey in 1995 to work for PKF specialising in the audit of financial services clients. He left in 2005 and worked as an Assistant Director at Aon Captive Insurance Services for 3 years before joining Northern Trust as a Senior Relationship Manager developing the strategic relationship for a wide variety of clients with open-ended and closed-ended funds in the traditional, alternative asset and property fund sectors. In his current role Fraser leads the Governance Services division at Northern Trust which comprises the Board Servicing, Corporate Secretarial & Listings, Commercial Client Compliance and Investor Due Diligence teams. In addition he also acts as a director on a number of Northern Trust client fund Boards. During his 25 years in Guernsey, Fraser was also Treasurer of the Guernsey Society of Chartered & Certified Accountants for 12 years and formed part of its Executive Committee to promote the accountancy profession on the island and act as a voice for industry.” |
 | KAREN MCBRIDE CA Karen has been with JC since 2013, although this includes the short spell in industry, first of all progressing to Audit Senior Manager with a client facing role. Karen has since moved into an Operational role within the firm and leads the operations for the Audit Business Line, alongside Graham Marjoribanks, Head of Audit. A key part of her role is ensuring operational processes and controls are effective, and that the right reporting and people are in place to maximise operational efficiency, manage risk and meet growth objectives. |
 | DARRELL MCGRAW CA He is a frequent speaker on accounting trends and hot topics and the business impact of changing accounting principles. He is accustomed to working closely with Executive and Board members, and is capable of forging robust relationships at this level and beyond. |
 | IAIN MCMICHAEL CA Iain qualified with PwC, working in Assurance for 2.5 years before moving to the newly created Data team in Edinburgh. Alongside his work at PwC, he founded a company specialising in marketing and booking software for restaurants, nightclubs and bars across the UK. As his career progressed with PwC, he seconded to London, and spent 3 years on working on national and international transformation programmes. Following the secondment, he returned to Edinburgh to help grow the ‘channel 2’ data practice in Scotland. He left PwC at the end of 2019 to grow his own marketing consultancy...3 months before a global pandemic. He remains certain this was the worst timing possible. He continues to run his own consultancy, helping clients get serious about business development and social media. Recognising that sales and marketing is a “professional contact sport”, he fuses “rapport” based communication approaches with social media and traditional sales practices. In short, he helps clients fill their pipeline, stop guessing at business development and shorten their sales cycles. |
 | KATHERINE RITCHIE CA Having graduated from the University of Sheffield with a degree in Economics and Geography, Katherine qualified as a CA in 2016 with EY. At EY Katherine advised clients across a wide range of sectors and throughout the life cycle of a deal; including initial assessment, operational due diligence, synergy identification, integration, separation and post deal value enhancement.
|
 | RORY SHEDDEN CA After qualifying as a CA with EY in 2009 I moved to Germany, joining the EY Advisory service line, supporting leading German businesses with projects globally. Inspired by the rapid growth of the Advisory team I moved back to the UK in 2013 and have since worked in a range of roles for PE-backed businesses supporting the C-Suite in driving value creation and transformative change.
|
 | RHONA THOMSON CA Rhona qualified with EY. With over 20 years in the financial services industry she has had exposure to internal investment accounting, financial controller and 3rd party fund administration. Rhona is currently Executive Director at Morgan Stanley Fund Services which offer fund administration services to Hedge Funds globally. |
| DAVID WILSON CA David is a collaborative and commercial leader with a strong belief in the ability of business to make a positive contribution to society and a deep interest in people. David has taken an active interest in ICAS, sitting on the ICAS London Area committee since April 2022 |
