ICAS Ethics Board
Ethics and integrity are at the heart of the professional responsibilities of ICAS members.
The Ethics Board’s mission is to provide knowledge, guidance and assistance to ICAS members in order that they may meet the ethical responsibilities of their profession; and to support, guide, and challenge the ICAS leadership with its strategic goal “To become a global leader in the application of professional ethics.”
The Board will seek to achieve this mission by meeting the following objectives which are in line with the ICAS strategic goals. It is recognised that the responsibility for achieving the ICAS strategic goal “to become a global leader in the application of professional ethics” does not rest solely with the Board. The Board will therefore seek assistance from the ICAS community to meet the following objectives as and when appropriate.
For the avoidance of doubt, it is not the responsibility of the Board to respond to, or investigate, complaints or accusations made against members of the Institute. Such matters are the responsibility of the Regulation division.
The Ethics Board objectives are:
- to be relevant to ICAS members’interests throughout their training and subsequent careers and in all of the main locations and sectors in which ICAS members operate, by being knowledgeable and aware of the latest issues in ethics, by emphasising the importance of behaving ethically, and providing support material to help them personally, and their organisations, embed ethics.
- to be connected with ICAS members through a variety of ICAS communication channels to engage in communities and networks which will keep the membership informed about developments in ethics and related matters which will help to ensure they exhibit appropriate professional behaviour.
- to promote trust in ICAS members, the accountancy profession and in business by sustaining the highest standards of ethics and seek to ensure that ICAS members are aware of the need to operate to the highest standards of professional practice in the public interest.
- to deploy a public voice which offers independent, timely, insightful and practical thought leadership and guidance on ethics and related matters to the membership, public, the business world, government, regulatory and other stakeholders, increasingly on a global basis.
- to promote The Power of One motif, amongst the ICAS membership, the profession and business.
Board members
Loree Gourley (Chair)
Loree M. Gourley is a Financial Services Partner at Deloitte LLP and leads the Sustainability practice. She has more than 20 years’ experience advising clients across the value chain on all elements of ESG. More specifically, Loree is passionate about increasing the resilience and the value of biodiversity and nature and keenly focused on the role Artificial Intelligence (AI) can play to drive positive sustainable outcomes - using AI for good.
Loree has a Master Business Administration (MBA), holds an Executive Education Certificate in Sustainable Finance from INSEAD and has recently studied Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the University of Oxford - Said Business School. Her undergraduate studies are science based and she is highly published on the topics of sustainability, reporting, effective stewardship, ethical leadership, biodiversity and nature and long-term value.
In a personal capacity, Loree is an active conservation volunteer with the Royal Parks and Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Institute of Business Ethics (IBE).
Jonathan Fitzpatrick
Jonathan is an experienced Head of Internal Audit within the Oil and Gas sector, and has worked internationally for a variety of employers, including large privately owned Groups, National Oil Companies and large Service Companies. This diverse experience has given Jonathan an excellent appreciation of the different cultural approaches adopted towards Corporate Governance and Ethics globally.
Jonathan is also an experienced Pension Trustee and graduated in 2004 from Heriot Watt University with an MA in Economics and then qualified as a CA in 2007.
Marianne Harper Gow
Marianne is a Director, Governance and Sustainability, at Baillie Gifford. She joined Baillie Gifford in 2004 and her experience extends over many areas including governance and sustainability research, company engagement, voting and client reporting. Her current role involves engaging with institutional investors, regulators and industry bodies across the globe on a broad range of environmental, social and governance matters. Prior to joining Baillie Gifford, Marianne worked offshore carrying out environmental and geological survey work. She has a degree in Environmental Science from the University of Aberdeen and MBA from the University of Edinburgh.
Marianne is also a member of the Social Investment Scotland (SIS) Ventures Investment Committee.
John Kerr
John is an experienced non-executive director. He is chairman of Kin and Carta plc, a member of the board of trustees of the charity Plan International (UK) and acts as an adviser to London law firm, Travers Smith. He has been a member of ICAS since 1982.
John was previously a partner in Deloitte, where he was global leader of Deloitte Consulting and, prior to that a partner in Arthur Andersen, where he served on the global board.
Margo Main
Margo is an experienced senior finance executive. She trained with EY and, after qualifying, moved into industry.
Margo’s experience is mainly in the manufacturing sector where she has held various senior operational finance and group finance roles with global organisations. A significant part of her career has been with Devro plc on two separate occasions. In between she was Finance Director of Forbo-Nairn Ltd, part of the Swiss Forbo Group, and GFC at Havelock Europa Plc.
Most recently Margo was the Project Finance Director to establish Devro’s manufacturing entity in China and subsequently led Devro’s initiative to implement standardised project management procedures across its global supply chain.
Margo considers ethics to be at the foundation of a sound business and is passionate in promoting this.
Bill MacLeod
Bill is a Chartered Accountant and was a partner at PwC for 25 years until his retirement in 2020. He specialised in audit and held a variety of roles during his PwC career. He served on PwC's Supervisory Board, chaired its Audit and Risk Committee, was the senior partner of the Newcastle office and was latterly PwC’s Ethics Partner and Partner Responsible for Independence prior to his retirement. He has also worked abroad with PwC spending 5 years in the United States and Dubai.
Bill is the Senior Independent Director for The Newcastle upon Tyne NHS Foundation Trust and the Audit Committee Chair for Newcastle University. He is also a non-executive director for Newcastle Gateshead Initiative and a Trustee of the Kielder Observatory Charity. He previously chaired the Advisory Board to Newcastle University Business School between 2015 and 2022.
John McLeod
John is the Accountant for the Educational Institute of Scotland (the EIS), the largest trade union representing Teachers and Lecturers working in Scotland. Within this role, he is responsible for the financial management and reporting of the Institute itself, as well as for two connected charities and a superannuation scheme.
Prior to joining the EIS, John worked as Group Finance Director of a large privately owned haulage business. However, the majority of his career has been spent within the accountancy profession, most recently as an audit partner with RSM Tenon and then Mazars LLP, specialising in work with owner managed businesses, professional practices, charities and pension schemes.
Tom McMorrow
Tom qualified as a solicitor and after a period in general legal practice, was with ICAS for some 17 years dealing with professional conduct matters, latterly becoming the Institute’s General Counsel. After a period with the Crown Office’s serious and organised crime unit, he then joined Baker Tilly (now RSM) as Director of Policy and Regulation, and also acted as the firm’s Ethics Partner for ten years, before returning to the Crown Office. He was appointed MBE in 2018.
Robert Overend
Robert worked for EY throughout his professional career, including spending time on secondment in the US. He was a partner in the firm’s London office for 25 years prior to his retirement in 2020.
As an audit partner he specialised in the manufacturing and aerospace sectors. Robert also worked for two years in the litigation support team advising companies in relation to complex accounting related legal disputes.
He was Head of the firm’s Accounting Technical Department and a member of the then UK Accounting Standards Board. He subsequently became Audit Compliance Principal for the firm and head of its Professional Practice Group.
Reysha Shah
Reysha is New Propositions Manager, based in Octopus Energy Generation. Working across product, strategy and design, her focus is on driving new capital flows into renewable energy.
Previously, Reysha was in EY’s Sustainability & Innovation Team, supporting FTSE 350 companies to solve their biggest sustainability challenges.
Reysha is a Chartered Accountant, and spent five years working in Transaction Diligence. Having studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Manchester, Reysha also holds a Master’s degree from UCL.
Euan Stirling
Euan is a director at CEN-ESG, a sustainability consultancy based in London. Euan has spent most of his career in asset management, latterly managing the ESG Investment team at Aberdeen Standard Investments (now abrdn). In that role Euan monitored the governance, stewardship and responsible investment activities of Aberdeen Standard Investment’s investment assets and portfolios on behalf of its clients.
Previous roles focused on investment analysis of banks, insurers and engineering companies as well as portfolio management for institutional clients of Aberdeen Standard Investments and Schroders. Euan recently moved into sustainability consulting, helping corporate clients with the increasing requirements to make ESG disclosures. Euan has 27 years of industry experience and is a Chartered Accountant.
Aileen Wright
Aileen is Head of Corporate Reporting at the Scottish Government, leading on external and internal financial reporting and related governance and accountability. She trained with Scott Oswald & Co, worked in Corporate Recovery with KPMG and moved into government when it was adopting “proper accounting”. Aileen has held different roles in the Scottish Government, including a period as Head of internal Audit. A current member of the Financial Reporting Advisory Board, she still enjoys wrestling with technical accounting challenges, both the development of standards and their practical application to the delivery of public services and she is also the Training Principal responsible for their ICAS CA students.
Aileen recently completed a period as Convenor of the ICAS Public Sector Panel and member of Technical Policy Board.
