John Low
Group Head of Digital Risk
Frasers Group

Andy Wainwright
Head of Online Loss Prevention
Next

First party fraud: what can retailers do?

Re-education? Retribution? How do we bring customers back into line?

Join two leading experts in retail digital risk to explore new frontiers in tackling ‘friendly’ fraud.

John Low
John is Group Head of Digital risk for the international high street retailer Frasers Group with omni channel responsibility for risk-based data analytics covering retail and ecommerce transactions including online payments and fraud screening ensuring there is a holistic oversight of physical loss, margin and revenue erosions across the group in all sales channels.

Prior to Frasers Group John was head of Risk covering all risk function teams for the national high street chain Game Retail Ltd along with the Player 1 Events and the Belong brand. His wide-ranging responsibilities included Enterprise Risk Management (ERM), internal audit (UK and Spain), insurance, information Security, Loss Prevention, Multi-Channel Fraud Payments and Health & Safety.

John has a strong and diverse retail background having previously worked for several UK big retail brands including the Co-operative Group (food) in senior operational roles and the retail management section of Bass.  He has also been an accredited member of the Institute of Risk management (IRM), the serving chairperson of the omni channel ORIS forum committee that has extensive retail high street participation and online representative  on the National Business Crime Solutions (NBCS) member group.

He has previously provided voluntary service to influential groups and forums having worked with the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) and the Home Office on the roundtable “tackling the market for stolen goods” and on two working groups for the prevention of acquisitive crime.

Andy Wainwright
Andy is an experienced fraud leader, having worked in the fraud industry for the past twenty years. He has significant experience implementing and managing fraud and loss prevention strategies within financial organisations across multiple delivery channels for both cash and credit.

He is a regular speaker at industry events and a member of the editorial board of Loss Prevention Magazine in the UK. His team have won the Fraud Awards’ Online Profit Protection team of the year on a number of occasions. He also likes to think he is a thoroughly good bloke!

Leonie Nicks
Head of Crime & Security
Behavioural Insights Team (BIT)

A behavioural science perspective on customer violence

Why it happens, and what can we do about it?

Customer violence towards retail staff appears to be on the rise. In this session, we will explore the drivers of customer violence and why it may be on the rise. Drawing from models of behaviour, we propose solutions to address it. However, due to the lack of evidence, we encourage retailers to collaborate in discovering what works. There will be an opportunity to meet with Leonie and initiate discussions on collaboration at her round table following this presentation.

Leonie is Head of Crime & Security at the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) where her work focuses on reducing crime and improving national security. She is an expert in behavioural science and behaviour change having worked with a wide range of clients at BIT for over 6 years across the private and public sectors. In her previous roles, she has worked with clients on organisational and workplace equity challenges, including bullying & harassment.

Peter Lucas
National Disruptive Unit

Building for the future: setting the Group Protective Security Risk Management Strategy

Developing the Risk Management Strategy for UK’s leading partner to the construction industry

Join Peter for this unmissable session in which he will share how Travis Perkins’ protective security strategy was overhauled from the ground up to become fit for purpose in a dynamic and changing sector. He will look at the overall strategy and how it was created and articulated. He will take you through understanding the security risk universe; how to measure, assess and treat the security risk; how to devise frameworks and policies; how to obtain board-level buy-in for a revised mandate and programme; how to measure success; and what your audience wants to know, when.

About Peter
During his 34-year risk management career, Pete has held positions with some of the world’s most innovative retailers throughout Europe and the Middle East. He also served with Airborne Forces and was an infantry Warrant Officer, serving on operations including Belize and Afghanistan. Pete has a Master’s Degree in Business Continuity, Security and Emergency Management and is a Chartered Security Professional and a Fellow of the Security Institute.

Pete has worked in senior roles with a diverse list of top international brands and organisations, including: Bloomingdales, Harvey Nicholls, Gap, Banana Republic, Armani, Balenciaga, Jimmy Choo, Coach, AMQ, Crate & Barrel, BHS, Topshop, Macro, H&M, Starbucks, Caffe Nero, King’s College Hospital, Cinepolis, Ford, JLR, Ferrari and Maserati. Pete is now the Head of Group Security at Travis Perkins.

Pete was voted Risk Director of the Year at the Fraud Awards in October 2023. He has chaired and spoken at numerous Retail Risk conferences across four continents. He is committed to professionalising the industry, was Vice Chair of ASIS Dubai, and the Security Institute’s Middle East Members’ Group and serves on various national and global industry groups as a volunteer leader. He is currently part of the NPSA security apprenticeship trailblazer group.

Jamas Hodivala KC
Business Crime and Regulatory Barrister
Matrix Chambers

Criminality in supply chains: are EU serious?

New EU supply chain due diligence requirements risk exposing companies to allegations of money laundering

In this presentation, Jamas Hodivala KC explains a recent Court of Appeal decision which confirms that revenue from the sale of goods made using forced labour can amount to money laundering, and looks at how new EU supply chain due diligence requirements risk exposing companies and their senior managers to civil and criminal allegations of money laundering. What should companies do?

Jamas will host a round table discussion after the presentation.

Geoffrey Northcott
Founder & Director
RLPSSS

Shop theft, a new approach on an old idea

Focusing on the handlers and resellers of stolen goods is a better way to tackle shop theft

In his presentation Geoffrey will be talking about dealing with 2nd level criminals. In all shop theft there are 3 levels of criminality: level 1 the ‘thief’, level 2 the ‘handler’ and level 3 the ‘purchaser’. He will put forward the proposition that retailers, police and the legal system have focused too much resource and time on level 1 criminality with little effect, and that with less resource and better collaboration retailers and police would have a far greater impact on theft from shops by focusing on the ‘handlers’ / ‘resellers’. 

Geoffrey has 35 years of retail security and safety, loss prevention and asset protection experience. He started out as a store detective with J Sainsburys and ended his retail career as the Senior Director of Loss Prevention for EMEA and APAC with Capri group (Michael Kors, Versace and Jimmy Choo). 

He is currently the founder and director of RLPSSS (Retail Loss Prevention Security and Safety Services).

Jim Taylor
Head of Unit
Opal SOAC

Paul Street
Physical Security Operations Lead
Three UK

Peter Page
Head of Group Security
Travis Perkins

Chris Thoday
Police Inspector
Surrey Police

Working with Opal

A panel discussion exploring how retail and police are getting to grips with organised retail crime

Opal is National Policing’s intelligence unit for serious and organised acquisitive crime. It’s working increasingly closely with retail to target organised crime groups. This panel discussion brings a retailer perspective on working with Opal, a view from policing on the front line, and an update from the Head of Opal on future plans.

Paul Street

Paul works as the Physical Security Operations Lead at Three UK. His role involves managing a team countering physical threats to company assets and personnel, which includes providing proactive and reactive physical security services in relation to Three’s Data Centre infrastructure, RAN, Core Offices, and Retail Estates.

A large part of his role is working within retail to investigate Burglaries, Robberies, OCG related Thefts, and working with law enforcement agencies to identify, catch and convict these offenders.

Paul has 18.5 years of Policing experience, having served as a Sergeant and Inspector in a rural Police Force. Here he specialised in targeting County Lines Drug Supply, Organised Crime Groups and has extensive experience within Public Order Policing.

Paul established a nationally recognised blueprint for combatting County Lines drug dealing through an authored paper ‘To Catch a Cuckoo’ and presented at national conferences to spread best practice. He developed internal processes regarding the policing of vulnerable persons involved in drug dealing and ‘cuckooing’ activities, from external geographical areas.

Peter Page

Holder of this year’s Risk Director of the Year title (UK Fraud Awards), Peter has a 34-year risk management career having held positions with some of the world’s most innovative retailers throughout Europe and the Middle East. He also served with Airborne Forces and was an infantry Warrant Officer, serving on operations including Belize and Afghanistan. Pete has a Master’s Degree in Business Continuity, Security and Emergency Management and is a Chartered Security Professional and a Fellow of the Security Institute.

Pete has worked in senior roles with a diverse list of top international brands and organisations, including: Bloomingdales, Harvey Nicholls, Gap, Banana Republic, Armani, Balenciaga, Jimmy Choo, Coach, AMQ, Crate & Barrel, BHS, Topshop, Macro, H&M, Starbucks, Caffe Nero, King’s College Hospital, Cinepolis, Ford, JLR, Ferrari and Maserati. Pete is now the Head of Group Security at Travis Perkins in the UK.

Peter has chaired and spoken at numerous Retail Risk conferences across four continents. He is committed to professionalising the industry, was Vice Chair of ASIS Dubai, and the Security Institute’s Middle East Members’ Group and serves on various UK and global industry groups as a volunteer leader. He is currently part of the NPSA security apprenticeship trailblazer group.

Chris Thoday

Chris has just under 20 years of policing experience. His current role is Police Inspector for the Northern Investigation Team based out of Staines Police Station. Within this role he line manages a team of 6 Sergeants, 30 Police Constables and 6 Civilian Investigators. The team is responsible for investigating all PIP1 offences across North Surrey which includes shoplifting and other retail crime.

Within the last 12 months the team has successfully worked with Opal, the national policing’s intelligence unit for serious and organised acquisitive crime, to target an organised crime group targeting Tesco stores around the UK. The team has successfully prosecuted thefts totalling £200k which resulted in combined sentences of 9 years for those involved. The team continues to investigate several other groups / individuals targeting high street stores.

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