Rising to today's new ethical challenges

Mark Babington, Executive Director – Regulatory Standards, Financial Reporting Council
Mark Babington is the executive director of regulatory standards at the Financial Reporting Council. Mark led the FRC’s UK audit policy programme, measures to support greater competition in the UK audit market and work to support the reform of international standard setting for auditors, by global regulatory authorities. Mark is also a member of the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants and chairs its Sustainability Task Force.

Patricia Barker, Lecturer in Business Ethics, Dublin City University
As well as being a part-time lecturer in business ethics at Dublin City University, Pat Barker is also chair of the audit committees of Dublin Bus, The Marine Institute, Tallaght Hospital and Rehab Group.

Sarah Lane, Head of Ethics and Assurance, ACCA
Sarah is head of ethics and assurance within ACCA’s Policy and Insights team, representing ACCA globally in ethics across different countries and industries, including ACCA’s Global Ethics Forum. She leads ACCA’s policy on ethics and assurance matters, contributing to policy and insights thought leadership publications and responses to consultations in relation to ethics and assurance. In this work, Sarah takes a holistic view on how our fundamental principles underpin ethics for professional accountants, reflecting the professions recognition of its public interest responsibility.

Before joining ACCA, Sarah worked in risk and compliance across various industries. Sarah has a degree in Business Studies and prior to joining ACCA, began her career in auditing and accounting across various industries and countries, including KPMG Dublin specialising in auditing clients, mainly within the financial services industry before consulting for Mazars. Sarah has also worked with Chartered Accountants Ireland on a technical basis and is a Fellow of CAI.

Cristina Gutu, Director, KPMG Romania & Moldova
Cristina is a director in advisory services and learning & development at KPMG in Romania. She also chairs ACCA’s Global Forum for Ethics and has been an ACCA Council member since 2018.