Helen Brand

Helen Brand is chief executive of ACCA, the global body for professional accountants. Since taking up the role in 2008, Helen has led ACCA through a period of global growth which has seen its membership double to more than quarter of a million. ACCA’s diverse and inclusive community has expanded to cover 180 countries, and also includes more than half a million future members.

Helen is a passionate advocate of the role of accountants in driving an ethical, sustainable and inclusive approach to business and the public sector, and is a frequent speaker on these issues. She has widened ACCA’s role in advancing the profession and contributing to the public good, for example through its pioneering work to support the development of the profession in emerging economies and its leadership in developing the skills needed for sustainability reporting and assurance.

She was a founding member of the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) and played a role in its successor organisations.

Helen is also a member of the UK government’s Professional and Business Services Council, and has participated in a number of trade advisory forums and university advisory boards. In 2022, under India’s leadership, she was a member of the B20 Task Force on the future of Work, Skills and Mobility and in June 2023 she joined the Board of the UK-ASEAN Business Council (UKABC).

Helen was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in June 2011 for services to accountancy and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Exeter in December 2017.

Alan Hatfield

Alan Hatfield is executive director of content, quality and innovation at ACCA.

Alan leads our development of forward-thinking content and solutions across education, learning, professional insights research and brand. This includes responsibility for innovation in the ACCA Qualification, and supports the careers, professional development and studies of ACCA’s 241,000 members and 542,000 future members across 178 countries.

Alan’s background is in professional education where he has over 25 years’ experience leading teams in creating and launching qualifications and development programs.

He is a member of the International Federation of Accountants’ (IFAC) International Panel for Accountancy Education.

Alan is a graduate of Glasgow University and a member of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators. He holds an MBA (with distinction) from Oxford Brookes University.

Julie Hotchkiss

Julie Hotchkiss was appointed to the ACCA executive team in November 2018 and now holds the role of executive director - people and transformation. In this role, Julie is responsible for ensuring the people agenda and major change activities are fully aligned to enable the organisation’s strategy.

Prior to this, Julie was the director – Europe and Americas, where she had a key role in growing and maintaining ACCA’s international footprint and reputation. In this strategic leadership role, Julie played her part in developing the accountancy profession, working with members, students, employers and national professional accounting organisations in a wide range of countries.

Julie joined ACCA in 2014 as director of customer service, where she ran ACCA’s 24-hours-a-day, 365-days-a-year customer service centre, ACCA Connect, and exam operations worldwide from the body’s global operational centre in Glasgow. Before joining ACCA, Julie had worked in local government, insurance and utilities.

Raymond Jack

Raymond Jack joined us in January 2013 as our executive director - finance and operations.

He is a former executive director of Scottish Power Energy Retail, where he also held posts including sales and marketing director and business transformation director. Raymond began his career at Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC), where he spent 12 years largely specialising in corporate finance, recovery and consulting.

A chartered accountant, he also has a degree in accountancy and a Master's degree from the University of Cambridge.  

Maggie McGhee

Maggie leads ACCA’s development of strategy and ACCA’s corporate governance arrangements and the governance of ACCA members and students.

Our integrated thinking and integrated reporting, reinforcing that being a force for public good is at the heart of what we do. ACCA’s corporate governance arrangements and the governance of ACCA members and students are fundamental in ensuring we actively supporting ethics and integrity in the profession.

With a background in audit and technical accounting, Maggie was previously the Director of Professional Insights at ACCA, where she led a team of technical and policy experts to support ACCA’s global thought leadership agenda.

Before joining ACCA, Maggie worked for PwC in the Advanced Regulatory and Compliance Analytics area applying specialist analytics tool to clients in the banking and capital markets sector.

A chartered accountant with a degree in law, Maggie trained with the National Audit Office UK where she was the Director General of Audit. With over 18 years’ experience of auditing central government bodies, Maggie’s engaged extensively across the audit and accounting profession, both within the UK and internationally, to influence sector developments. As part of this work, Maggie’s been a member of a number of working groups and committees including the Accountancy Europe’s Public Sector Working Group, the EU European Public Sector Accounting Standards (EPSAS) Working Group; HM Treasury’s Financial Reporting Advisory Board in the UK; and the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) Audit and Assurance Council.

Lucia Real Martin

Lucia Real-Martin is the Executive Director, Relationships for ACCA. In her role, Lucia is accountable for the development and advancement of ACCA’s relationships in our markets, contributing to growing ACCA’s influence around the world.

Reporting to the Chief Executive, and part of the Executive Team, Lucia leads the implementation of ACCA’s strategy through ACCA’s relationships and partnerships for ACCA’s markets. Lucia and her team contribute to the achievement of ACCA’s strategic balanced scorecard by leading Relationships teams globally in all the countries and regions where ACCA operates to support members and future members achieve their career goals while collaborating with partners to progress ACCA’s purpose and vision.

Lucia joined ACCA in 2010, as Director - Emerging Markets Asia developing ACCA’s emerging markets strategy throughout Asia. In 2014, Lucia assumed a global role for ACCA’s growing emerging markets managing over 40 countries and 12 offices. She has been a member of the Executive team since 2019.

Lucia has 28 years’ international business and strategy experience developing a global footprint for organisations in a number of sectors, with the last 18 years in the accounting profession. Lucia’s focus has been to build opportunities for the upskilling of finance and accounting professionals whilst developing the profession regionally and globally. She has built relationships with governments, regulators, employers and educators, first within the Australian accounting profession working in Asia Pacific, and now with ACCA globally.

Having always worked globally, Lucia has focused on strategic and sustainable partnerships, market strategy development, capacity building and leading global teams.

She was educated in Spain, UK and Australia with a Bachelor of Commerce, Bachelor of Marketing (Honours) and a Masters in Entrepreneurship & Innovation.