Meet Our Speakers: IPA Roadshow | Southampton 2026
Our Host
Yin Lee, President, IPA; Director, YLA
Yin is a Solicitor, licensed Insolvency Practitioner and Director at YLA. She has over 20 years’ experience focussing on business restructuring and insolvency. She enjoys the variety of the work insolvency brings together with the challenges of finding workable solutions for underperforming businesses. Through Yin’s position as President, she hopes to continue mentoring the next generation and opening the doors to increasingly diverse talent. Yin has a keen interest in football and sits on the Serious Disciplinary Panel and the Appeals Panel at the Football Association (FA).
Managing Difficult Bankruptcies
Ruhi Sethi Smith, Barrister, Forum Chambers
Ruhi has a thriving commercial and chancery practice which focuses company and insolvency disputes as well as fraud and asset recovery. Ruhi typically acts for administrators, liquidators, receivers, and trustees in bankruptcy on a wide range of insolvency applications, freezing injunctions and claims for misfeasance, wrongful trading and misappropriation of company funds.
Ruhi’s recent work includes advising liquidators in relation to claims from investors following the failure of care home development, resisting an application for setting aside a statutory demand for £90million owed under personal guarantees given by a director to obtain a loan, representing joint administrators on an application to sell a valuable property free of interests and advising on the validity and priority of securities and numerous remuneration applications on behalf of administrators and liquidators.
Ruhi is a very experienced advocate and clients have described Ruhi as ‘robust, personable and client friendly with high levels of detail.’ Ruhi was a solicitor before transferring to the bar and worked in a number of well-respected City firms and as a consequence is commercial and pragmatic in her approach.
UK Economic Overview
Andrew Holder, Agent for Central Southern England, Bank of England
Andrew has been Agent for Central Southern England since December 2015, having joined the Agency as Deputy Agent in August 2008. He joined the Bank in 2001, working in Head Office roles that included writing parts of the Bank’s quarterly Inflation Report, working with Chris Allsopp on his review of statistics for economic policymaking, and finally as Research Adviser to Andrew Sentance on the Monetary Policy Committee.
An Inspector Calls
Alan Limb, Inspector, IPA
Alan’s insolvency career began more than 30 years ago. He joined the IPA as an Inspector in 2020 and combines his own experience as an IP, having taken appointments for 14 years, with the assessment skills he developed when studying for a PGCE and qualifying as a Business Studies Teacher in 2019.
He has trained as a Mental Health First Aider and acts as the IPA’s Vulnerability Point of Contact, supporting IPs whose health is affected by their work and vice versa.
ICO Financial Investigations: Regulator and Creditor
Kerry Smith, Investigations Group Manager, ICO
Kerry Smith has worked at the ICO for twelve years. She currently manages the Financial Investigation Unit (FIU), a specialised team responsible for recovering significant civil monetary penalties and undertaking financial investigations under POCA. The FIU also undertakes further investigations into the individuals responsible for breaches of legislation and looks to identify opportunities for disruption and obstruction which can involve partnership working with other agencies.
Kerry has also managed the Privacy and Digital Marketing Investigation Teams. These teams are responsible for enforcement of the data sharing or trading and direct marketing provisions in the Data Protection Act and the Privacy and Electronic Communication Regulations. Prior to joining the ICO, Kerry worked for a number of organisations in various enforcement and intelligence roles, including HMRC.
Navigating Insolvency Risk: A National Overview Through a Southampton Lens
Charles Everitt, Governance and Technical Lead, HMRC
Charles joined HMRC in 2019 having spent over a decade building his insolvency experience in private practice. Currently working in Fraud Investigations Service’s Economic Crime team, which specialises in maximising the recoveries of the proceeds of crime and protecting against the threat of money laundering and terrorist finance. Charles and his team offer high quality specialist technical and strategic support to operational colleagues, building capability and driving innovation in all aspects of civil recovery and insolvency.
A Brush with the Law – Navigating the Need for Legal Advice as an IP
Mike Pavitt FABRP, Partner, Paris Smith LLP
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Andrew Mace, Barrister, Tanfield Chambers
Andrew was called to the Bar in 1997 and has been a partner in major City and International law firms.He obtained his JIEB qualification in 2007 and qualified as an international arbitrator in 2013.He has over 26 years’ experience in the insolvency, restructuring and turnaround arena and acts for officeholders, directors, funders and creditors.
He was a member of the stakeholder committee between 2011 and 2015 advising on the amendments to the Insolvency Rules which culminated in the Insolvency (England and Wales) Rules 2016
He has recently advised on Part 26 Restructuring Plans, successful challenges to CVAs as well as providing general insolvency and restructuring advice.
Andrew has recently updated the “Conduct of the Administration” and “Construction and Engineering Insolvencies” chapters in Tolley’s Insolvency Law and was a contributor to Doyle, Keay and Curl: Annotated Insolvency Legislation between 2019 and 2024. He regularly contributes to Lexis publications.
Mark Sands, Partner, Opus Business Advisory Group
bio tbc
Employment Rights Act 2025 – What You Need to Know
Claire Merritt, Partner, Paris Smith LLP
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Strategic Update from the Insolvency Service
Louise Chester, Deputy Head of Insolvency Practitioner Regulation, Insolvency Service
bio tbc