Meet the Board

Nick Bishop as Chairman of its Board of Directors.

Mr. Bishop was appointed to the chairmanship role by the newly formed Board of Directors of BVI Finance for 2021.

Mr. Bishop has over 30 years of experience within the financial services industry, including senior leadership roles across Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Mr. Bishop joined Trident Trust as appointed Chief Operating Officer in 2018, then promoted to Regional Managing Director in 2019. Trident Trust is a global corporate, fiduciary and fund administrator. He has been sitting on BVI Finance’s Board of Directors since 2019.

Charlotte Bailey is Global Head of Conyers Corporate Services.

Charlotte is a qualified Australian lawyer and has over 15 years of experience providing both corporate, fiduciary and director services whilst working for large and medium sized international legal, trust and fiduciary services companies.

Charlotte has extensive experience in multiple jurisdictions, including Australia, Jersey, the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands.

Charlotte was previously Managing Director of a large leading corporate service provider in the BVI where she held authority for daily and strategic operations of that business. As Managing Director, Charlotte was responsible for the strategic growth of the company, from an operational efficiency perspective to growing and expanding the business.

Charlotte has held several public positions including the Chairman of the Association of Registered Agents in the BVI and is currently a Director of BVI Finance. Charlotte is also a solicitor of the Supreme Court of Queensland and a ICSA qualified Chartered Company Secretary.

Sabinah Clement is the Managing Director of Intertrust Group’s BVI office which provides full service corporate, fiduciary and trust administration services for BVI entities. She has over 20 years’ experience within the financial services industry in senior leadership positions and has served on a number of consultative committees and sub-committees for BVI Finance over the years.

Sabinah’s qualifications include LL.M in Law and Corporate Governance from University of Portsmouth, Graduate Diploma in Law from University of Liverpool, and MBA from University of the West Indies. She is also a Fellow of the Chartered Governance Institute UK & Ireland.

Russell Crumpler is a Senior Managing Director with Teneo in the BVI, having joined Teneo following its acquisition of KPMG’s BVI Restructuring business.

Prior to joining Teneo, Russell was the Managing Director of Restructuring at KPMG in the BVI and the Head of Restructuring for KPMG’s Islands Group. Russell is a JIEB qualified FCA who has led the advisory team in the BVI since 2011 and has been working as a restructuring and insolvency specialist since 2000. He is a licensed insolvency practitioner in the BVI and the former chair of RISA (BVI) Limited, the BVI’s INSOL member organisation.

Russell has acted on some of the highest profile BVI Insolvency appointments of recent years including the main Luckin Coffee shareholder entities, Exential, Peak Hotels and Resorts, Titan and Victory Life. Together with his team Russell also delivers Corporate Finance, Forensic and other solutions for clients. Russell regularly speaks at industry conferences both in the BVI and internationally.

Russell has a broad range of restructuring experience, acting in a number of high profile multi-jurisdictional engagements that have involved recognition issues, litigation, asset tracing and other complex matters.

Simon joined Vistra in February 2013 and is currently the Global Lead, Company Formation.

He has more than 20 years of senior management experience in the fiduciary services industry and has considerable experience in the areas of corporate business, trusts and investment business. Simon is regularly consulted by regulators and governments on financial services matters, and has served on numerous industry committees, especially in the BVI. He is a frequent speaker at industry events, is recognized as a thought leader, and has been a driving force in the influential Vistra 2020 series, Vistra's flagship research on the corporate services industry.

Simon has a Bachelor of Arts Honours degree from the University of Manchester in the UK, is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators, and a Member of the Society of Trust & Estate Practitioners.  He was born and educated in the UK, is a long-term resident of the BVI, and is currently seconded to the UAE.

As a native Hong Kong with extensive experience and technical knowledge in Australia and Hong Kong and fluent in English, Cantonese and Mandarin, Johnny is an insolvency and forensic accountant having acted in a wide range of forensic matters and insolvency and restructuring regime.

Johnny’s experience covers matters that have included company and personal affairs in Australia, Hong Kong, China, the United States of America, the British Virgin Islands and the Channel Islands.

Johnny is qualified as a CPA in Hong Kong and Australia, Certified Fraud Examiner and Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist.

Lisa Penn-Lettsome is the Executive Director of International Business with the Government of the Virgin Islands. This follows 13 years as Senior Counsel and Head of Regulation with an international law firm. Mrs. Penn-Lettsome is no stranger to public service having previously held the positions of Deputy Registrar of High Court, Acting Magistrate, Registrar of Companies, Deputy Managing Director of the Financial Services Commission and Acting Deputy Governor of the Government of the Virgin Islands.

She is also a past President of the BVI Bar Association, first chairman of the Financial Investigations Agency and first Secretary of the BVI Reporting Authority and served on numerous Boards and committees.

She holds a Master of Laws from the School of Financial Services of the University of New South Wales, Australia, a Bachelor of Laws (Hons) from the University of the West Indies, and an International Diploma in Compliance from the University of Manchester Business School and the International Compliance Association.

Jeffrey Kirk is the managing partner of the Appleby British Virgin Islands office and he leads the BVI office Corporate Practice Group. He advises on public and private M&A, capital markets, banking & finance, investment funds & services, private equity, (re)insurance and other corporate matters. He is also the global head of the Appleby Islamic Finance Practice Group. Jeffrey has worked in the Appleby London, Bermuda, Hong Kong and BVI offices and has extensive experience advising on the laws of the BVI, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.

His pre-Appleby experience includes being in practice at leading London law firms, in-house counsel at Lloyd´s of London and at an international asset management group and general counsel for a leading underwriting firm.

Jeffrey is a frequent speaker and panellist at seminars and conferences including AFSIC (Africa Financial Services Investment Conference, London), Business BVI Outlook, the Fund Forum Asia, Islamic Finance News Hong Kong Road Show, Business Bermuda and the Islamic Real Estate World Asia Conference. He is often interviewed and invited to write articles on all aspects of offshore finance, hedge funds, (re)insurance, SPVs and other corporate issues and has contributed to numerous publications including The Lawyer, the Hedge Fund Journal, China Offshore, Banking Today, Bloomberg; Asia Insurance Review, Middle East Insurance Review, Legal Week, Business Today, the Bermuda Royal Gazette and the China Business Law Journal. He is a co-author of the BVI chapter of the Asset Management Review.

His memberships include being a member of the Hong Kong Insurance Law Association, the Bermuda Bar Association, the Law Society of Hong Kong (registered foreign lawyer), the Law Society of England & Wales (non-practicing) and the Law Society of the Northern Provinces (South Africa) (non-practicing) and he is also admitted to practice as a solicitor in the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (British Virgin Islands).

In the 2020 Chambers Global listings, Jeffrey was regarded by commentators as a “sensible operator” and was held in high regard for his depth of knowledge and long-standing client relationships. IFLR1000 2020 has ranked Jeffrey as “highly regarded”.

Lorna Smith, OBE, was the Executive Director of BVI Finance. She is also the founder and Chief Executive Officer of LGS and Associates. Ms. Smith has more than three decades of experience at the highest levels of the public service in the British Virgin Islands. Over the course of her senior-level service, Ms. Smith developed extensive relationships with leaders from the business community, international NGO’s and government leaders from around the world.

Ms. Smith was the lead consultant in the negotiations of Tax Information Exchange Agreements with fourteen OECD countries on behalf of the Turks and Caicos Islands and Anguilla. She was also retained by the World Bank and thereafter the Commonwealth Secretariat to assist Member States of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) in meeting the international tax standard set by the OECD which they did with her assistance.

Ms. Smith was assigned to promote the territory’s interests in Asia by establishing BVI Asia House in Hong Kong. Previously she served as the first BVI Director of the London Office - the equivalent of a Diplomatic Mission.

A dynamic and engaging speaker, Ms. Smith regularly undertakes various speaking engagements. She is a regular speaker at conferences on financial services related matters as well as a contributor to various publications in the same area.

Ms. Smith was the first Director of BVI International Finance Centre - now called BVI Finance - which is charged with promoting the BVI Financial Services. Ms. Smith worked in close collaboration with the private sector, mounting promotional events world wide in funds, captive insurance, corporate business and trusts. Today, the BVI is recognized as one of the best regulated jurisdictions and a premier centre for international business.

George Weston is a partner in Harney's Corporate Practice Group and advises on all aspects of BVI corporate and commercial law, including mergers and acquisitions, takeovers, downstream private equity investments, joint ventures, public and private share offerings, capital raisings and corporate reorganisations. Although he works with clients in a wide range of industry sectors across the globe, George has particular expertise working with leading law firms and private equity investors on cross-border corporate acquisitions and joint ventures with a technology or real estate element, and leads our BVI hospitality sector group.

Prior to joining Harneys, George spent seven years in the London office of Paul Hastings, where he worked on a number of high profile corporate transactions and completed a secondment at JP Morgan Chase.