Lee Jones
Lee Jones
Lee Jones is Head of Connect – Newport. Previously, he was Local Director for Lloyds Community Bank in West Wales, having previously held roles across Community Bank including Local Director for Bristol, Bank Manager for Fulham, Central London and Bank Manager of Swansea’s Oxford Street branch.
Lee is married to Jan, a self-employed fitness instructor and artist, and they have 3 children – Hannah, James & Abbie. Fanatical about football, rugby and other sports Lee played for the Lloyds Bank National Football side and toured New Zealand as a lions fan in 2005. He also likes movies, fine dining and is a big fan of Game of Thrones.
Marco Jetmir Ndrecaj
Marco Jetmir Ndrecaj
A multi-award winning senior leader driven by a genuine passion for our amazing industry, the fantastic people that work in it and the exciting technological innovation and transformational journey we are all currently on.
You can find out more about Marco via his LinkedIn profile.
Sandra Busby
@sandrabusby
@cnectwales
Sandra Busby
As well as being the figurehead for an industry that pumps over £650m into the Welsh economy each year, anchoring many of Wales’ largest financial and professional services companies to the country Cnect Wales also manage the two European Funded Welsh Graduate Programmes.
Sandra has been a board member of several organisation that shape the way businesses operate in Wales including chair of women’s economic development agency Chwarae Teg. After a successful career in the newspaper world, Sandra became managing director of the Cardiff and Newport Call Centre Initiative before setting up Cnect Wales in 2004, a high value employers’ forum which looks after the interests of the 30,000 people and over 250 centres which make up one of the country’s most vibrant industries. Sandra is a regular speaker on business issues in the media and at events across the country.
Mike Hill
Mike Hill
Michael currently works for Sky TV as their Head of Sales Operations. During his time at Sky Michael managed the relationship with their outsource partners based in Cardiff. In July 2019 he supervised the TUPE of two partner sites into Sky, creating an 800 head contact centre working across multiple inbound and outbound retention channels.
Michael has over 15 years’ experience in outsourcing and has worked for many of the leading BPO companies. For instance he worked on one of the world’s largest disease litigation schemes when working for Capita. Prior to moving to Sky TV Michael spent five years at Firstsource Solutions as their General Manager overseeing multiple campaigns for leading global brands.
Michael’s sites have achieved eSat scores in excess of 90%. Michael is highly passionate about fostering contact centre environments that focus on inclusion, diversity and wellbeing.
Depesh Nathwani
Depesh Nathwani
Louise Phillips
Louise Phillips
An experienced, inspirational leader with 25 years’ experience within customer-focused industries, 11 years running large contact centre operations spanning multiple, complex service functions. Extensive experience leading large scale organisational redesigns across multiple functions, creating credible structures linked to operational strategy, capability requirements and future resource needs. A strong ability to deliver innovative transformation and to lead brilliant teams. Success driven and rewarded by making a difference. A passion for both leading and participating as part of successful and productive teams in new and challenging work environments.
Carol Roberts
Carol Roberts
Carol Roberts is Director of Customer Operations for Starling Bank. She’s held leadership roles in customer service, contact centres and operations for over 20 years and has a passion for driving innovation, delivering exceptional customer service and an outstanding colleague experience.
Claire Chesters
Claire Chesters
Claire is a director in Business Support at Deloitte, leading the senior executive assistant community and the Leadership Support Centre in the UK and Hyderabad. She also serves as a firmwide Respect & Inclusion advisor. Since joining Deloitte in 2010, Claire has held roles spanning regulatory risk, operations management, project management, and business partnering, giving her deep experience in running large, complex teams. She holds an MA in Modern Languages from Oxford University and is passionate about people, purpose, inclusion, and staff engagement.
Laura Alexander
Laura Alexander
Laura Alexander has been Head of Data Services at Hodge since 2021. A strategic and lateral thinker with exceptional leadership skills, Laura has an authentic style when maximizing data as a strategic asset at Hodge. In this role, she has played a key part in fostering a data-centric culture that supports strategic decision-making, enhances customer experience and strengthens governance. She leads a multi-disciplinary team across data governance, science and analytics and is a trusted voice on the executive leadership team. Her career journey began with analytical and operational roles at SSE, followed by senior posts at Target Group, before joining Hodge.
Matt Wintle
Matt Wintle
Matt is an experienced executive and leader who currently looks after the Talent teams for Admiral UK. Matt spent much of his earlier career working in Technology.
Having worked with senior leaders for many years Matt has developed a love for working with and developing people to be the best that they can be. To that end Matt also works as a coach to executives and senior leaders both inside and outside of Admiral.
Matt achieved a distinction in his MBA at Cardiff University in 2017, having previously graduated university with a BA in English and Philosophy. Matt became a qualified exec coach in 2025 achieving his ILM7 in Coaching.
Outside of work Matt seeks to push himself having completed several long-distance triathlons, 45 marathons, 12 ultra-marathons and the Legendary Marathon Des Sables. He also coaches his local junior football team.
