Helen Kavanagh

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

ABOUT HELEN KAVANAGH

A lawyer and leading insolvency professional, Helen was a partner at (now) Squire Patton Boggs. She now uses her passion and wide-ranging experience to help regulatory and professional bodies deliver the highest standards; from setting professional standards and examining them; sitting on disciplinary tribunals; to the awarding and removal of licences. Throughout her career Helen has been actively involved with insolvency and accountancy bodies, including chairing regional committees. She continues to be part of the ACCA and IPA’s regulatory teams, amongst others. She is trusted and highly respected for her technical skills and judgement. Achievements in these roles include - Explaining technical issues and practices to lay members on tribunals, to ensure fair decisions - Analysing vast quantities of information, identifying critical arguments for both prosecution and defence in tribunals and applying regulations - Mentoring new members of committees, at the request of chairs - Input to legislative consultations, ensuring legislation can be implemented as intended – achieving amendment to Enterprise Act Helen continues to ‘horizon scan’ on regulatory issues, assessing what professionals will need to know and delivering innovative training through blogs, articles, conferences and forums. Commissioning editor for Corporate Rescue + Insolvency journal, she also writes for LexisNexis journals with commentary and analysis of insolvency and restructuring law. An ‘adopted accountant’, Helen is one of a small number of lawyers to have qualified with the Joint Insolvency Examination Board, the qualification for licensed insolvency practitioners. Helen has taken a number of training courses to ensure impartiality in her regulatory roles, including unconscious bias, collaborative working, effective questioning and active listening, presentation of decisions on complex cases and practising the values of the Nolan principles.