The CSFI is headed by a Governing Council which sets the overall direction for the Centre and reviews its acitivities.

The Council is chaired by Sir Malcolm Williamson, chairman of Friends Life Group plc.  He is also chairman of Invicta Card Services Ltd, the Cass Business School Strategy and Development Board and the Board of Trustees for The Prince’s Youth Business International. He was previously chairman of Clydesdale Bank plc, National Australia Group Europe Limited, Signet Jewelers Limited, CDC Group plc and Britannic Group plc.

Other members of the Council are:

Sir Brian Pearse is chairman of the CSFI's trustees and former chairman of the Governing Council. He is also a former finance director of Barclays, and former chief executive of Midland Bank.

Sir David Bell (also a trustee) is a non-executive director of the Economist.  He retired as a director of Pearson plc and Chairman of the Financial Times at the end of 2009 after 13 years on the Board.

Geoffrey Bell is the founder and secretary of the Group of Thirty, and President of Geoffrey Bell and Company in New York.

Rudi Bogni is Chairman of Northill UK, an independent director of Moody’s (UK, FR, D) and a trustee of LGT and the educational charity Common Purpose. During his career he was an executive committee member and treasurer of Midland Bank plc and an executive board member and global head of private banking of UBS AG.

Philip Brown is Managing Director  Risk for Citi Microfinance. He is a member of the Advisory Council of the Centre for Financial Inclusion, and a former Chairman of the Strategic Planning Society.

Bill Dalton was an executive director of HSBC Holdings plc from 1998, global head of personal financial Services until May 2004 and chief executive of HSBC Bank plc until January 2004.

Sir David Davies is active in the charitable sector, including the Global Leadership Foundation, St Catherine’s Foundation and the Wexford Festival Opera.  He is also closely associated with the University of Oxford. During his career he was Chairman of EFG Private Bank, Chairman and Chief Executive of Johnson Matthey, Chairman of Imry Merchant Developers plc and Deputy Chairman and CEO of Hill Samuel.

Dr. Abdullah Ibrahim El-Kuwaiz is a former deputy finance Minister in Saudi Arabia and former ambassador to Bahrain. He was also executive director of the Islamic Development Bank, general manager of GIB, CEO of the Arab Monetary Fund and associate secretary-general of the GCC.

Charles Goodhart is Professor Emeritus at the London School of Economics. He was one of the first external members of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee and was a co-founder, with Mervyn King, of the LSE's Financial Markets Group. He developed Goodhart's Law, which states that  'Any observed statistical regulatory will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes.' His latest book, published last year by Cambridge University Press, is The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision: A History of the Early Years 1974-1997.

John Heimann is a former chairman of and senior advisor to the Basel-based Financial Stability Institute (which he helped set up). He is also a former US Comptroller of the Currency and chairman of Merrill Lynch's global financial institutions group.

John Hitchins is a senior banking partner in PwC LLP and leads PwC's Global Accounting Consulting Services Group. He previously led PwC's Banking & Capital markets Practice and is a former board member of the Financial Services Faculty of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and former chairman of  the Institute's Banking Committee.

René Karsenti is president and a member of the board of directors of ICMA. He is a former director general of finance of the European Investment Bank and treasurer of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Henry Kaufman is president of Henry Kaufman & Company in New York. He is a former managing director at Salomon Brothers, Inc.

Sir Andrew Large is a founding partner of Systemic Policy Partnership LLP.  He is a former deputy governor at the Bank of England.

Robin Monro-Davies (also a trustee) is a former CEO of Fitch Ratings.  Since his retirement, he has held various non-executive board roles at AXA, HSBC and Assured Guaranty, where is he currently chairman.

Rick Murray is chairman of the Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness, a program of the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington, and head of the "Dynamics of Liability Regimes" program for the Geneva Association, having recently retired as chief claims strategist of Swiss Reinsurance in Zurich .

John Plender is a columnist at the Financial Times.

David Potter is a former chief executive officer of Guinness Mahon Holdings and deputy chairman of Investec Bank (UK) Ltd. He is currently chairman of Spark Ventures and Quercus Publishing. He is a fellow of King's College London.

Mark Robson is head of the Bank of England's statistics and regulatory data division. He is also an honorary research fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, the honorary treasurer of the Royal Economic Society and a board member of the Higher Education Funding Council for England.

David Rule is a director of the Prudential Regulatory Authority/Bank of England responsible for supervision of large international UK banks.

Sir Brian Williamson is a non-executive director of HSBC Holdings plc and  a director of NYSE,  Euronext Inc.

Peter Wilson-Smith is a senior consultant at Quiller Consultants. He is also chairman of the Oxford School of Drama. He was previously editor-in-chief and publishing director of Financial News.