Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)
The UK financial regulator has made senior appointments to drive its transformation.
Stephanie Cohen will be the FCA’s chief operating 0fficer and Jessica Rusu will join the FCA as its first chief data, information and intelligence officer.
Cohen brings over two decades of experience in large financial services firms, including 14 years at BlackRock where she was the global chief operating officer for the active equity businesses and the alpha strategies division.
Rusu was previously a chief data officer at Chetwood Financial.
They will both join in June.
Also, Sarah Pritchard will become executive director of markets, while Emily Shepperd will take up the newly created role of executive director of authorisations.
Pritchard joins from the National Economic Crime Centre, where she is director. Shepperd was most recently director of customer services and change at Aegon UK and before that Emea chief operating officer for Bank of New York Mellon.
The FCA has also appointed Clare Cole as director of market oversight.
Cole has been acting director since December and has worked at the FCA since 2003.
Ascentric
The platform business of M&G Wealth has named Richard Denning as chief executive.
Denning, who joined the business in 2020, has been interim chief executive of Ascentric since December 2020, following the departure of Rob Regan.
The appointment is subject to regulatory approval.
HSBC
The banking giant will spend over $3.5bn (£2.47bn, €2.86bn) in the next five years to meet its ambition to become the leading wealth bank in Asia.
It will hire around 5,000 customer-facing staff, such as relationship managers, investment counsellors and specialists to boost distribution capabilities in Hong Kong, mainland China, and Singapore; enhance its digital wealth capabilities and platforms across the region; and develop new products for its high net worth and ultra-high net worth clients.
Specifically, it will recruit up to 3,000 wealth planners to scale its mobile wealth planning service in mainland China, which was launched in mid-2020 to reach new clients outside of the branch network.
To date, there are over 200 new wealth planners in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
Quintet Private Bank
The bank has named Philip Tremble as group chief risk officer.
Tremble most recently served for eight years as chief risk officer of global private banking at HSBC.
Defaqto
The financial information and technology business has hired John Milliken to succeed Zahid Bilgrami as chief executive.
After operating as Defaqto’s chief executive for the last eight years, Bilgrami will step down at the end of March.
Milliken was most recently chief executive of Speechmatics.
AHR Private Wealth
The international advisory firm has appointed Claudia Hermosa to lead its Latin American advice team.
Hermosa joins AHR following 14 years in various banking roles both in her native Bolivia before and, more recently, in Canada where she was the ambassador for multi-cultural banking at ScotiaBank.
Equilibrium Financial Planning
Gaynor Rigby will step down from her role as managing partner at the financial advice in the summer.
She did not confirm where she will be going.
Rigby has been at the business since 2010.
Investec Wealth & Investment (IWI)
The wealth firm has named Nicola Toyer as head of charities, Alex Charalambous as regional director of private clients for southern region and Stewart Teague as head of commercial transformation and product development.
Toyer joined the charities team at Investec as an Investment Manager in 2019, with 10 years of previous experience.
Charalambous also arrived at Investec in 2019, having spent 16 years in private banking in London and California.
Teague has 25 years of experience in the UK financial services market.
Also, Louise Hall is leaving Investec, where she has worked for 31 years, most recently as an executive director of the wealth business.
SimplyBiz
The adviser support business has appointed Davinia Rogers to the newly created role of investment services director.
Rogers joined The SimplyBiz Group in 2012, leading sales and marketing for Verbatim Asset Management.
She previously held senior management and sales roles over nine years at Aegon.
Latitude Investment Management
Jacopo Di Nardo has joined the investment team as a senior analyst and James Foster has joined as chief operating officer.
Di Nardo was most recently at Makuria Investments, where he worked as an equity analyst. Foster was previously head of perations at Albert Bridge Capital.
Castlefield
The UK investment firm has appointed John Alexander to lead its client engagement team.
He joins from Tilney, where he was a director.
Brook Asset Management
The investment firm has hired Sophia Whitbread as assistant portfolio manager of its Global Emerging Markets strategy.
Whitbread joins from Newton where she was a portfolio manager, working with Robert Marshall- Lee.
