Working on a variety of business and process change projects in the financial services sector.

Providing:- Property investment consulting services and training.- Private lending opportunities.- Tax efficient wrapper for property trading projects.

As with most organisations, keeping existing clients happy is often much cheaper than finding new customers and so there is a constant need to satisfy client demand and provide new products and services.This client wished to implement a completely new cash deposit product. This necessitated constructing a complete Change Management programme which covered: • The onboarding of 5 external retail banks to launch the service offering• Consideration of Legal & Compliance… Show more As with most organisations, keeping existing clients happy is often much cheaper than finding new customers and so there is a constant need to satisfy client demand and provide new products and services.This client wished to implement a completely new cash deposit product. This necessitated constructing a complete Change Management programme which covered: • The onboarding of 5 external retail banks to launch the service offering• Consideration of Legal & Compliance requirements and regulations around Client Money rules, documentation and associated Risk Warnings.• Agreement with the 5 external retail banks on the AML and KYC procedures performed by the client.• Understanding the full front-to-back implications and designing a solution: From client enquiry, through documentation signing, client order, order execution and processing, client reporting and reconciliation, together with the appropriate checks and balances throughout to ensure nothing goes wrong. And if it does, what to do about it when it occurs (often overlooked).• Full training of impacted employees.• Get it all done within 5 months to meet internal deadlines.The result? An 8-figure increase in assets under management with a 6-figure fee income and importantly - satisfied clients.The volume of work together with the short time frame meant a largely manual solution to get the new product offering live. Following this, an automated workflow solution was developed, which made the whole process more efficient, quicker and gave less room for error. It also enabled the offering to be scaled with more provider retail banks leading to greater choice for the client.Do you have a new product or service you want to implement? Contact me on LinkedIn to understand how you can get that done. Show less

Many organisations in the financial services sector undergo constant change management programmes deemed mandatory by the regulatory authorities. In this case, the implementation of Solvency II. In a nutshell, this concerns the amount of capital an insurance company must hold to safeguard against their own insolvency.There can be many layers to a large change management programme and this was no exception. In particular, the Solvency II calculations rely on inputted data and as the… Show more Many organisations in the financial services sector undergo constant change management programmes deemed mandatory by the regulatory authorities. In this case, the implementation of Solvency II. In a nutshell, this concerns the amount of capital an insurance company must hold to safeguard against their own insolvency.There can be many layers to a large change management programme and this was no exception. In particular, the Solvency II calculations rely on inputted data and as the saying goes, "rubbish in, get rubbish out". So, a Data Quality Policy, Standards and associated guidelines were developed for the client to ensure data quality did not degrade as it moved through the organisation.Companies often come to rely on Excel spreadsheets. What usually starts out as a quick fix gets added to and bolted onto over time until the spreadsheets actually become critical to the business operations. However, when that happens, thought must be given to:• Who can change the formulas in the spreadsheet? More accurately, who should be allowed to?• What happens if someone accidentally corrupts the spreadsheet or deletes it all together?• What if we want to see the differences between earlier versions?These are the same questions asked of any IT development project, but tend to be neglected for user-generated systems such as spreadsheets. So, an End User Computing Policy, Standards and associated framework were put in place, to ensure that:• Only authorised staff could update.• Business-critical spreadsheets were automatically backed up.• Proper change procedures were established to control what changes were made.Is your business facing regulatory change? Or creaking under the weight of multiple spreadsheets? Or concerned about your data quality? Then contact me on LinkedIn to learn what steps to take to minimise your risk. Show less

Regulatory oversight is not always about new rules and regulations. Sometimes it concerns a companies internal processes and controls. In this case, the FSA wanted an overhaul of the front-office booking procedures and controls across various (and complicated) client offerings, including Exchange Traded Derivatives, Dual Currency Investments and Account Opening processes.The objective was to reduce the chance of getting a client order wrong and reduce the chance of something… Show more Regulatory oversight is not always about new rules and regulations. Sometimes it concerns a companies internal processes and controls. In this case, the FSA wanted an overhaul of the front-office booking procedures and controls across various (and complicated) client offerings, including Exchange Traded Derivatives, Dual Currency Investments and Account Opening processes.The objective was to reduce the chance of getting a client order wrong and reduce the chance of something going wrong in the client execution.Not all change management has to leverage complicated IT projects. In this case, the internal Outlook e-mail software was leveraged to develop some simple forms - this gives the appearance of a "proper" IT interface, but is in essence a clever interface to what is still, underneath, an email.The forms allowed the client to control:• What data was captured, making certain data mandatory.• Data validation: E.g. do we have a correct-looking client reference number with the correct format and number of digits?• Sanity checks: Does the order size or quantity seem reasonable? Particularly relevant for leveraged bets such as derivatives.• Processing: Is the order routing to the right team for execution?Although the resulting output is still an email, it now has all the relevant detail required for onward processing. This is more efficient and effective.But does everyone understand this? Or the implications of getting a client order wrong? Do the employees understand complex derivative or foreign exchange trades?Change is no good unless the employees understand it. So, a full training package (with associated benchmark tests) were developed, to ensure that all relevant employees were sufficiently trained for the task at hand.Do you need your existing processes re-thinking? Do your staff need training? Are in need of change management services? Contact me on LinkedIn to understand the importance of getting this right. Show less

All companies benefit from systemising processes:• It reduces processing time.• It reduces risk (wherever a process is manual you run the risk of errors occurring).• It reduces cost (you need less people to do the same role).• It reduces instances of things going wrong (systems can be built to always do the right thing or have automated checks to flag when it goes wrong).In this case, the client had two complex IT systems used for collateral management. Both systems… Show more All companies benefit from systemising processes:• It reduces processing time.• It reduces risk (wherever a process is manual you run the risk of errors occurring).• It reduces cost (you need less people to do the same role).• It reduces instances of things going wrong (systems can be built to always do the right thing or have automated checks to flag when it goes wrong).In this case, the client had two complex IT systems used for collateral management. Both systems had an element of overlap, requiring similar data to be inputted twice into both systems.Processing time (and employee frustration - not to be overlooked!) could be reduced by getting the two systems talking to each other and passing relevant data from one to the next.This isn't without challenge. You need to consider:• Do they talk the same language? Data could be in different formats.• Can they even talk together? System B might require data that system A just doesn't have.• How do the processes map from one system to the other? There could be a many-to-one relationship which needs careful thought.• How does system B tell system A it got all the data it needed and processed it just fine?A comprehensive set of requirements was developed which considered all possible data flows and communication, allowing the client to develop an interface that allowed the two systems to communicate effectively.Do you have elements of your business that could be made more efficient? Contact me on LinkedIn to learn how to make this happen. Show less

This is where my experience as a hybrid IT Project Manager / Business Analyst was leveraged to become fully immersed in the Business Change role.Many financial companies need to understand the impact on their P&L if a market event happens causing trading counterparties to go bust. A kind of "what-if?" scenario.In the investment banking world, this is modelled using a VaR (Value at Risk) model. This is a probability model - you can't say anything for certain, but you can attempt… Show more This is where my experience as a hybrid IT Project Manager / Business Analyst was leveraged to become fully immersed in the Business Change role.Many financial companies need to understand the impact on their P&L if a market event happens causing trading counterparties to go bust. A kind of "what-if?" scenario.In the investment banking world, this is modelled using a VaR (Value at Risk) model. This is a probability model - you can't say anything for certain, but you can attempt to assign a probability to something occurring. Such a model is instrumental in satisfying the capital adequacy requirements of the regulatory Basel II objective.VaR models require sophisticated pricing models for each trade type being executed with the banks corresponding counterparties. In this case, the VaR model needed to be adapted to include asset-backed instruments, for example mortgage-backed securities.Such projects require the management of various resources to meet the objectives:• Quantitative Analysts: These produce the pricing models.• Diverse IT teams: For access to the data for the pricing models.• Business analysts: For determining how the VaR process will work.• Stakeholders: Who want assurances that the project is progressing on track and will meet its objectives.Only with efficient and proactive management of resources could a project of this complexity be delivered.Do you have a complex project you need to undertake? Do you understand how to put a project plan together? Contact me on LinkedIn and I will try to help. Show less

Project Management is a complex role. You need to be able to:• Manage relationships: Both downstream to your direct reports and upstream to your bosses.• Be able to communicate technical concepts in simple to understand terms.• Be able to manage a diverse set of resources to bring about project delivery.• Be alert to scope creep: When a stakeholder says "could you just include ..."• Be proactive in identifying and resolving the inevitable hiccups along the… Show more Project Management is a complex role. You need to be able to:• Manage relationships: Both downstream to your direct reports and upstream to your bosses.• Be able to communicate technical concepts in simple to understand terms.• Be able to manage a diverse set of resources to bring about project delivery.• Be alert to scope creep: When a stakeholder says "could you just include ..."• Be proactive in identifying and resolving the inevitable hiccups along the way.During my time as the Manager for all London-based development within IT Margin Management, I grew the team from 3 to 10 members of staff, looking after all change projects across 3 different IT systems, two of which I had managed the development of from scratch.Do you need effective project management? Contact me via LinkedIn to see how I can help. Show less

Following my Ph.D., I received excellent training and experience by securing a Consultant role with one of the world's largest consulting firms.During my time I became proficient in:• Developing IT systems, to tight deadlines.• Mentoring new joiners to the project.• Working across a diverse client base.As a result, I was the only individual on the project promoted to consultant who was graded as outstanding.