Richard Ross Email & Phone Number

Cheltenham, Gb

Cheltenham, England, United Kingdom

Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom

Iress is a leading software company that predominantly serves the wealth management industry. I was recruited to lead the development of Iress’ next generation Client Portal solution. Built from scratch and launched in Oct 2018 the product now serves over 400 wealth management businesses in the UK, Australia, NZ and South Africa and is used by tens of thousands of end clients per month.Key achievements:- Development of a business critical product offering that would support Iress’ growth ambitionsHaving adopted a research led and user-centric approach to the development of Iress’ new client portal, the digital offering is seen as a strength and key selling point and has been critical to Iress winning business from a number of large wealth/asset management businesses over the course of the last 2 - 3 years.- Data led approach that drives a culture of continuous improvementThrough my leadership we always ensure that analytics and customer insight is available to be shared with a wide variety of stakeholders and clients that would allow us to make evidence based decision making. Also critical is being able to show this thought leadership to our clients and help them achieve success through our software.- Launch of an award-winning mobile app solution for a large London-based asset management business - Rollout of a digital document library and digital suitability assessment solution for one of the most widely recognised brands in UK financial services

Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

iPipeline is a leading financial adviser portal, technology company, and supplier of data and insight to the UK Life and Pensions industry. As a Senior Manager my product innovation and leadership has been crucial to the transformation of the business over recent years.Key achievements and responsibilities:• Development of a new proposition (LifeGenie) that will ‘nudge’ more customers into a life insurance conversation Recently featured in the Times ‘Future of Insurance’ supplement, I have spearheaded the creation of new consumer engagement tools, and APIs, that deliver a dynamic customer journey and align with today’s digital marketing techniques. This is considered transformational in how the industry targets consumers and prompts them to consider their life insurance needs. I am currently engaged with three major banks, and a number of leading insurers, on this proposition who are excited to see how these tools will help them reach consumers in new ways and in new places.• Delivery of a new quoting platform (SolutionBuilder) that drives increased protection salesWorking in partnership with one of the UK’s largest advice firms, a key aim for the project was to get more advisers selling more protection insurance. The outcome was a highly innovative solution that introduced new tools and intelligent quoting techniques to assist advisers in researching a client’s life insurance, sickness and disability needs, and help drive up-sell and cross-sell. Since launch the product has helped increase sales of income protection policies by 45% year on year and a 10% increase in average premium for this distributor.• Business Consultant and Solution Architect on key enterprise sales opportunities

Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

Following the acquisition of Assureweb by iPipeline the emphasis shifted considerably and instead of having to product manage a range of services based around one product, my team needed to gain an understanding of a range of new products in order to determine their fit with the UK market.Key achievements:• Led the need to innovate and disrupt the UK life insurance marketOur business had stopped growing and a change was needed. I was instrumental in driving the need to innovate, stop adding more features to a mature product and instead focus on the things that would make life easier for advisers and drive increased revenues for our customers. This period of innovation was supported with major investment by the company and resulted in the launch of brand new technology and capability to support our adviser customers.• Launch of a new pre-sale underwriting tool (XRAE) for Life Insurance and Critical IllnessXRAE was originally a product designed for the US market. It was clear that this product fitted very well with a genuine market need in the UK so we adapted the product to accommodate UK underwriting requirements whilst at the same time going out on a major campaign to gain support from the UK industry for such a product. This product is a key differentiator for iPipeline against its main competitors in the portal market.• Creation of a strategy to ensure the ongoing relevance of the Assureweb product in the digital eraIt was becoming clear that we wouldn’t be able to achieve our ambitions by continuing to invest in the mature Assureweb portal product. Our chief architect and I came up with a technology and product strategy that would allow us to grow into new areas and deliver much more innovation on how to serve the needs of our current distribution and insurer customers, and the markets and channels we wanted to serve in the future. This strategy now underpins the fastest growing product in the UK business.

Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, Uk

My role was to identify and investigate new product development opportunities that would grow the Assureweb business in line with its strategy. In 2010 this included taking on management of a team of three Product Managers.The major initiatives where I played a leading role include:• Business owner responsible for design and implementation of a new annuity comparison service:Annuities were seen as a key growth area within the industry and I played a leading role in driving Assureweb forward on this front. I played a steering role on all elements of the proposition, including the IT build and the sales and marketing strategy. As a result Assureweb strengthened its position as a leading quotes portal in the IFA market.• Business Lead on a project to protect Assureweb’s Business Intelligence revenue from a significant threat Under my ownership we grew our Business Intelligence revenue into a key revenue stream for the business. However some new OFT guidance came out in 2011 which seriously threatened the value of the data that we were providing to our customers. I led a team who worked with legal experts to understand the new regulations; worked closely with our customers to understand their requirements; then designed and rolled out a range of new services which not only protected existed revenues but grew our revenues by 50% over the following 2 years.• Ensure compliance with new regulations introduced by the Retail Distribution ReviewAs the head of the Product Management team I was ultimately responsible for ensuring all our products were compliant with the new regulations. From the outset I was required to make some tough business calls as we tried to limit our cost exposure in a range of services that were no longer considered to be core to the business.

Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

As part of the product management team I was responsible for ensuring that Assureweb’s core services met the needs of its customers by continually monitoring and modifying the product and its features.Some of the key initiatives, for which I was the business owner, included:• Re-write of Assureweb’s agent identification processes to comply with new depolarisation regulations• Implementation of a provider batch quotes system for pricing purposesFrom launch this service has won praise for its flexibility and ease of use and has consistently won business from Assureweb’s key competitor and the incumbent supplier to the majority of the term assurance market. This service quickly became an important revenue stream for the Assureweb business.Other operational activities that were fundamental to the role of Product Manager included:• Keeping abreast of market trends and legislative changes and how these would impact the Assureweb services• Drive adoption of the Assureweb services by constantly analysing usage trends and coming up with ideas that would enhance the core proposition and grow the Assureweb business

Bachelor Of Science (Bsc), Applied Mathematics

Education record