Michael is a senior executive in the field of risk and regulation in the financial services sector, with a strong focus on insurance. He has a deep understanding of business models in the insurance sector and the related risks.

He has founded Sicsic Advisory, the London based boutique consultancy focusing on financial services risk and regulation, in 2019. His team has a unique combination of expertise gained through direct industry experience, consulting roles and regulatory supervision leadership role in the UK insurance market.

Michael is a senior advisor to Spixii, the insurtech startup delivering AI driven solutions for insurers.

Before setting up his own company, Michael spent 4 years at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as head of supervision for the general insurance retail sector. Formerly, Michael spent five years at Aviva Plc. as Global Operational Risk Director covering Life Insurance, Asset Management and Non-Life insurance. Previously, he worked over 10 years at GE Capital in various senior risk and finance positions across commercial and corporate finance activities.

He has extensive international experience covering credit risk modelling and capital allocation, financial risk and ALM, operational risk management and quantification, conduct of business, financial crime compliance and M&A activity across multiple jurisdictions.

He is a liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Insurers.

Areas of expertise:

Enterprise Risk Management and prudential requirement

Insurance Business Model and General Insurance Pricing

Regulatory Affairs

Governance, Culture & Conduct

Operational Risk Management and Quantification

Hugh brings an extensive knowledge of the regulatory landscape and comprehensive understanding of the evolution of the insurance sector.

He spent 17 years as Director of Regulation at the Association of British Insurers (ABI), with accountability for relations between the insurance industry and the Bank of England on prudential regulation, for relations with the Financial Conduct Authority on conduct regulation, and for taxation issues affecting insurers.

At the ABI Hugh has held a number of Assistant Director roles, covering EU and international affairs, UK public affairs, ABI member relations and events and led significant international lobbying activity. He was temporary Director of Investment Affairs.

Before joining the ABI, Hugh worked for the UK Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), now the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills on the finance and governance of the Department, managed EU affairs and negotiated key EU directives, represented the UK in Brussels and then the London end of the British presidency of the EU.

Areas of expertise:

Regulatory affairs

Operational resilience

Climate change

Post-Brexit evolution of Solvency II

Rhiannon is a senior consultant focusing on organisational culture. She works with leadership teams of organisations up to and including FTSE100s to bring about real and lasting transformation.

She draws on 15 years’ experience as a Director at Barclays, spanning a range of commercial and operational roles. Her interest in cultural change was sparked whilst implementing a Conduct Risk framework across their UK operations. She subsequently spear-headed an in-house Culture Programme to embed customer-centric behaviour across the organisation.

As a consultant she has worked with and coached Boards and Leadership teams to better understand and proactively manage the culture of the Board Room and beyond. This has varied from assessment of current culture and the effectiveness of values in driving behaviour to cultural transformation through the redesign of the organisation’s cultural ‘infrastructure’ (such as purpose, vision and values), people process and business controls.

Alongside assessment and Board coaching assignments, scale projects include a deep cultural assessment and change programme for an organisation with an insurance arm, behavioural change programme for a UK subsidiary of a FTSE 100 equivalent and cultural transformation for UK Building Society.

Areas of expertise:
Culture change

Sue is a senior consultant, focused on conduct, culture and governance, with extensive professional experience from small broker firms to large multinational banks and insurers.

With over 20 years’ financial services experience, Sue has a depth and breadth of regulatory knowledge gained in Big 4 and specialist consultancies, along with practical industry experience with roles as Head of Compliance with general insurers, insurance intermediaries and a mortgage and consumer credit firm.

Sue is leading our offering on pricing practices and she is currently assisting a range of firms in the development and implementation of their pricing practices and ’fair value’ assessment processes.
In addition, she has worked with a variety of firms in their implementation of the Senior Managers and Certification Regime, and the Insurance Distribution Directive.

Sue’s has built and led Compliance functions at insurers, intermediaries, mortgage and consumer credit firms and managed a number of successful authorisations, for both UK (FCA) and Irish (CBI) entities.

Having started her career at Friends Provident in 1997, she gained her ACII qualification and was an examiner for the Chartered Insurance Institute.

Areas of expertise:

Pricing practices

Consumer credit

SM&CR

Compliance function and framework

Mark is a seasoned compliance professional with over 30 years’ experience in the Insurance sector, having started his career as an underwriter at Norwich Union.

He brings an extensive experience leading the delivery of regulatory and ethical compliance, ensuring effective governance, and providing constructive challenge at board level. Mark has been the Head of Compliance at Bluefin for 6 years.

Mark has an extensive expertise in regulatory due diligence, acquisitions, and integration work.

He has implemented and managed successful compliance monitoring frameworks; created complaint management frameworks; designed and implemented of both 1st and 2nd line quality control regimes. He has a detailed understanding of a numbers of topics such as Conflicts of Interest, Client Money, SM&CR and Consumer Credit.

He took an active role in supporting the British Insurance Brokers Association (BIBA) including being the Chair of BIBA’s Regulatory Working Group, a position he held from 2015 to 2019. During his time at BIBA he contributed to several industry initiatives including premium finance and the Insurance Distribution Directive.

Areas of expertise:

M&A due diligence and integration

Insurance Distribution Directive

Nindy is a senior regulatory consultant, she provides a comprehensive range of risk and compliance solutions to Insurers and Brokers. She has over 20 years’ experience in General Insurance. She specialises in supporting clients in their implementation of regulatory change projects and has an exceptional record managing SMCR implementation.

Nindy is adept in overseeing compliance projects, developing frameworks, designing, and delivering workshops and training. She was recently the lead consultant conducting a s166 review on corporate governance for a Tier 1 Insurer.

Nindy spent six years at the FCA in both Policy and Supervision roles where she made a significant contribution to a number of regulatory change projects including SM&CR and IDD. Before joining the regulator Nindy held managerial roles in compliance and claims for a general insurer.

Nindy has a Law degree (LLB) and Legal Practice Course post graduate diploma from the University of Birmingham.

Areas of expertise:

Conduct

SM&CR

Insurance Distribution Directive

Regulatory affairs

Brexit solutions

Martin is a Senior Consultant focusing on Financial and Operational areas within the General Insurance Sector. He has been Chief Financial Officer of successful operations of growing intermediaries and insurers, mostly private equity backed.

He is now supporting clients on business model review in the context of the FCA pricing intervention, M&A activities and financial resilience.

He is particularly experienced with M&A and Due Diligence activity – plus the subsequent integration and has worked on numerous acquisitions of varying sizes from £2m to £50m throughout his career. He has helped guide and develop growing and changing businesses, working with CEOs and business leaders through multiple transitions and rounds of change.

Martin is a qualified accountant – having started his career within a Global firm of Accountants, is FCA qualified and has worked within Financial Services, and in particular General Insurance for the majority of his career.

Areas of expertise:

CASS

Financial resources assessment (TC2.4)

Business model review

Pricing

Due diligence

Martin is a seasoned risk and finance professional with over 25 years of experience in the financial services sector, with a strong focus on Insurance. His experience within the insurance industry extends to having worked with Underwriters, Brokers and Price Comparison Websites in both the Life and General Insurance Sectors.

Martin was the Group Risk Director at BGL Group (Compare the Market), covering both the Group’s Broker and Price Comparison business. Previously he worked for RSA Group for nearly 14 years as both Group Capital Manager where he developed a deep understanding of risk and capital modelling before taking up the position of Group ERM Director.

He has an excellent track record in leading strategic change including having successfully implemented two fully integrated Enterprise Risk Management Frameworks across two separate businesses.

Martin is also a qualified ACA, where he gained his first experience of the financial services sector as an Audit Manager at Price Waterhouse.