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.

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

Michael has been instrumental in the set-up of Sicsic Advisory, and he is now a Board Director.
Michael is an experienced Executive and Non-Executive director in Financial Services, and he is currently the Chair of Risk Committee of a PLC lending business.

His career spans over 35 years in the Financial Services industry, with executive Board and current independent NED experience. He has chaired and served as a member of Risk, Audit, Investment and Remuneration Board committees across general insurance, life & pensions, investments, mortgage, consumer and SME credit sectors.

Michael has been a risk and finance executive (CRO, Finance Director, Strategy Director) in blue chip firms (AIG, Flood Re, Prudential, GE Capital, Abbey National) and a senior consultant (KPMG and Promontory).

He has experience in setting up regulated firms, new authorisations and new management functions, including business plans and ensuring regulatory threshold conditions are met. He also has both M&A and business turnaround experience.

Michael is a UK qualified Chartered Accountant a member of the Institute of Risk Management.

Areas of expertise:

Governance

Culture and conduct

Prudential risk

Regulatory relationship management

Amy is our Head of Operations, and has over 15 years experience in the General Insurance sector. She has led complex business, regulatory and transformation programmes as well as holding roles in internal audit.

Amy led the implementation of the General Insurance Pricing Practices (GIPP) for one of the UK’s largest personal lines brokers. She was also responsible for a two-year programme of work to align existing processes to consumer credit regulation. This included the design and set up of a dedicated forbearance contact centre team, implementation of private credit data, improving digital and voice customer journeys as well as customer remediation and supporting controls and monitoring. During her time in Internal Audit, she designed and implemented processes to create better synergies between the internal audit methodology and the Agile development lifecycle that had been adopted in the business.

Amy has developed a wide range of skills during her career in financial services and brings a strong focus on process improvement, data usage and practical governance.

Areas of expertise:

Operational management

Transformation

Nadege is a regulatory and governance expert with specific experience of general insurance and complaints handling. Since setting up as a consultant in 2015, Nadege has advised financial services across a number of issues, including governance, risk management, remediation and regulatory engagement.

Prior to working as a consultant, she spent 16 years at the FCA, working in a variety of roles, across prudential, conduct, policy and supervision of investment and insurance firms. In her last role at the regulator, she was the head of the conduct policy department responsible for the regulatory standards on general insurance, banking and payments, mortgage lending, consumer credit, redress, governance and professionalism. She was also responsible for the relationship with the FOS and the FSCS. As part of this role, she was responsible for the policy elements of the transfer of consumer credit to the FCA.

Nadege is the Lead Partner on Consumer Duty

Areas of expertise:

Governance

Regulatory Affairs

Neil has more than 30 years’ experience in the insurance sector and has extensive underwriting, pricing and governance knowledge.

Prior to joining Sicsic Advisory, he worked at Allianz for 18 years in a variety of senior management and executive roles. He spent the last six years as Chief Underwriting Officer, setting underwriting, pricing and data strategies in a highly regulated and data driven environment.

Neil is experienced in establishing robust underwriting disciplines to deliver strong and resilient business performance, while creating an appropriate culture and supporting framework to embed and reinforce pragmatic technical standards.

Neil is an experienced business and people mentor and a former Non-Executive Director of the Fire Protection Association.

Areas of Expertise

Underwriting Excellence

Pricing Sophistication

Data Strategy

Governance

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

Philip has over 30 years’ regulatory and industry experience across prudential and conduct matters, with deep expertise in the life insurance and consumer credit sectors. At Sicsic Advisory he will be advising firms on strategic regulatory matters including on their Consumer Duty and operational resilience journeys.

Philip brings expertise across financial services, with deep expertise in the life insurance and consumer credit sectors. Most recently he worked as director of conduct and regulatory standards as Provident Financial Group, where he oversaw the Group’s conduct and regulatory risks.

Before this Philip worked at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and its predecessor the Financial Services Authority (FSA) in a number of supervisory roles. Until 2021 he was the FCA’s Director of Retail Lending and Claims Management Companies where he held responsibility for the supervision of all UK lending and credit services, from high street banks and building societies to payday lenders. He also led the programme to design and implement the regulation of claims management companies when the sector became regulated by the FCA and established the FCA’s Consumer Credit Supervision department.

Prior to this he led FSA teams responsible for supervising a number of the largest banking and insurance groups as manager in the Major Retail Groups Division.

Area of Expertise

Prudential affairs

Conduct matters

Strategic regulatory matters

Operational Resilience

Julia is a regulatory expert with specific experience of authorisations, regulatory change across banking, insurance and consumer credit.

Since setting up as a consultant in 2017, Julia has advised financial services across a number of issues, including authorisations, compliance, governance, risk management, remediation and regulatory engagement.

Prior to working as a consultant, Julia spent 17 years at the SFA, FSA, PRA and Bank of England, working in a variety of roles, across authorisations, supervision, enforcement as well as many key change programmes including CRD4, Liquidity, Solvency II, Barriers to Entry, Senior Manager & Certification Regime and Structural Reform.

In her last role at the regulator, she was the head of PRA Authorisation Department responsible for all regulatory transactions across insurance, banking and systematically important investment firms. She was also responsible for the PRA’s implementation of the New Bank’s Start-up Unit jointly with the FCA and gave evidence to the Competition and Markets Authority hearing on Retail Banking.

Areas of expertise:

Authorisation

Regulatory transactions

Governance

Regulatory affairs

Risk management

Compliance

Frank is a risk and regulatory expert with extensive experience of advising boards and senior management on how to achieve their strategic objectives while staying within risk appetite and abiding by the rules and principles of the regulators.

Frank worked for Big 4 accountants and top UK law firms, advising clients from startups to organisations at the heart of Britain’s financial market infrastructure. He has also acted as a s166 Skilled Person and is well versed in dealing with regulators.

Frank has delivered complex regulatory change projects: most recently with Consumer Duty, prior to that in areas such as operational resilience, post-enforcement remediation and organisations’ transformation change.

Areas of expertise:

Governance

Regulatory risk

Enterprise risk

Conduct risk and customer outcomes

Consumer Duty

Adam is an experienced regulatory consultant with a strong background across all areas of conduct risk and governance within regulated firms.

Prior to joining Sicsic Advisory, Adam spent nine years in a consulting role at Promontory Financial Group. He has extensive advisory and implementation experience on aspects of conduct risk management within firms across the financial services sector including retail and private banking, insurance, consumer credit, wealth management, and financial market infrastructure firms.

Adam has been involved in numerous Section 166 reviews,. He has extensive experience across a range of conduct issues including conduct governance, product governance, conduct risk and conduct MI, complaints management and root-cause analysis, and in assessing the effectiveness of the three lines of defence within firms. In addition, Adam is experienced at assisting firms with significant regulatory change programmes.

Prior to his move into consulting Adam spent four years at the Financial Services Authority, where he worked within the conduct risk team, following a role within the economics team. Adam is an economist by background and has previously worked at a central bank and for a competition regulator.

Areas of expertise:

Conduct risk

Governance

Lindsey is an experienced Governance, Risk and Compliance professional with over 25 years of experience in the Financial Services industry. Specialising in Business Change, Lindsey’s has worked in a range of financial sectors including Banking, Insurance, Consumer Credit, Personal Investment, Mortgage, and Credit Referencing.

During 15 years in Financial Services regulation, Lindsey led a number of Business Change initiatives at the Financial Services Authority (FSA) before establishing and leading the FSA’s Business Change function. Since leaving the regulator in 2010, Lindsey has worked as a consultant with start-up, growth and longer established businesses –both in digital and more traditional environments.

With a particular focus on the development, and strengthening, of first, and second, line Governance, Risk and Compliance capability, Lindsey works with clients to ensure they meet internal and regulatory standards.

Energised by problem solving and experienced in managing conflicting priorities in rapidly changing, and often political, environments, Lindsey is a qualified Change Management practitioner who ensures sustainable change is achieved through engagement with key stakeholders, at all levels, both inside and outside the organisation.

Areas of expertise:

Regulatory Change Management

Governance

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.

Areas of expertise:

Operational resilience

Risk management

Risk & capital

Rhiannon is an experienced senior Internal Auditor professional, with over 15 years working in the financial services sector.

Most recently she worked as Head of Internal Audit for Future plc, a FTSE 250 multinational media group which includes leading price comparison website Gocompare. Within this role Rhiannon built and led the Internal Audit function to deliver on the assurance needs of the Board and was a holder of SMF5 Head of Internal Audit. Rhiannon also led the team responsible for auditing all of the insurers and brokers on the price comparison panel, thus gaining a valuable understanding of the focus and challenges of the industry.

Rhiannon has extensive experience in identifying key risks to business operations, assessing whether the appropriate controls are in place and recommending appropriate actions to mitigate any weaknesses found.

Rhiannon holds the CMIIA qualification from the Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors (CIIA). She also volunteers on the CIIA’s Wales Regional Committee, helping to deliver industry relevant conferences and driving the profession forward in Wales.

Areas of expertise:

Internal Audit

Risk management

Ayesha is a regulatory consultant with over 15 years experience predominantly in the general insurance sector, including Lloyd’s Market, with a focus on conduct, culture, insurance distribution directive (IDD) and general compliance matters such as sanctions and licensing.

Ayesha started her career at the Financial Ombudsman Service as an adjudicator and moved on to work on various roles including Internal Audit and Business Partner (Insurance). Ayesha had recently set up and managed a compliance team for an insurance intermediary where she project managed and developed frameworks, policies and procedures and supported the implementation of these.

Ayesha has detailed knowledge of conduct risk, product oversight & governance (POG), IDD and complaints. Ayesha has a Law Degree (LLB) from the University of Westminster and is a member of the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII).

Areas of expertise:

Conduct & Culture

Product Oversight & Governance

Insurance Distribution Directive

Generalist Compliance

Lloyd’s Market Complaints

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 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

Sandra is an experienced and qualified insurance professional with a wealth of experience in financial services, insurance broking, compliance and regulation. Having spent 30 years working in the insurance industry, she has a sound understanding of insurance broking operations and procedures from both a regulatory and practical perspective.

Sandra’s background includes working with broking firms on mergers, acquisitions, operational alignment and integration programs. She has led and supported numerous regulatory due diligence projects for both acquisition firms and vendors. She has delivered regulatory due diligence programs ranging from small to medium acquisitions to several multimillion pound deals.

A certified information privacy professional, Sandra also brings additional expertise and experience in Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Direct Marketing Rules (PECR). She has supported operational compliance, information auditing and implementation of GDPR and has delivered privacy awareness programs and training, including direct marketing across multiple organisations.

Areas of expertise:

Regulatory Due Duligence

GDPR

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

Zara has a wealth of practical experience in compliance roles, having worked in the financial services sector for over 10 years.

Her career has predominantly consisted of consumer credit-based roles on a variety of regulatory change projects. She has managerial experience, strong analysis and influencing skills and a keen eye for spotting commercial opportunities and compliant business solutions.
She has recently worked at Monzo Bank where she led a project to upgrade the bank’s framework for supporting vulnerable customers. She worked with a wide range of stakeholders across the organization to successfully complete the 60-action project.

She has a particular interest in green and sustainable finance and is in the process of completing the Chartered Banking Institute’s Diploma in Sustainable Finance.

Zara holds the Diploma for Financial Advisors (LIBF), the Diploma in Governance, Risk and Compliance (ICA), the Certificate in Combating Financial Crime (CISI) and the Award in London Market Insurance (CII).

Areas of expertise:

Compliance

Regulatory change projects

Glenn has over 30 years of experience in the Financial Services industry specialising in regulatory risk, controls and compliance across a range of products including pensions, investments, life assurance, commercial mortgages and retail banking.

He began his consultancy career in 2005 and has specialised in lead roles in large scale remediation projects, including 10 years with KPMG as independent oversight; focussing on quality assurance, treatment strategy and governance so that projects can be completed with good customer outcomes being achieved whilst meeting commercial objectives. In the last 3 years Glenn has provided 1st line risk consultancy to a major retail bank, developing their risk management, controls operation and testing assurance process for their remediation programmes. He is competent in providing expert opinion on customer outcomes, suitability assessments, redress methodology, contact strategy, quality sampling and controls testing, often involving complex products or processes.

Areas of expertise:

Risk & control

Remediation

Compliance

Ellen is a senior consultant focused on governance, conduct and strategic development. She has extensive experience in a variety of businesses, from small brokers to compliance advisory firms and leading price comparison websites.

She has gained a broad range of skills during her 20-year career in financial services, both in-house and as a consultant. As Risk and Compliance Director for one of the UK’s most successful price comparison websites, Ellen built and led the compliance and risk functions and was the holder of SMF16 Compliance Oversight and SMF4 Chief Risk Officer.

Ellen has in-depth experience of the implementation of the Senior Manager and Certification Regime as well as Insurance Distribution Directive. She has been responsible for the strategic development of compliance advisory and training services for general insurance firms and underwriting under delegated authority binders in both retail and commercial sectors. Ellen also has considerable experience of liaising directly with the FCA and maintaining an appropriate working relationship with the regulator.

Areas of expertise:

Governance

Risk management

SM&CR

Anand has over 15 years’ experience in financial services from internal audit to senior compliance roles, covering consumer credit, insurance, credit risk, treasury functions and liquidity.

He has built up and led compliance, risk, fraud, money laundering functions as well as being the DPO and has held SMF17. Has chaired Compliance & Risk and Transformation committees and served as a member of a Product & Pricing committee.

Anand has led numerous regulatory change projects, including successful authorisation for an insurance firm. He has proven strategic and commercial acumen, with the ability to embed regulatory requirements whilst using these to facilitate growth.

Most recently, he successfully created and led the transformation function for a consumer credit firm, responsible for strategy, change programme, embedding change governance and process improvement, leading to substantial growth and efficiency gains, as well as managing the IT and data functions.

Anand is a qualified accountant (FCCA) and has a degree in Accounting and Finance.

Areas of expertise:

Compliance

Risk management

Regulatory & change projects

Consumer credit

General Insurance

Credit & affordability assessment

Helen is a senior executive specialising in internal audit, compliance and risk within the financial services sector. She has over 15 years’ experience of delivering trusted advice and assurance to executive teams and boards across the general insurance and retail banking sectors.

In her most recent role as Chief Risk and Compliance Officer at Saga plc, Helen had the second-line responsibility for ensuring the successful implementation of a range of significant regulatory changes including: general insurance pricing practices; operational resilience; vulnerable customers; Senior Managers and Certification Regime and the Consumer Duty.

During the ten years where she held Head of Internal Audit roles at Barclays Bank and Saga plc, Helen delivered over 500 risk-based audits covering the end-to-end product lifecycle and customer experience, across a wide range of retail products, geographies and business models. Helen is successful at adapting her assurance and partnership approach in line with the risk appetite and strategic objectives of each business she works with, while maintaining a strong focus on achieving good customer outcomes.

Areas of expertise:

Conduct regulation

Conduct risk assurance

Internal Audit methodology and delivery

Rob is an actuary with executive experience in the UK General Insurance. His focus has been on the profitability and sound commercial running of businesses. He has led pricing change at underwriters and brokers, recently focusing on the necessary regulatory changes to pricing.

During his years at the Atlanta Group as Commercial Director he was responsible for the pricing of Swinton, Autonet, Carole Nash, Be Wiser, Paymentshield and other niche businesses. Core product lines included motor, home, van and bike with 2.3m policies in total. Rob enjoyed the challenge of meeting the expectations of PE investors whilst delivering the necessary regulatory change for the ban on price walking.

Prior to that Rob spent 4 years as Commercial Director at the AA where the in-house MGA was successfully deployed alongside a profitable panel. Rob was a Board member and held a number of regulated positions.

Before that Rob worked on the technical pricing side, helping MSG set up the Zenith brand, supporting KPMG with pricing assignments and prior to that was Head of Technical Pricing at DLG for all UK personal lines. During his time at DLG Rob’s team was instrumental in taking DLG from loss making to strong profit.

He has been a Trustee Director of the AA defined benefit pension scheme and has a broad actuarial and finance knowledge.

Areas of expertise:

Insurance Business Model

General Insurance Pricing modelling and team benchmarking

Pricing regulation and governance