
Who We Are
Sicsic Advisory is a London based boutique consultancy, focusing on financial services risk and regulation.
We assist Boards and Management to deliver sustainable business models through financial, operational, and cultural resilience.
Sicsic Advisory was founded in 2019 by Michael Sicsic, a senior executive in the field of risk and regulation and former head of supervision for the UK general insurance retail sector at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
Our Approach
We make sure you receive the advice you need, tailored to your businesses’ circumstances, specific goals and aspirations.
We believe that our 5Rs approach is critical to the success of our consulting and advisory practice:
- Relationship: Building strong relationships with our clients, partners, associates
- Relevance: Staying relevant to our clients’ needs and the markets we serve
- Resolve: Having the determination to deliver practical solutions
- Resilience: Maintaining resilience through difficult situations
- Resourcefulness: Drawing on our collective experience, knowledge and network to deliver the best advice
We have established a culture based on the power of collaboration and partnership, supported by the following three traits:
- Expertise
- Delivery
- Humility
Sicsic Advisory is a member of the Management Consultancies Association (MCA). We are committed to upholding the Principles of Consulting Excellence which promotes the value of consulting and commits its members to the highest standards of ethical behaviour, client service, and professionalism.
If you would like to know more about our commitment, please click here.
Our People
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.


Paul is a Senior Business Risk Analyst, with a specific focus on regulatory and risk related projects. He has over 20 years experience in the Financial Services sector, with a strong background in process improvement, IT and project delivery.
Paul has significant experience of working with organisations to improve their businesses and processes with strong investigation, problem solving and decision-making skills. He has experience in using a wide range of analytical techniques and conceptual thinking to deliver high quality results.
He has worked recently at Barclays and Royal London on a variety of projects: finance risks and controls, GDPR, end-user computing and operational resilience.
Paul started his career as an IT developer at Co-operative Insurance and then moved to the position of Business Analyst for the Co-operative Banking Group. He began his consultancy career as a Business Analyst in 2012 and has since worked with a number of organisations largely on regulatory and change projects.
Stephen Rosling has worked in the UK financial services sector for over 30 years, holding senior customer, change, and conduct risk management positions in Aviva, Friends Life, and Friends Provident International. Stephen also has international experience having worked in India, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka.
Over the last 7 years Stephen has undertaken a range of risk, compliance, and governance projects at Lloyds Bank (Consumer Lending), Nationwide Building Society (Payments), Beazley Insurance, Chaucer Syndicates and Ceylinco Life (Sri Lanka).
His career in financial services includes banking, credit, lending, insurance (life, general, speciality), and pensions.
His wide range of projects include firm wide conduct risk programmes and reviews of corporate governance frameworks. His legal and regulatory projects include PSR, GDPR, SMCR and IDD, as well as managing changes resulting from thematic reviews.
Areas of expertise:
M&A due diligence and integration
Insurance Distribution Directive
Kelly Coombes is a climate risk consultant focusing on the management of financial risks from climate change. She combines her in-depth knowledge of insurance and risk management together with her work and study of environmental damage, sustainability and climate change impacts. Kelly currently focuses on helping companies embed best practices for mitigating financial impact from climate related risks; providing guidance and tools to assess their unique long term risk horizon.
She has 15 years of experience in the insurance sector, where she spent 8 years at AIG as Regional Underwriting Manager and Regional Product Manager. She has extensive experience in both commercial and consumer products across the EMEA region. Her experience at AIG helps her understand the mechanics of large multinational companies, while appreciating the subtleties and differences of local countries. She also spent 7 years in broking concentrating mostly on historical Environmental Impairment Liability risk transfer.
Kelly has an MSc in Environmental Policy Planning and Regulation from London School of Economics London, United Kingdom, and an Honours BA in Political Science and International Relations from Bishop’s University, Quebec, Canada.
Area of expertise:
Climate change
Louise is a senior risk and compliance professional with a wealth of compliance and regulatory experience within the insurance sector for more than 23 years. With expertise in Conduct Risk Management, Financial Crime controls, establishing risk based monitoring programs and supporting the development of good governance frameworks and a risk culture.
Louise spent 11 years in the Trade Credit and Political Risk markets in underwriting and broking positions before joining the FSA (Financial Services Authority) working in both Policy and Supervision roles. Here she supervised Lloyd’s and London Market insurers and worked with European regulators on the development of SII policy and implementation guidance.
Since leaving the FSA she has led and developed compliance functions within various insurance companies (Prudential, Amlin, Beazley and Aspen). Key areas of focus have been on developing compliance teams, addressing regulatory shortcomings, improving licencing controls, Brexit, and implementation of Insurance Distribution Directive and the Senior Managers and Certification Regime.
Her key areas of expertise include Lloyd’s managing agencies, intermediaries and international (re)insurers writing both large commercial and retail personal lines products. Louise has also provided supported on both acquisitions and divestments.
Louise has previously been an INED for two consumer credit firms and Chair of the Lloyd’s Market Association Regulatory Committee. She is currently a member of the Lloyd’s of London Enforcement Panel.
Areas of expertise:
Compliance
Lloyd’s and London Market
Governance




Our Partners

Consumer Intelligence
consumerintelligence.com
We are combining our market leading insight, industry knowledge, regulatory expertise and commercial awareness.
Our partnership aims to deliver unique insights and recommendations to help businesses understand the competitive landscape and execute great strategies for profit, sustainability – and most importantly for customers.
Consumer intelligence is an insight partner for financial services, inspiring confident decisions that build consumer trust. At Consumer Intelligence, we gather unique data and intelligence through the eyes of the customer to understand the market. Our unique collection of company data helps all the players understand the competitive landscape. We blend this with our consumer research, so we know the why of customer behaviours. Put those two things together and the magic begins.

Elseware
www.elseware.fr
We are bringing together our collective industry and regulatory experience around risk management, risk modelling and regulatory change – gained across banking and insurance sectors.
We are focusing specifically on operational risk management and climate change financial risk management.
Elseware are specialized in risk modelling and quantification.
Elseware analyse and assess operational risk scenarios using a structured method and a simulation software (MSTAR). This method is used by leading financial institutions for regulatory (CCAR, ICAAP) and non-regulatory applications (KRI, risk management).
This method is now applicable for Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).
You can find out more about Operational Risk Modeling in Financial Services here.

Governor Software
governorsoftware.com
We are delivering solutions to build outcomes based conduct framework. Governor Software and Sicsic Advisory formed a strategic partnership to revolutionise how UK regulated insurance firms can stay compliant in a constantly evolving regulatory environment.
Governor Software supports senior risk and compliance executives at financial institutions maintain governance and oversight through clear visualisation of their regulatory obligations and risk appetite.
Their team have first-hand experience of the production and oversight of governance information within financial institutions. Empowered with this unique knowledge, Governor have taken a fresh approach to addressing these challenges; using visualisation technology to efficiently tackle the issues associated with governance and oversight.
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