Paul Scott
Director of Consulting
Paul has over 15 years’ regulatory experience having worked as a regulator, a consultant and at a senior level within a regulated firm.
After studying Law at Lancaster University, Paul joined the regulator where he spent seven years involved in supervision of retail financial services firms. During his time with the FSA, he worked as a supervisor and expert in retail conduct of business covering a broad range of retail financial services firms including IFAs, wealth management firms, life companies and banks. His last two years at the FSA were spent in
the major retail groups division supervising one of the big four banks.
After seven years with the regulator, Paul joined KPMG's Financial Services Advisory practice. More recently, he held a number of senior positions within Barclays working within Wealth, UK Retail Bank and Western European businesses. Within the UK retail bank Paul was head of sales quality and investigations responsible for on going business quality and regulatory investigations. Within the Western Europe business unit Paul was Head of Compliance Advisory covering Spain, Portugal, Italy and France working with the business and compliance teams in each country to raise compliance standards.
In November 2010, Paul joined Huntswood as Director of Consulting and has led and overseen a variety of engagements.
Contact Paul
pscott@huntswood.com
0780 939 1508
Stuart O’Sullivan
Principal Consultant
Stuart has over 14 years of experience in the financial services sector. After studying Mathematics at Hull University Stuart spent
nine years working at regulatory bodies, firstly with the Building Societies Commission and then with the Financial Services Authority. During this time Stuart undertook a variety of roles including relationship managing
the portfolios of retail firms, conducting ARROW risk assessments, implementing risk mitigation programmes, developing MCOB/ICOB policy and rules, project managing the authorisation work for mortgage lenders who applied to the FSA at NM,
and devising and implementing the supervision strategy for mortgage lenders.
Stuart has run and been part of a number of engagements since joining Huntswood. These have included: being responsible for the governance and decision making on an FSA enforcement case relating to mortgage arrears handling, developing a vision and strategy for a top 4 retail bank to implement and embed treating customers fairly throughout the organisation, assisting a top 4 retail bank and a leading
life and pensions provider in driving forward their implementation programmes in respect of product development and after sales care processes, developing and implementing a risk based approach to
compliance monitoring within a leading life, pensions, and investment management
group, and, providing on-going regulatory advice and compliance support for retail firms, particularly in relation to conduct of business regulation.
Stuart has expert knowledge of FSA Rules and their application, is able to apply this knowledge to develop practical operational approaches within organisations and has a demonstrative track record of pragmatic delivery.
Contact Stuart
sosullivan@huntswood.com
0792 000 6125
Nick Scarrett
Principal Consultant
Nick has over 20 years’ experience in the financial services sector. He holds a first class honours degree in
financial services management and is a chartered financial planner and Fellow of
the Personal Finance Society. Currently he is studying an MA in Marketing at Durham
business school.
Nick has held senior positions within the intermediary market including Managing Director of a 23 adviser IFA firm that provided mortgage advice. This start up business was a success, achieving ‘chartered
status’, and grew to a profitable £3m turnover business within three years.
Nick’s other experience includes a role as Head of Pensions and Investments at a direct to consumer, web based intermediary where he was responsible for delivering profitable services on a limited budget. There, he also led marketing and advertising strategies and set up new processes to ensure a smooth customer journey. Prior to this, he gathered considerable financial services regulatory experience including holding positions as Head of Risk Management Services where he was responsible for implementing an operational risk framework. These roles were complimented by his position as Training and Development Consultant and Compliance Manager at financial services intermediary firms.
Contact Nick
nscarrett@huntswood.com
0779 581 4816
Darren Fisher
Principal Consultant
Darren has over 21 years’ regulatory experience in retail financial services. His
background combines ‘big 4’ consultancies with retail banking and insurance
markets, with a specific focus on conduct risk issues, assurance and projects
which include complaint handling governance, outcomes testing and compliance
monitoring.
Darren joined Huntswood from Deloitte where he was a Senior Manager in their
financial services advisory practice. During his time at Deloitte he project
managed and conducted a variety of engagements including senior manager conduct
risk assurance & oversight, suitability back book reviews & action planning,
along with complaint handling governance & standards, including MI & root cause
analysis development, implementation and compliance effectiveness reviews.
His background at successfully managing and implementing Group-wide regulatory
projects reflect his key strengths of building and maintaining key relationships
and delivering, in collaboration with his clients, solutions to complex
regulatory challenges.
Prior to joining Deloitte, Darren was a Senior Compliance Manager for a
major outsourcer, responsible for the provision of regulatory advice to senior
executives. Darren was also responsible for the development of the firm’s
compliance monitoring framework and production of the compliance annual plan. He
also supported the development of the firm’s TCF program and implementation of
TCF MI.
Darren’s other industry experience includes being a Compliance Manager for the
world’s largest building society where he was responsible for identifying and
reporting regulatory change arising from UK and European governing bodies
thereby enabling the Group to prepare for forthcoming change. This was
complimented by his previous role as Senior Compliance Consultant, responsible
for compliance sign off of product development and marketing initiatives
including financial promotions, sales processes and call scripts. Prior to this,
he held the position of Operational Risk Manager responsible for the
implementation and management of operational risk frameworks, construction and
ongoing review of KPIs.
Darren is fully FPC, CeFA and CeMAP qualified.
Contact Darren
dfisher@huntswood.com
0755 443 8995
Beccy Noble
Senior Consultant
Beccy is a senior operational business performance improvement consultant with 10 years’ experience in Financial Services. She has experience running programmes that have consistently delivered process excellence, success in transformational change and continuous performance improvement in a regulated environment.
Beccy has extensive experience in customer services, specifically complaint management practices. She has shaped and led many successful complaint handling operations over a number of years, consistently driving to improve performance and leverage best practice.
Beccy has led and supported a number of engagements since joining Huntswood in 2003. These have included:
project manager on an investment bank’s complex remedial redress programme which addressed unfair arrears handling and failures in lending responsibility,
project manager on a retail bank’s complaint migration project following the dissolution of a joint venture,
assessment of and recommendations to mitigate unacceptable risk to information security for a major global insurance company, and, assisting on a project to carry out an end-to-end assessment of a major global
bank’s TCF programme.
Her most recent experience is collaborating at the most senior level with blended consulting and client teams to deliver large scale customer contact and remediation exercises.
Contact Beccy
bnoble@huntswood.com
0780 939 1300
Shaun Yeo
Senior Consultant
Shaun has over 17 years experience in the financial services sector specialising in regulatory risk, corporate governance,
compliance assurance and regulated sales. As a senior consultant within the Huntswood consulting team Shaun has led past
business reviews of investment sales and undertaken current business reviews to
assess appropriateness and sustainability for insurance and mortgages
respectively.
He previously consulted for retail banking clients on regulatory risk, complaints handling and TCF outcomes testing and
supported an intensive & intrusive mortgage supervision review. In this review his role centred on the validation of both
FSA feedback and the client’s own internal findings with the aim of providing a commercial and risk-oriented solution that
was easily embedded into BAU processes. This value-add solution was formalised through the testing of fair consumer outcomes,
recommendations of further action and remedial activity based on a sound understanding of the UK regulatory landscape.
Other responsibilities included his support of the FSA review process: ARROW (critical
illness cover) and ARROW Lite
(unfair mortgage contract terms), remediation advice and customer file reviews (KYC &
appropriateness and suitability sales). He has also
developed a detailed understanding of the distribution agenda for packaged accounts,
bundled products and TCF outcomes testing.
Shaun has a firm understanding of the FSA handbook gained by working within a variety of regulatory consulting positions,
compliance assurance and technical roles. His has a range of regulatory qualifications including
financial planning
certificates I, II and III (FPC), K10 (retirement options), G60 (pensions), qualification in
pensions administration (QPA),
supervising in a regulatory environment (CeSRE) and certificate in mortgage advice and
practice (CeMAP).
Contact Shaun
syeo@huntswood.com
0777 177 5478
Nick Ross
Senior Consultant
Nick has over 23 years’ experience within the financial services sector having worked as a regulator
and at senior levels within regulated firms and management consultancies.
Nick joined Huntswood from the FSA where he was a senior associate and supervisor in retail conduct
of business covering a broad range of retail financial services firms including IFAs, wealth managers,
SIPP operators, mortgage advisers and general insurance brokers. During his time at the regulator he
was a key member of the treating customers fairly (TCF) assessment program, the retail distribution
review (RDR) implementation team and the business risk awareness workshops. Nick has extensive experience
in all aspects and sectors of regulatory supervision, including individual case work, thematic projects,
supervisory visits, conducting face to face and telephone firm assessments and regulatory change management.
At the FSA, Nick was also responsible for delivering RDR roadshows and business risk awareness workshops
to firms and compliance consultancies and led the regulator’s relationship with the Association of
Professional Compliance Consultancies (APCC).
Before Nick joined the regulator he was head of quality and risk at a major outsourcer, responsible
for the strategy and delivery of all aspects of quality assurance and operational risk management.
Nick was also the client relationship lead on all projects, ensuring the smooth implementation of
procedural change and regulatory change control. He was responsible for the strategic development
of the TCF program, including implementation and monitoring of TCF tools and culture.
During Nick’s career he has held various senior positions dealing in all aspect of quality assurance
and has extensive working experience of ‘quality models’ and a proven track record in successful
accreditation of staff and consistently over achieving set quality targets. He also retains detailed
knowledge of BSI audit accreditation standards and processes.
Nick has a simple ambition… "to assist firms in improving each and every customer's
experience through simplicity, understanding & skilled interaction".
Contact Nick
nross@huntswood.com
0783 317 5294
Laura Trethewey
Consultant
Laura has over four years’ experience in the financial services sector having held roles within general insurance and
retail banking focused organisations. Since joining Huntswood in 2008 she has been involved in resource planning, including
the creation and implementation of a robust assessment process for technically skilled contractors, learning & development,
where she played a key project management role in a 80+ person project for an emerging bank, and consulting, focusing on
customer contact and remediation exercises.
Most recently, Laura has been involved in a customer contact and remediation programme for a mortgage lender, following
enforcement action from the FSA. This primarily focused on arrears handling and lending into retirement.
Laura has a degree in philosophy from the University of Southampton, and is currently studying for the CII
diploma in regulated financial planning.
Contact Laura
ltrethewey@huntswood.com
0771 898 0621
Chris Thomas
Consultant
Chris graduated with a degree in Business Economics from Surrey University in
2008, joining Huntswood as Executive Assistant to the CEO. His areas of research
expertise were merger and acquisitions opportunities and expansion into new markets, geographic and propositional. He reported and presented annual business plans and budgets to the board and delivered implementation projects across the business on strategic and operational levels.
After a secondment with Huntswood’s commercial management department, Chris developed his particular interest in regulatory consulting joining the consulting team in 2011. To date, Chris has delivered consulting support on a mortgage remediation and arrears handling project whilst studying for the CII
certificate in financial planning.
Contact Chris
cthomas@huntswood.com
0779 581 4927
