Halo Invest is a step closer to launching its adviser platform having completed its senior team with several high-profile appointments.
Lex Webster is the latest to join the business as a non-executive director (NED). He has more than 30 years of experience within financial services most recently as chief executive of Exinity, a CFD and FX broker.
Having worked across sales and marketing, product development and market entry, Lex is well positioned to support HALO in its bid to disrupt the platform market.
HALO Invest has been built to make investing simpler, fairer and better for all investors.
Lex took up the role at the start of May. He will work as a NED along with Tatton's former chief operating officer (COO) Helen O'Neill, who joined in March last year to help develop the HALO proposition.
Her board level experience and previous senior roles across financial services provides the ideal background for her to support the HALO team.
Lex said: “The wealth management space is crying out for a disruptor to challenge the legacy platforms and HALO Invest represents exactly what the industry needs.”
The platform is led by CEO Douglas Boyce, the former managing director of SS&C Hubwise, who has brought in several highly experienced individuals to support him to deliver the firm's ambition.
Collectively the senior management team has close to 200 years of combined experience within financial services.
Douglas oversaw the rapid expansion of Hubwise and its subsequent sale to SS&C. Before then he was the European COO of FNZ, where he had responsibility for the asset servicing division with more than £220bn in assets under administration for financial institutions including Standard Life, Vanguard, Barclays and Aviva.
He also established Interactive Investor's in-house share dealing service.
Other senior appointments
Meanwhile Wendy Crawford was recently appointed as head of risk and compliance.
Prior to joining HALO Invest she was at Embark Group as director of compliance and data protection officer.
Before that she held a number of senior compliance roles within Royal London.
Wendy’s experience in risk management and regulation has seen her effectively engage with regulators, external advisers and industry experts.
Also with a strong background in compliance is Brian Gray, HALO’s chief operating officer. He began his career in operations at Murray Johnstone before moving into roles at Barclays Stockbrokers, Interactive Investor and Speirs & Jeffrey (now part of Rathbones).
Brian also spent three years as an Ombudsman at the Financial Ombudsman Service.
As COO he will lead the firm’s operational strategy, oversee day-to-day platform delivery and manage critical third-party relationships.
To help oversee HALO Invest’s platform launch in the UK, David Anderson has been appointed as programme delivery director. He has a successful track record at firms including Standard Life, FNZ, Bravura, Alpha FMC, James Hay and Genpact.
David successfully managed platform launches, multi-billion-pound asset migrations and client relationships.
Customer-focus
HALO Invest will put customers at the heart of the business and has built a team of experienced people who have seen it all in platforms. They know what good looks like and equally what bad does.
Lynn Johnston, head of customer, has built deep expertise in client relationship management, service delivery, and operational oversight within financial services.
She began her career at HSBC before joining Interactive Investor (II), where she progressed through customer support and operations, to lead the newly formed service delivery team when II launched a B2B white labelled share dealing service.
Lynn later joined FNZ as a service delivery manager, supporting key clients including Barclays Stockbrokers, Close Brothers, and Quilter, and played a major role in the migration of £60bn in assets. She moved to Hubwise, where she oversaw all client relationships and implemented a formal service delivery and governance model.
Completing the senior team line-up is Graeme Cunningham, head of finance operations – a fully qualified chartered accountant.
He is responsible for all aspects of day-to-day operations.
Prior to HALO, Graeme was head of financial control, at Primary Bid a retail investment platform specialising in IPOs. There he was responsible for all operational control of transaction trading activity.
He was also lead financial consultant with Lloyds TSB, involved in a project to migrate a mortgage book across software providers. Graeme held a similar role at Barclays Stockbrokers to support the migration of its entire back-office provision to FNZ, at which point he moved to FNZ as head of reconciliations.