Consumer Duty Briefing: The role of the Board Champion
Description
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WHY ATTEND
The Investment Association is pleased to invite you to our Consumer Duty Board Champion Briefing on Thursday, 19 October 2023.
UPDATE: This event will specifically be of interest to Board champions, iNEDs and C-suite as they navigate the new role of Board Champion under Consumer Duty. As places are limited and whilst we welcome other functions, we will prioritise places to this cohort. Please kindly pass on this invite to your respective Board Champion.
With the Consumer Duty rules now in force, firms will look to embed the Duty into business as usual whilst making continuous improvements and taking remedial action to deliver good outcomes for consumers. A key focus of the significant and wide-ranging requirements is the role and responsibilities of senior management and the Board, in particular a new Board role of Consumer Duty Champion.
The creation of this new role underpins the importance of a cultural shift in successful implementation of the Duty. The FCA has stated that the purpose of the Champion is to facilitate discussion and provide challenge at Board level. Whilst this new role will evolve and is developing, the context in which they perform their roles will change as firms transition from implementation to long-term compliance.
The IA’s first Board Champions Briefing will provide an opportunity to connect with industry peers and hear from guest speakers about the key challenges and considerations for Champions as firms progress their activity post-implementation and prepare for their first annual board report by July 2024 on compliance with the Duty.
This event will be of interest to Board Champions, iNEDs and C-Suite who would like to learn more about the key responsibilities and considerations related to this role.
AGENDA
15:00-15:30 Registration & Networking
15:30-15:40 Welcome and opening remarks
- Jonathan Lipkin, Director, Policy Strategy and Innovation, The Investment Association
15:40-15:55 Navigating the Champion role and broader regulatory expectations of senior management
- Sara Cody, Counsel, Financial Regulation team, Linklaters
15:55-16:10 Fireside chat: Expectations of Board champions and key questions to ask in a BAU environment
- Simon Hynes, Senior Adviser, Fund Boards Council
- Peter Capper, Senior Adviser, International Fund Regulation, The Investment Association
16:10-16:50 Panel Discussion
Moderator: Mandeep Bhandal, Senior Policy Adviser and Consumer Duty Lead, The Investment Association
- Alison Barker, Special Regulatory Adviser, BDO UK LLP
- Sumit Indwar, Financial Regulation Group Partner, Linklaters
16:50-17:00 Closing remarks
- Jonathan Lipkin, Director, Policy Strategy and Innovation, The Investment Association
17:00-18:00 Reception & Networking
18:00 End of event
SPEAKERS
Jonathan Lipkin, Director, Policy Strategy and Innovation, The Investment Association
Jonathan is Director of Policy, Strategy and Innovation at The Investment Association (IA) and a member of the IA management team.
Jonathan’s policy role focuses on how the industry serves its customer markets. This includes areas such as products and competition; fund communications and governance; and the long-term savings and pensions regimes in the UK and internationally. He also works closely on the IA’s broader strategic positioning and leads its programme to support industry innovation.
Jonathan joined the IA in 2005, becoming Director of Public Policy and a member of the IA Executive Committee in 2012. Prior to 2005, he worked for a number of years at Oxford Analytica, an international consultancy. At OA, he led the European political and economic analysis serving a wide range of domestic and overseas clients, both corporate and governmental.
Jonathan is a Board Member of the Cost Transparency Initiative, Chair of the EFAMA Pensions Group and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Centre for Asset Management Research at Bayes Business School. He writes and speaks regularly both in the UK and abroad on investment management and pensions issues.
Sara Cody, Counsel, Contentious Regulation, Linklaters
Sara is a Counsel specialising in UK contentious regulatory work. She has experience of all aspects of regulatory enforcement and has written extensively on both FCA/PRA enforcement decisions and UK, EU and global enforcement trends. Sara’s technical expertise means she is frequently called upon by clients to design and deliver bespoke training on the FCA and PRA enforcement process and investigations skills. She also regularly works with trade bodies and firms responding to FCA and government consultations concerning proposed changes to regulatory policy.
Sara has developed a particular expertise in the FCA’s new Consumer Duty and is advising several firms on their implementation projects, providing innovative solutions to enable them to navigate this new regime. She is supporting several industry bodies with their responses to the Duty and related FCA/member engagement. Sara also leads Linklaters’ podcast and webinar series analysing the Duty across a broad range of perspectives and speaks regularly at several industry conferences on this topic.
Simon Hynes, Senior Adviser, Fund Boards Council
Simon joined the Fund Boards Council as a Senior Adviser in January 2022 to work on Distributor oversight and Consumer Duty initiatives. He has extensive UK & European Investment Management distribution experience with leadership and board roles at Jupiter and Legal & General Investment Management.
His UK AFM board experience saw detailed involvement in Assessment of Value, PROD and other regulatory initiatives. He also built LGIM’s Retail sales presence in Europe and was integral to the development of its ETF business. This gave a fascinating insight into the work of European fund regulators and increased his latent enthusiasm for sharing best practice in fund governance.
Since 2020 Simon has built a portfolio of non-executive roles in the Asset/Wealth management sector. His most recent appointment as Independent Chair of Irwin Mitchell Asset Management comes also with Consumer Duty Board Champion responsibility.
Peter Capper, Senior Adviser, International Fund Regulation, The Investment Association
Peter Capper is the Senior Adviser, International Fund Regulation at The Investment Association (IA), which represents UK investment managers who look after portfolios and investment products for clients around the world.
Peter has led the IA’s work on the Assessment of Value, the Long-Term Asset Fund and the AIFMD Review, and represented the IA on the Productive Finance Working Group’s Technical Experts Group, including chairing one of its sub-groups. Peter has also worked closely with the Depositary and Trustees Association (DATA), which represents the depositaries and trustees of UK domiciled funds and sits on the Fund Regulation and Management Companies Standing Committees of the European Funds and Asset Management Association (EFAMA).
Peter is a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment (CISI). Prior to joining The IA in 2014, Peter worked as a technical specialist for 13 years within the fund management industry.
Alison Barker, Special Adviser, BDO UK LLP
Alison Barker is a Special Adviser, Regulation, within BDO’s Financial Services Advisory practice. Alison is a regulatory expert with deep understanding of the UK financial regulatory regimes and approach gained from 12 years at the FCA as a director in Supervision. At BDO Alison has worked extensively with a range of clients with focus on Consumer Duty implementation, including with Boards. Alison is also an Independent Non Executive Director for the Consumer Codes Approval Board. Prior to working at BDO and FCA, Alison was a director in KPMG’s regulatory practice having joined from TSB Bank plc.
Sumit Indwar, Financial Regulation Group Partner, Linklaters
Sumit is a Partner in our UK Financial Regulation Group. He advises on all aspects of financial services legislation and regulation. Sumit’s client base includes global and regional investment banks, asset managers, market makers, insurers, private equity houses and FinTech companies. He advises on the full range of regulatory issues including licensing, ongoing conduct of business issues, regulatory change implementation, product categorisation, governance within financial institutions, market misconduct and AML. In particular, he has advised financial institutions on wide-ranging UK and EU regulatory change projects, including on the implementation of MiFID II, MAR, the Senior Managers and Certification Regime, the ring-fencing regime (on which he was seconded to a major retail bank for six months) and the second European Payments Services Directive.
Sumit has been heavily engaged in the FinTech area, having advised a number of clients on innovative financial service offerings including robo-advice, crypto-related structures and initial coin offerings.
Sumit also provides support to the firm’s transactional teams on the regulatory aspects of M&A, corporate finance and banking transactions.
Sumit regularly helps the industry prepare responses to regulatory consultations and assists with lobbying on issues of industry concern.
In addition to his UK experience, Sumit spent 6 years as head of our Hong Kong financial regulation group.
Sumit is a qualified solicitor in both England and Wales and Hong Kong.
Mandeep Bhandal, Senior Policy Advise, The Investment Association
Mandeep is a Senior Policy Advisor at the Investment Association. She leads and supports the IA’s members with Consumer Duty implementation, including policy development and engagement with regulators/policy makers. This includes responsibility for the running and strategic direction of IA’s workstreams and activities to support the investment management industry.
She joined the IA from the FCA having gained extensive experience in policy and regulatory affairs over eight years. Her roles involved managing and influencing a broad network of domestic and international stakeholders at senior levels.
Prior to working at the FCA, Mandeep consulted on political and resilience matters as well as working in the legal and compliance departments at investment banks.
Mandeep holds a law degree and master’s degree in Law from Queen Mary University of London. She also holds a master’s degree in International Studies and Diplomacy from SOAS London.