The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has appointed six directors as it increases its headcount to meet a growing remit and to achieve its strategy, which launched in April.
The appointments fill a mix of new and existing roles and add to the almost 500 new FCA staff recruited between January and the end of July.
These include Roma Pearson who has been appointed as the FCA’s director of consumer finance, responsible for the supervision and policy development in the consumer lending and mortgages sectors. Pearson has been at the FCA and its predecessors since 1996, most recently as a head of department in the risk and compliance oversight division and will take up her new role in July.
Camille Blackburn joins the FCA in October in the newly created role of director of wholesale buy-side. In her new role, she will be responsible for policy development and the effective supervision across asset management, alternative investments, custody banks and investment research. Blackburn will join from Legal & General Investment Management, where she is currently global chief compliance officer.
Matthew Long has been appointed director of payments and digital assets, a new role overseeing the e-money, payment and crypto-asset markets and leading related policy development. He is currently a director within the National Economic Crime Command within the National Crime Agency, which has a strategic leadership role for economic crime and illicit finance. He also led the UK Financial Intelligence Unit. He will join the FCA in October.
Anthony Monaghan has been promoted within the FCA to director of retail and regulatory investigations, which he has been covering on an interim basis since April 2021. He will be responsible for the FCA’s regulatory investigations in sectors including banking, insurance, financial advice and personal pensions and has been at the FCA since 2010, most recently as head of retail & regulatory investigations within the regulator’s Enforcement and Market Oversight Division.
Karen Baxter will join the FCA’s enforcement team as director of strategy, policy, international and intelligence. In her role, she will lead the specialised functions that support the breadth of the FCA’s enforcement and market oversight activities, helping ensure it has the tools it needs to do its work effectively. Baxter will join the FCA in September. She has had a 30-year policing career, holding senior roles including as commander and national coordinator for economic crime at the City of London Police. She is also an Ofcom board member for Northern Ireland, having been appointed by the secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport in March 2022.
Simon Walls, appointed interim director in May, will continue in the role of director of wholesale, sell-side on a permanent basis.
Nikhil Rathi, chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority, said: “As our remit grows and to deliver on our ambitious strategy, we’re continuing to develop and bring in the skills and talent we need.
“My executive committee colleagues and I are delighted to announce the latest additions to our leadership team, who will each bring deep expertise and broad experience to the FCA.”