Who should I contact?

IFAs, Advisers, Paraplanners contact Emma
Platforms, Product Providers and Asset Managers contact Freddie
Interested in the emerging corporate wrap space? Contact Jeremy
Interested in appealing to today’s ‘digital consumers’? Contact Jeremy
Not sure? Please email enquiries@theplatforum.com

Holly Mackay is the Managing Director of The Platforum.

Tel: +44(0)20 7970 4164
Email: Holly

Holly Mackay is the Managing Director of The Platforum which she founded in 2007. The Platforum provides consultancy, research and events to the financial services sector and concentrates on platforms and retail distribution. A self-confessed platform bore, Holly has been working with fund distribution platforms for over 11 years and her experience spans the Australian, UK and continental European markets.

Holly started her career in the Australian financial services industry where she developed and ran investment platforms at Merrill Lynch Investment Managers and Norwich Union.

On returning to the UK in 2003, she worked for Abbey and was appointed the UK Director for Santander’s Allfunds Bank in 2005, prior to setting up The Platforum.

Holly read French and Spanish at New College, Oxford University and holds a graduate Diploma in Applied Finance and Investments from the Securities Institute of Australia. She likes platforms, Rioja and India and her son has taught her to appreciate JCBs too.

Chloe King is PA to Holly Mackay and Events Co-ordinator at The Platforum

Tel: +44(0)20 7970 4164
Email: Chloe
Twitter: Follow Chloe @PlatforumEvents

Chloe is Holly’s PA and is also involved in events management at The Platforum. She is tasked with (amongst other things) running Holly's busy diary so please feel free to contact her with any queries or use her as a first point of call to get in touch with another member of the team. Chloe also organises and helps run all our various events throughout the year from seminars to our annual conference so please contact her if you have any queries regarding any of our events.

Chloe is a qualified ski instructor and keen cook. She also has a foundation degree in Journalism from London Metropolitan University.

Please follow Chloe on twitter to hear all the latest news regarding Platforum events.

Freddie Findlater is Head of Adviser Platforms at The Platforum

Tel: +44(0)20 7970 4164
Email: Freddie
LinkedIn:

Freddie has been with the company since October 2008. He joined the firm after an internship with Jupiter Asset Management in both the Sales and Marketing division and Fund Management, working with the UK Equities team. He graduated from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 2008 with a BA in Politics.

As Head of Adviser Platforms, Freddie is in contact with 50 of The Platforum’s largest clients, including platforms, asset managers and life companies. Freddie heads up the production, content generation, sales, PR and collating feedback for The Platforum’s market-leading quarterly research publication ‘The Adviser Platform Guide’.

Freddie is currently studying for the Investment Management Certificate. He is a keen rugby player and armchair sportsman.

Emma Napier is Head of Adviser Relations at The Platforum

Tel: +44(0)7703 196214
Email: Emma
LinkedIn:
Twitter: Follow @EmmaNapier

Emma has spent the majority of her career to date in Senior Management roles of large multi location IFA firms, ORIGEN and The Regent Organisation. As Chief Operations Officer her roles included that of Compliance Officer where she held CF10 and 11 functions together. Her expertise include creating robust internal policies and procedures, managing internal change through acquisition, development and installation of back office systems and increasing efficiency ahead of RDR.

Emma joins The Platforum with first hand experience of the challenges Advisers face today.



Jeremy Fawcett is Head of New Platform Channels at The Platforum

Tel: +44(0)20 7970 4164
Email: Jeremy
LinkedIn:
Twitter: Follow @jfawcett

Jeremy manages "new platform channels" which is the most succinct description we can think of for the world beyond adviser platforms - direct to consumer platforms and corporate or workplace platforms.

Formerly Category Director for Financial Services at Yahoo, Jeremy was tasked with making sense of the evolving digital landscape to senior marketers across the finance industry. Having picked out the personal investment sector as one which appeared to be teetering on the edge of significant change, he boosts the Platforum’s expertise around how the digital consumer is evolving and what companies can do to present themselves effectively online, on mobile devices and in social media.

Jeremy holds a BSc in Marketing from Newcastle University, an MSc in Building Conservation from Bournemouth University and the Investment Management Certificate (IMC).

Richard Bradley is a Research Associate at The Platforum

Tel: +44(0)20 7970 4164
Email: Richard
LinkedIn:

Richard brings together data for The Direct Platform Guide, The Adviser Platform Guide and the European Platform Guide.

Richard is a graduate of the University of Southampton, where he was awarded a BEng in Electronic Engineering and a PhD in Electronics and Electrical Engineering with his thesis, ‘The Robust Stability of Iterative Learning Control’. Richard was originally attracted to financial services by the similarities he saw between the financial markets and aspects of control theory during 2008 when writing up his thesis. He is currently studying for the Investment Management Certificate.

Mark Polson is founder of the lang cat, a platforms and pensions industry specialist consultancy. Mark works with The Platforum on our Corporate Platform research.

The lang cat works with providers and IFAs, helping them develop new propositions, turn marketing strategy into action and articulating their services in such a way that people without financial services degrees have a hope of understanding them. Mark is a prolific writer, contributor to the trade press and public speaker, even when people ask him not to be.

Phil Wickenden is the founder of So Here's The Plan. Phil is our preferred external research consultant.

Phil Wickenden runs market research agency So Here’s The Plan, financial specialists delivering a range of research consultancy services to the sector. Phil’s experience in financial services marketing spans 10 years and all corners of the provider, agency and research worlds. In that time he has worked with insurers, asset managers, banks and agencies, providing:

• Real and continuing understanding of what’s happening and about to happen across financial markets.
• Invaluable insight into what key advisers and consumer groups want and value.
• Actionable plans to drive business growth.
• Competitor analysis.
• Service / proposition benchmarking.
• Project delivery support.

Phil works with The Platforum on a regular basis, interviewing advisers and providing insights for our research and consultancy projects.

John Moret is the founder of Moretosipps. John is our prefered SIPP associate.

John is the founder of www.moretosipps.co.uk – a specialist consultancy and advisory service. His aim with Moretosipps is to educate and provide access to unrivalled experience and knowledge of the SIPP and retail pensions market and the all important options at retirement. SIPPs are part of a fast changing pensions landscape and they are also a catalyst for the growth in adviser platforms. Understanding these drivers of change and how they may influence the future shape of the pensions market is important.

John is sometimes known as “Mr SIPP” – and was more recently labelled the “godfather of SIPPs” in the October 2010 issue of Pensions Management magazine. John has spent forty years working in the life and pensions industry and was in at the birth of SIPPs in 1989/90 and has since helped shape the SIPP industry having been the inaugural chairman of the SIPP Provider Group (now relabelled AMPs www.ampsonline.co.uk ). John was also at the forefront of the redesign in 1995 of the at retirement market with the introduction of income drawdown. Much of his time has been spent working with financial advisers and in 2010 Professional Adviser magazine nominated him as one of their top twenty adviser champions in their “The 50 most influential list”. More recently John has taken over as Chair of The Pensions Network www.the-pensions-net-work.com

We just love John and he is the person we head to when we deal with any projects requiring specialist SIPP knowledge.

Our offices:

The Platforum, 79 Wells Street, London, W1T 3QN

The Platforum is registered in England and Wales as Investment Platforms Limited (06439194)