A panel of judges is appointed annually to analyse and assess entrants. Details of the 2004 panel are below.
THE PANEL:
Deborah Benn, financial journalist
Lawrence Gosling, editorial director, Incisive Media
Malcolm Kerr, AtosKPMG
Anne McMeehan, Cauldron Consulting
Jain Castiau, Cauldron Consulting
Danby Bloch, Taxbriefs
Chris Gilchrist, Everyinvestor
Mike Richards, Capital City Media
Nick Baker, AdventisNMG
Martin Fox, Egg Design
Ben Marquand, editor, Mortgage Solutions
Professor David Jackman, Ethics Foundation
Anthony Gould, Post Magazine
Craig Walton, Asset T.V
Michael Gaughan, FWD Financial Services Marketing Ltd
John Pattison, Financial Services Strategist
Helping the judges with their assessments in an analytical capacity are:
David Lee, Defaqto
AKG Actuaries and Consultants
Details of the impressive career history of each of these individuals have been provided below. Alternatively, to view a single individual just click on the relevant name above.
Jain Castiau, director, Cauldron Consulting
Jain has in depth senior management experience in financial services having worked both in the UK and Europe for over 25 years.
As Managing Director of UBS Warburg's European e-Services business she was responsible for the design and development of the products and services for the company's multi- channel pan-European retail banking initiative. Prior to this, whilst working at Charles Schwab, she was actively involved in the launch of the first on-line share trading service in the UK. She has over 12 years experience of the fund management industry having been marketing director with both Hambros and Barclays.
She has a detailed knowledge and appreciation of the challenges faced by fund management and high net worth client businesses having been instrumental in several key strategic projects in the retail financial services arena. Her contacts within the financial services arena include journalists, regulators and senior practitioners
Anne McMeehan, director, Cauldron Consulting
Anne has worked in the UK financial services industry since 1977. As Director of Communications at AUTIF now the IMA - the Investment Management Association, the trade association for the UK investment funds industry her primary responsibilities covered research, statistics, press, media and public relations. Her wide-ranging financial services sales and marketing experience and her practical understanding of technical issues and their commercial implications for the investment funds industry frequently helped to shape the thinking behind industry regulatory and governmental lobbying initiatives in both the UK and in Europe. She was previously a director of Framlington and for six years Managing Director of its unit trust subsidiary. For some of this period she was also Deputy Chairman of AUTIF. Her earlier career was with Arbuthnot Latham and Zurich Financial Services, formerly Hambro Life. Anne is in regular contact with the financial press and is frequently asked to contribute to radio and television interviews as well as industry conferences. Over the years she has established a wide range of senior contacts both in the UK and overseas
Ben Marquand, editor, Mortgage Solutions
After studying Modern History with Economics for three years at Manchester University Ben went to Nottingham to complete a Masters degree in investigative journalism. Upon graduation he moved to London to work on the trade titles Mortgage Solutions and COVER magazines, writing features, interviews, surveys and news. After two years he left to become news editor at another trade
magazine Mortgage Introducer for a further 18 months before returning to Mortgage Solutions as editor in 2002. In this role he now contributes to a number of related titles and speaks at a number of industry events on issues concerning personal finance.
David Lee – Director , Defaqto
David has over 20 years technical experience gained within both life office and IFA brokerages. He is ACII qualified and has spent the past fifteen years exclusively in product research. Two years were spent as a Senior Research Journalist with Money Marketing and three years as Head of Research at Countrywide Independent Advisers before joining Defaqto as one of the founding Directors in 1994.
Danby Bloch, editorial director of Taxbriefs
Taxbriefs is the specialist financial publishers responsible for five of the Chartered Insurance Institute's Advanced Financial Planning Certificate set texts and case study books, as well as several other key training and reference books. Taxbriefs also produce a range of customised newsletters and other publications for financial advisers. He is also Chairman of city IFAs Helm Godfrey and has been involved in financial services for 28 years.
Danby has written three books on aspects of financial planning and innumerable articles for the national and trade press. He is also a regular lecturer and trainer on tax and financial subjects. Danby's spare time occupations include membership of the board of Modern Art Oxford and also Oxford Brookes University where he is Chair of Governors.
Chris Gilchrist, editorial director, Everyinvestor
Chris Gilchrist 30 years in the financial services industry includes experience within the IFA sector as well as the media. He has written several books on personal finance, contributed to national newspapers such as the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail, broadcast extensively on Radio 4 Moneybox, and been involved in TV programmes on personal finance. He is now editorial director of internet publishers Everyinvestor. H also set up one of the first IFA product research facilities for The Burns-Anderson Independent Network in 1989 and is a director of an IFA specialising in collective investments, Churchill Investments PLC.
Mike Richards, chairman, Capital City Media
Mike Richards is chairman of Capital City Media, which is one of the most prominent media buyers in financial services. Mike has over 20 years' experience in the advertising sector. He is a regular commentator in the press and has spoken at a number of conferences on advertising issues. Mike is an avid football supporter and is a season ticket holder at Bayern Munich.
Deborah Benn, financial journalist
Deborah has contributed to a range of publications worldwide and is the author of How to Maximise Your Wealth Offshore. Deborah edited Financial Times Magazine's Investment Adviser and she is the ex-editor of Incisive Media's International Investment magazine. Deborah currently works on a range of financial newsletters as well as conference and awards programme.
Malcolm Kerr, director of AtosKPMG Consulting
Malcolm Kerr has worked in the financial services industry for over 30 years during which he has held a number of senior management positions in both intermediary and product providers in the UK and overseas. As chairman of an Isle of Man life company Malcolm gained a good deal experience in the offshore market and has maintained a keen interest in this area.
Four years ago Malcolm decided to move into consulting and joined KPMG. Now, as a director of Atos KPMG Consulting, he advises the management of leading life companies, banks and fund managers on issues relating to strategy
Lawrence Gosling, editorial director, Incisive Media.
Lawrence Gosling is the editorial director of the investment division of
Incisive Media. He has launched 14 personal finance publications aimed at professional and
consumers including Investment Week, Bloomberg Money, Cover, Mortgage
Solutions and Wealth. Previously, Lawrence was a journalist at FT Magazines and Reuters. He is also a regular contributor to television and radio programmes on personal finance.
John Pattison, Financial Services Strategist
John's experience encompasses strategy development, new business start ups, M & A related work and performance improvement assignments. Over the last few years John has worked with a number of the leading banks and insurers in the wealth management arena. This work has included developing new business models (such as wraps) and refining the old. As part of this work John has studied the preferences of affluent consumers and the intermediary market extensively. John acquired substantial consulting experience with Coopers & Lybrand, PA Consulting and AtosKPMG. During his career has served clients around the globe, including South Africa, Kenya, South Korea, China, Russia, Egypt and Turkey.
Professor David Jackman
David is Chairman of the Ethics Foundation, currently establishing the Ethics Forum for financial services. He is also vsiting Professor and adviser to London Metropolitan University.
Recently, Head of Training and Competence at the Financial Services Authority (FSA), architect of the FSA’s training and competence regime and Chief Executive of the Financial Services Skills Council, David was previously at IMRO, SFA and the Securities Institute. David is also Chairman of the BSi committee on financial services and member of committee on sustainable development and a Training and Competence consultant.
Anthony Gould
Anthony Gould is editor in chief of UK-based weekly news publication, Post Magazine, which reports news and trends impacting the insurance sector and monthly magazine, Insurance Age, which reports on the UK's insurance broking sector.He joined Post Magazine in January 1999, and became editor in September 1999, launching the Rehabilitation First campaign in October. He is also overall editor of the online services provided by both magazines. An accomplished award winning journalist in his own right, he has 15 year's experience of business publishing. His last role was as news editor of news-based weekly The Engineer, catering for UK manufacturing in all its guises, and editor of The Engineer Online, which was based on his original brief. From 1997-1999 he was also also freelance UK editor of six-issues a year French magazine Vehicle News.Prior to joining The Engineer, Anthony was deputy editor of controlled circulation monthly automotive trade magazine AutoTrade, having started on the magazine as assistant editor in 1989. During his time there he focused on the bodyshop industry in particular, picking up a number of journalism awards for his writing on the environment.He studied Modern History at the University of London and lives in South East London.
Craig Walton
Craig is a founder director of Asset t.v. His earlier career was spent at Henderson Investors, which he joined in 1986 working as a sales consultant before he took on the position of retail marketing director. In 1993 Craig joined Foreign and Colonial where, as marketing director, he led the marketing and product development of the company’s investment trust and open-ended fund business. In May 1996 he joined Framlington Group. In his role as group marketing director he was responsible for Framlington’s sales and marketing activities globally. In October 2003, Craig became a founder director of Asset t.v.
Michael Gaughan
Michael is the managing director of FWD Financial Services Marketing Ltd and has worked in the insurance sector for 20 years, with almost ten years’ experience as a commercial underwriter and a further ten years in sales and marketing roles. He was group head of marketing at Independent Insurance until 1999 and then the company’s country manager for Ireland until his departure to set up the specialist insurance marketing and PR agency FWD in November 2000. He is a fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institute, a member of the Chartered Institute of marketing and works with a wide range of clients across the insurance sector.
Martin Fox
Martin is Managing Director, Marketing of Egg Design. Martin has a BA Hons and joined Egg in 1995. Prior to that he was General Manager, Marketing for Pearl Assurance with responsibility for all market research, product development, marketing literature, advertising, sponsorship, direct marketing and PR. Before that he was Marketing Director at Prolific, and in sales and marketing with Legal & General. As a member of the Egg Senior Management Team, Martin now heads up marketing consultancy projects, as well as giving strategic input to all our work.
Nick Baker
Nick is the general manager - director of AdventisNMG. Nick has over 20 years experience marketing major financial services brands. On the client-side he has been involved with the launch of new life companies and Investment propositions. Recently, he spent the last 7 years running a prominent Design and Marketing agency before leaving to set up a new joint venture - AdventisNMG. Nick is a customer experience specialist and believes passionately in the power of a consistent, high quality experience to create real brand differentiation.
AKG Actuaries and Consultants
AKG is helping the panel with financial strength analysis and ratings AKG AKG Actuaries & Consultants Ltd is an actuarially based consultancy specialising in the provision of information and market assistance to the financial services industry
Judging Rules:
• The Committee's decision is final
• The Committee has the right to determine the level of standards.
• If in the opinion of the Committee entries do not reach the required standards, then no Gold Standards will be awarded in that category.
• The Committee may highlight an entry of exceptional standard should it be deemed appropriate.
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