Our People

Ben Blackett-Ord (Chief Executive)
E: BBlackett-Ord@bovill.com

Ben is an experienced financial services regulatory practitioner having served as a regulator, compliance officer and consultant for over twenty years. He established Bovill in 1999.

Ben started his regulatory career with The Securities Association (TSA) in 1988 where he gained extensive experience in the supervision of investment firms. Following the merger of the TSA with the Association of Futures Brokers and Dealers (AFBD) to form the Securities and Futures Authority (SFA) he assumed responsibility for the supervision of a range of derivatives firms. Having left the SFA Ben spent six years as an in-house Compliance Officer, first with IBJ International and then with Standard Bank.

Ben is a qualified barrister and is regularly invited to speak on regulatory issues at conferences throughout the UK. He is highly respected for his thorough and client focused approach. He is a director of the EIS Association and sits on the legal and technical committee of the British Business Angels Association.

John Whitlock (Principal)
E: JWhitlock@bovill.com

John has over 20 years experience in government and regulation, having held senior positions at both the Department of Trade and Industry and the FSA, where he was a Head of Department, dealing mainly with general insurance. His DTI experience included implementing legislation on Financial Markets and Insolvency, as well as four years as Head of Corporate Services at the National Physical Laboratory.

John is expert in policy analysis and implementation, and advises on the development of practical solutions to clients' problems in the interpretation or application of regulatory requirements, including perimeter questions. While John's main sector focus is insurance, his wider knowledge and skills are deployed to support client projects across the board.

His senior-level experience at the FSA has given John a broad insight into its wider policies and processes, which is invaluable in advising clients on how best to deal with the FSA to achieve constructive outcomes.

Caroline Gibbs (Principal)
E: CGibbs@bovill.com

Caroline Gibbs has worked within the financial services industry for over 14 years and prior to joining Bovill worked at the Financial Services Authority for 4½ years within their Supervision Department. At FSA Caroline was responsible for supervising a wide variety of investment firms as well as American investment banks and gained a thorough understanding of both the supervisory processes and the FSA rules. Caroline led numerous FSA supervision visits, including ARROW visits, and was a key participant in a variety of projects including the N2 grandfathering project and the Skilled Persons Review.

At Bovill, Caroline provides FSA compliance support to a wide range of investment firms including private equity/venture capital firms, fund managers, brokers and derivatives firms. Caroline is well respected by her clients because of her thorough knowledge of the FSA rules and her ability to communicate information in a straightforward and concise manner. Caroline has in depth knowledge in the FSA's prudential and reporting rules and has been instrumental in the implementation of the Capital Requirements Directive and Integrated Regulatory Reporting for Bovill's clients. Caroline also has in depth knowledge of the Conduct of Business rules.

After graduating with a BSc in Mathematics with Management, Caroline joined Neilson Cobbold Stockbrokers and gained her registered representative examination as well as her Securities Institute Diploma. She then spent 2 years running the Investment Administration Qualification programme for the Securities Institute prior to joining FSA in 2000. Caroline also holds the derivatives paper of the registered representative examination.

Rebecca Thorpe (Principal)
E: RThorpe@bovill.com

Rebecca joined Bovill in April 2006 after spending five years with Deloitte, where she gained broad financial services and consulting experience working in their regulatory consulting practice. During her time there, Rebecca was involved in assisting a wide range of firms, including blue chip retail banks, insurance companies and product providers.

Rebecca has written for several publications and spoken at seminars on FSA regulatory themes, in particular the FSA's Treating Customers Fairly initiative. In terms of client work, she has been involved in a number of technical investigations, ranging from pension reviews to past business reviews, implementation of the Government's Post Office banking service for the financially excluded, and money laundering investigations. Rebecca was also involved in several projects with the FSA, including a substantial nine month s166 assignment and the FSA's "Cost of Regulation" research study.

Since joining Bovill, Rebecca has provided FSA compliance support for niche market players ranging from investment property firms to corporate finance boutiques. Along with her experience of planning and implementing compliance projects in areas such as TCF and MiFID, she has spent time on secondment as a compliance officer in larger investment firms.

Rebecca has a degree in Mathematics and Computer Science and also holds a number of industry qualifications including the FPC, AFPC and IMC and Mortgage Advice Qualification. Rebecca became a PRINCE 2 qualified project manager in May 2005.

Mar Alvarez (Financial Controller/HR Manager)
E: MAlvarez@bovill.com

Mar's role is to ensure the smooth running of the back office. As financial controller she is responsible for the financial management of the company including the preparation of management accounts, budgets and forecasts. She ensures that the books are kept balanced, bills are paid and debtors chased. Mar is also CIPD qualified with employment law knowledge and is responsible for the operational delivery of the HR service, providing support, advice and practical guidance to senior managers and staff.

Kim Kooloian (Office Manager/PA)
E: KKooloian@bovill.com

Kim has several years experience in office administration, customer service and as a personal and executive assistant. She has worked in various organisations such as law, health care, hospitality and IT. Kim's current role as Office Manager and PA to Ben Blackett-Ord includes a wide range of responsibilities including diary management, first point of contact, liaising with building management, vendors and IT support, coordinating events such as Bovill's monthly briefings and specialised projects.

Kim has a BA in English Literature from Emmanuel College in Boston, Massachusetts and a diploma in Theatre and Acting from The Neighborhood Playhouse in New York.

David Auger (Consultant)
E: DAuger@bovill.com

David is a Consultant at Bovill, joining the team from law firm SJ Berwin LLP where he spent eight years as a compliance consultant working in their financial services practice. He was responsible for assisting Berwin's clients to obtain FSA authorisation and providing ongoing support to them.

As well as advising clients, David dealt with Berwin's own anti-money laundering processes being the reference point there for non-routine decisions and – when necessary – preparing suitable notifications to SOCA. He also worked on related risk and reputational aspects, in particular those involving conflict checks and insider lists.

David's clients at Berwin included investment advisors, stockbrokers, hedge funds and also private equity/venture capital firms. In addition to FPC and Securities Institute compliance qualifications, David passed both parts of the Chartered Institute of Bankers exams during his earlier career as a branch manager with NatWest - which he joined after graduating with a BA (hons) degree in Economics.

Emma Croft (Consultant)
E: ECroft@bovill.com

Emma is a Consultant at Bovill having joined in January 2008. Her experience to date has included working on a number of different regulatory areas including applications, training preparation and delivery for AML, financial promotions and high level systems and controls reviews.

Emma has worked in financial services compliance for over 10 years and brings with her extensive experience from both an industry and regulator perspective. During her time in the industry, Emma has worked for a number of mortgage providers ranging from large banks and building societies to sub prime lenders, and has real experience of managing the compliance issues which firms face both on a day to day basis, and through large scale initiatives.

Emma also spent two years working in the financial promotions team at the FSA, during which time she was responsible for reviewing and monitoring financial promotions issued by a wide variety of investment firms. Whilst working at the regulator, Emma gained a real insight into the move to more principles based regulation and how this can be applied in practice.

Emma has worked in a variety of different areas within retail mortgages including broker relationships, financial promotions, documentation (including KFI and mortgage offer development and review), compliance monitoring, responsible lending, product development, treating customers fairly, and training & competence. Other areas of expertise include the Consumer Credit Act and the Data Protection Act.

Billie-Jo Dixon (Consultant)
E: BDixon@bovill.com

Billie-Jo is a Consultant at Bovill. Her key focus is FSA regulation of investment firms, both in the retail and the wholesale markets. She has worked extensively with fund managers, brokers, private equity / venture capital firms, and firms undertaking investment business in relation to derivatives, particularly those operating in the Shipping sector.

Her previous experience was in-house at leading global asset management firms where she provided compliance support to Senior Management and to front and middle office teams in relation to high level systems and controls, fund launches, sales and marketing, complaints handling and dealing errors. She also provided compliance training to employees at all levels, undertook detailed compliance monitoring and helped ensure day-to-day adherence with FSA requirements such as Client Order Handling, Approved Persons and Training & Competence.

More recently, Billie-Jo has gained considerable experience in helping firms to prepare for MiFID and the implementation of Integrated Regulatory Reporting, as well as assisting firms in determining whether they are subject to consolidated supervision.

After graduating with a BA (hons) in Economics and Politics, Billie-Jo travelled extensively and then joined Merrill Lynch Investment Managers' Group Compliance Department. She subsequently spent three years working in Compliance Advisory at ABN AMRO Asset Management before joining Bovill in 2007. Billie-Jo holds the Investment Management Certificate.

Nicola Green (Consultant)
E: NGreen@bovill.com

Nicola is a Consultant at Bovill, where she works with a wide variety of clients including investment firms, stockbrokers and insurance intermediaries. She has extensive knowledge of the regulations applying to financial crime and has been involved in financial crime systems and controls reviews. She has also been involved in Section 166 Skilled Persons Review project work.

Nicola has 8 years in-house regulatory experience gained with life & pensions companies providing ongoing compliance support and technical guidance. She has worked in the compliance department of Royal & Sun Alliance Life & Pensions where she carried out quality of advice reviews and provided technical guidance to the business. She then worked at Unisys Insurance Services Limited (UISL) where she was particularly involved in anti-money laundering and financial crime controls. She was also responsible for providing advice to the business on all aspects of FSA regulations as well as creating risk-based audit specifications for the compliance monitoring team. Whilst at UISL Nicola spent time working with the risk team identifying and analysing breaches of the FSA rules and assisting the business to ensure appropriate remedial action was taken.

Nicola has a BSc (hons) in Business Studies (Quantitative Business Management) and is FPC qualified. She holds the CII Certificate of Insurance and the regulatory module of the SII certificate, and is currently studying for the CII Diploma of Insurance.

Kate Robinson (Consultant)
E: KRobinson@bovill.com

Kate Robinson is a Consultant at Bovill, where her area of specialisation is FSA regulation of retail financial service firms. Kate has worked in financial services for over 8 years and brings with her extensive experience from an industry perspective. She has great awareness of the practicalities of managing the compliance issues which firms face both on a day to day basis and through large scale initiatives.

Having worked for a large intermediary firm her previous experience includes FSA Arrow preparation, Consumer Credit Act interpretation, training and competence reviews, regulated complaints handling and Financial Promotion review. She has sound knowledge of the general insurance and mortgage intermediary regimes, and has provided training (including senior management coaching) relating to FSA regulatory requirements, in addition to on-going compliance support to a wide range of third party clients.

She has considerable experience of the PPI market and the implementation of the FSA's "Treating Customers Fairly" principles-based initiative. This has included working with senior management teams, appointed representatives and intermediaries to define and practically apply appropriate arrangements that fit their wide-ranging business models.

After graduating with a BSc (hons) Science degree, Kate joined Freedom Finance Plc where she spent five years establishing and running the compliance department. Prior to joining Bovill Kate worked as a consultant for Santander on their PPI business. Kate is also CeMap and Prince 2 qualified.

Gillian Roche-Saunders (Consultant)
E: GRoche-Saunders@bovill.com

Gillian joined Bovill in June 2011 from The Law Society with 7 years of compliance and management experience. At Bovill Gillian focuses on funds, E-money and Payment Services. She has worked on a number of complex authorisations and also manages ongoing support relationships.

As an adjudicator and advisor in The Law Society's complaints investigation department, she made the final decisions about law firm compliance on areas such as conflicts of interest, complaints management, money laundering, and supervision. During this time, she also helped law firms meet their compliance requirements by delivering tailored training courses and guidance materials. Gillian has extensive experience of managing large-scale projects, designing compliance audits and providing procedure and policy reviews.

Gillian has a LLB in Law and French Law (Hons), a PRINCE2 qualification and is currently working to complete the CISI Financial Regulation exam.

Richard Scrivener (Consultant)
E: RScrivener@bovill.com

Richard joined Bovill in August 2011. He has a background in the fund management industry and over 15 years of financial services regulatory experience gained from working at the Financial Services Authority and, before that, one of its predecessors, IMRO - the Investment Management Regulatory Organisation.

During his career at the FSA Richard held a number of different positions and spent time working on a wide variety of thematic projects. These include the supervision of financial promotions; the early stages of the PPI project; reviews of the sale of structured products; the suitability of pension-switching advice; the use of platforms and the review of suitability standards among wealth managers. He has designed and delivered training and also helped to develop some of the toolkits the FSA uses to assist with testing of conduct risks and the assessment of suitability.

His time at IMRO culminated in managing a monitoring team looking after over 120 regulated firms, mainly comprising investment managers and advisers.

Prior to his time in regulation, Richard spent 10 years working for the investment management division of Lloyds Bank. Starting out as a fund manager's assistant he progressed to UK equity research analyst before becoming a UK equity pension fund manager.

Richard has a diploma from the Securities and Investments Institute.

Amelie Snape (Consultant)
E: ASnape@bovill.com

Amelie is a Consultant at Bovill, having recently joined the team from AIG Investments in London, where she spent two years as a Compliance Associate. Amelie's in-house experience for this global institutional asset manager spanned fixed income, equities, emerging markets, private equity and real estate businesses. She was responsible for portfolio and transaction monitoring, designing and leading reviews of back office operations, developing internal policies and procedures and review and approval of Financial Promotions. Amelie was also responsible for breach resolution across diverse business units, providing ongoing support to the business on trade compliance, and advising the business on training and competence and approved persons regimes.

Prior to joining AIG Investments, Amelie spent two and a half years working as a Compliance Analyst for Quilter (prev. Citi Quilter and Morgan Stanley Quilter). Amelie worked extensively with the business in her role for this private client investment management firm, gaining compliance experience in financial promotions, anti-money laundering and KYC issues. She also led front office compliance reviews of Guernsey and Dublin offices, delivered training and conducted detailed compliance monitoring.

Whilst studying for her First Class BSc (hons) in Neuroscience from the University of Manchester, Amelie spent one year on a professional placement in Basel. Amelie then worked at EFG Private Bank in London before moving to Quilter. Amelie is a member of the Securities and Investments Institute, and holds the SII Diploma in Investment Compliance.

David Aylward (Associate)
E: DAylward@bovill.com

David joined Bovill in January 2012 after working as an adjudicator at the Financial Ombudsman Service for two and a half years. David specialised in resolving retail banking and insurance disputes during his time at the Ombudsman Service and managed a number of high profile projects. David has previously worked at AXA/Winterthur Wealth Management, where he gained strong technical knowledge of the pensions industry.

David completed an LLB (Hons) Law Degree from the University of Exeter. He holds the CII Certificate of Insurance and Chartered Banker Institute's Professional Banker Certificate. He is currently working towards the CISI course in FSA Financial Regulation.

Richard Cross (Associate)
E: RCross@bovill.com

Richard joined Bovill as an Associate in July 2011 after working for a regulatory consultancy in the City where he gained a strong and technical understanding of both the retail and wholesale financial services markets.

Richard has also worked as an adjudicator for the Financial Ombudsman Service, where he settled complaints between financial services firms and consumers.

Richard has experience of advising clients on implementing compliance procedures; managing a number of FSA authorisation applications, including investment managers, corporate finance and insurance intermediaries firms; advising on the FSA Handbook, with a focus on the financial promotions regime and advising on new businesses and products requiring FSA authorisation.

Richard holds an LLB (Hons) Law Degree and has completed his Legal Practice Course. Richard also holds the CISI FSA Financial Regulation and Introduction to Investments exams.

Jennifer Desai (Associate)
E: JDesai@bovill.com

Jennifer Desai joined Bovill as an Associate in March 2011 after spending two and a half years working in a variety of roles for a large multi-national financial services firm. As a result of time spent with this firm Jennifer has experience of working with general insurance products as well as ISAs, bonds and group and personal pensions.

Prior to joining Bovill, Jennifer was on the AXA graduate programme. She spent a year and a half on this programme working in diverse areas including marketing, anti-money laundering and compliance with the FSA's treating customers fairly principles. Jennifer's most recent role with AXA was in the anti-money laundering area where she was responsible for responding to day-to-day anti-money laundering queries, conducting politically exposed persons and sanctions match checks and investigating suspicious activity reports and reporting those on to SOCA where appropriate. She was also responsible for monitoring staff completion of anti-money laundering training and working with the business to improve anti-money laundering procedures.

Jennifer holds a BA (Hons) in Modern European Languages from the University of Durham, and is currently working to complete the FSA Financial Regulation exam.

Craig Drury (Associate)
E: CDrury@bovill.com

Craig joined Bovill in 2011 from the Financial Services Authority's Enforcement and Financial Crime Division where he honed his skills as a forensic investigator.

His enforcement workload included investigations into firms suspected of carrying out regulatory breaches, such as insurance and mortgage fraud, mis-selling, systems and controls breaches, non-compliance with Financial Ombudsman Service awards and failures to meet FSA capital resources requirements, and has involved everything from file reviews to unannounced visits with search warrants.

During six years at the FSA, he also participated in visits to firms conducted by the FSA's Supervision Division, including Treating Customers Fairly (TCF) visits with the Small Firms and Contact Division, gaining first-hand experience of how the TCF initiative works from both the regulator's and regulated firms' perspectives.

Craig graduated in European Studies and holds the Financial Planning Certificate. His early career was spent with Lloyds TSB/Scottish Widows Life Pensions and Investment, when he gained the Financial Planning Certificates 1, 2 and 3 from the Certified Insurance Institute.

Owen Dudney (Associate)
E: ODudney@bovill.com

Owen joined Bovill in September 2011 after spending over three years with Nomura Asset Management, where he was responsible for running the compliance monitoring programme. This role involved responsibility for best execution checks, training and competence reviews, anti money laundering training and co-ordination with the UK Takeover Panel. During this time Owen also worked on reviewing financial promotions and completing Approved Person's registrations.

Prior to this Owen worked in New York for Legg Mason Asset Management's in-house compliance team. Here he gained exposure to the US regulatory environment and SEC reporting requirements.

Owen has a degree in European, International and Comparative Law from the University of Sheffield, also spending time studying in Toronto. Owen has passed the Investment Administration Qualification and is an Associate member of the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment.

Johan Grefstad (Associate)
E: JGrefstad@bovill.com

Johan joined Bovill in January 2012 after spending two and a half years at the Financial Ombudsman Service where he resolved disputes between consumers and financial businesses. At Bovill, Johan focuses on private equity, venture capital and wealth management assisting firms with FSA authorisations, ongoing support and preparing for upcoming regulatory developments.

As a decision writer at the Financial Ombudsman Service, Johan drafted final decisions for the ombudsman panel, working on sensitive disputes with wide-ranging implications – as well as running technical clinics and handling projects on well-publicised complaints.

After obtaining an LLB (Hons) Law degree from the University of East Anglia, Johan worked as a paralegal and travelled extensively before taking a Post-Graduate Diploma in Law from the College of Law, Moorgate. After graduating, Johan worked as a legal consultant. He is currently working to complete the CISI course in FSA Financial Regulation.