News

FMA changes its executive team

Thursday 11th of June 2015

Liam Mason, who was previously general counsel and director of governance, policy and strategy becomes director of regulation. The role includes the responsibilities formerly under the director of compliance role, which was dis-established following Elaine Campbell’s departure in May.

Garth Stanish becomes director of markets oversight, a new role on the FMA’s executive team . The markets oversight group includes oversight of NZX, crowd-funding/P2P lending platforms and frontline supervisors.

John Botica becomes chief operating officer, responsible for corporate functions including finance, technology, enterprise project management, and business planning. He continues to lead market engagement as a function, which was his previous role.

Diana Christensen has been appointed director of people and capability. She has been in a senior human resources role as head of people and capability, reporting to the director of corporate operations since late last year.

Chief executive, Rob Everett, says the changes on the executive team reflect the focus that the FMA has on its regulatory priorities as set out in its strategic risk outlook published late last year.

"As we bed-in the Financial Markets Conduct Act, we are steadily reassessing our medium-term priorities. The appointments reflect the emphasis we are putting on our core regulatory processes and operations, the integrity and effective operation of our markets, and the key focus on the capability and development of our people and our core systems."

Comments (4)
Allen Hoffman
Until FMA hires someone in a senior position who has actually provided financial advice, they will continue to do a poor job of regulating financial advisers. FMA have continued to hire lawyers in senior positions who don't know have a rudimentary understanding of the basics of financial advice. Their misuse of basic financial terminology in Good Returns evidences their lack of knowledge. The decision making and guidance around areas such as DIMS and money laundering has been deplorable. Unfortunately, when the regulator doesn't understand what they are regulating, it has a negative impact on not only financial advisers, but also on the investing public.
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9 years ago

Brent Sheather
Absolutely right Charity. One only has to look at the firms some of the executives have worked for to see why some of their initiatives in our space have been so unprofessional. So glad that I am getting closer to retirement.
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9 years ago

Alan Schofield
Phillipa Foster Black, Director of the Institute of Business Ethics in the UK, was asked a question at last week's AFA gather in Auckland about the appropriateness of having people from the advisory industry on the board of the FMA or management of the FMA (and visa versa). She thought it was important (for the reasons given by Charity pretty much) provided conflicts of interest could be avoided. She gave the example of having a stand down period from their leaving one organisation before their appointment to the other organisation. Interestingly, Switzerland has just legislated to have mandatory stand-down periods for people moving between regulators and the regulated so clearly this is becoming a way of having knowledgeable & experienced people in the right positions while avoiding conflicts of interest. Hopefully the MBIE/FMA will take this on board for their review of legislation.
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9 years ago

Mike King
My recent experience of the FMA - that is, reporting what I contend were 4 clear breaches of the CoPC - was that a) the investigating bureaucrat really didn't understand the nature of the offences; and b) blindly accepted "reasonable explanations" from the accused, who had told a provable lie (Std 1 of the CoPC); and moreover, c) would not allow a 'right of reply' to this clown's "reasonable explanations". The whole process was an opaque farce, and for anyone out there who is ever worried that the FMA might call them to task over some minor infringement (such as a misplaced comma on your Disclosure), I say this - don't worry! It looks like the only way the FMA will be the least bit interested in you is if you...actually, I can't think of anything! Can someone out there fill us in when & where the FMA has done anything to enhance the safety of consumers and to police the irresponsible in the advice industry?
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9 years ago

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