Kingsley named head of Andersen’s finance practice

Veteran risk management and markets practice consultant Stephen Kingsley has been made global head of financial services practice at professional services firm Andersen, following a four-year stint leading the firm’s Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) practice.

He takes over from John Tiner, who left Andersen in April to join the UK’s Financial Services Authority as managing director of the consumer, investment and insurance directorate.

Kingsley told RiskNews that he has “ambitious plans” to grow the financial services business from more than $1 billion in fee revenue to-date, to double that figure in three to four years. He said risk management, which grew between 35% to 40% last year in the EMEA region and forms one of three core units, would be essential to achieving his goals, and staff recruitment would be high on his agenda.

“Risk management is going to continue to be a major focus for us, and we are going to continue to build our risk management solutions and continue to focus very much on credit and operational risk,” said Kingsley, adding that changes in the rule for capital put aside for regulatory purposes under Basel II would be a major fee driver. “Basel II presents some challenges for the financial institutions that can’t be overstated, and the industry has yet to fully wake up to the implications there.”

Kingsley added that Andersen would hone in on a core 150 clients, particularly those based in London and Frankfurt, but also Paris, Madrid, Switzerland, Italy, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore and Sydney. It also plans to significantly grow its North American practice, especially on the northeast coast.

“What I want to go towards is a common set of solutions on which we will focus along with global and regional teaming,” said Kingsley. Andersen also plans to take a sectoral view of the industry, for example selling risk management services differently to investment banks, asset management firms, insurance companies and retail banks.

Andersen will also build its financial retailing and straight-through business units. Financial retailing will focus on customer relationship management, distribution channel strategy and processing; while the straight-through business unit looks at the post-trade element in financial institutions, including internal controls, information generation, and clearing and settlement. “These are increasingly important, not just because of operational risk, but also for cost management and control,” Kingsley said.

Kingsley’s promotion is the culmination of 28 years' work for Andersen, where he has developed group-wide risk control strategies for large European corporates, reviewed strategies and risk controls for broker/dealers handling futures and options, and developed market trading practices for a number of exchanges, including the London Stock Exchange, Oslo Bors and Bolsa de Lisboa, among other matters.

Aged 50, Kingsley was a graduate from the University of Bristol and qualified as a chartered accountant in 1976. He became a partner at Andersen’s in 1986.