Financial Services

Financial services is one of the largest sections of the UK economy, and a great deal of it is based beyond the City. According to TheCityUK, financial and related professional services contributed £290bn to UK real gross value added in 2025, around 11% of total economic output, and employed almost 2.5 million people in 2024, two thirds of them outside London. Birmingham, Edinburgh and Manchester are among the leading centres of employment besides London.

Stone Executive has six offices across the country, and our Financial Services headhunters approach leaders in London and in the regional centres alike. In this sector, most people suited to a senior appointment already hold a post at a peer institution, and many have regulatory approval in their current role. We approach each of them directly and in confidence.

Financial Services leaders we appoint

In Financial Services, our appointments run from board level to the senior functional positions that sit beneath the executive committee. The order of priority varies with the institution, so a challenger bank preparing for growth may put its technology and risk appointments first, while an established insurer may be planning the succession of its chief executive and chair.

• Chief executives and managing directors, including planned succession and appointments following an acquisition
• Chief financial officers and finance directors, with the support of our chief financial officer recruitment and financial management practice
• Risk and compliance leadership, including the chief risk officer, the head of compliance and the money laundering reporting officer
• Operations and technology leadership, from the chief operating officer to the chief information security officer
• Board appointments, from chair and senior independent director to non-executive director, supported by our board-level practice
• Heads of distribution, institutional sales and client relationships
• Chief investment officers, heads of asset classes and senior portfolio managers
• Leaders of payments, lending and digital businesses, working alongside our fintech executive search practice

The prudential and conduct rules for a bank differ from those for an insurer or an investment firm, which is why risk, compliance and finance leaders tend to spend their careers within one part of the sector. Technology and commercial leaders often find it easier to move between them, and a chief technology officer from a payments business could be well suited to bringing a wealth manager’s platforms up to date.

What is Financial Services executive search?

Financial Services executive search is the retained search for senior leaders of banks, insurers, investment firms and other regulated financial businesses. It identifies people who are already performing well in similar roles, approaches them privately and assesses them against the commercial brief and the regulatory standards attached to the appointment, including approval where the post is a Senior Management Function.

The people best suited to these appointments are seldom easy to find. Many already work for a competitor, some are bound by long notice periods or deferred pay, and an open advertisement for a chief executive or a chief risk officer can reveal more to the market than the board means to share. Executive search in financial services allows an institution to reach those leaders discreetly and to keep the appointment confidential until it is ready to announce it.

Financial Services markets we cover

Our Financial Services practice works across ten markets, from banking and insurance through to private equity and wealth management. Each comes with its own regulators, ownership structures and groups of seasoned leaders, which means the market the new leader will work in influences the brief from the very first conversation.

• Asset Management - traditional and alternative investment managers, fund houses and boutiques, across investment, distribution, operations and leadership
• Banking Technology and Operations - the technology and operations leadership behind retail, commercial, investment and private banking
• Capital Markets - sell-side firms and market infrastructure, including fixed income, equities, FX and derivatives
• Corporate Finance, M&A and ECM - investment banks, advisory boutiques and corporate finance houses
• Insurance - life, general, specialty and reinsurance markets, together with broking, managing general agents and the Lloyd’s market
• Market Infrastructure and FinTech - exchanges, clearing, payments, market data, regtech, consumer lending platforms and the wider fintech sector
• Private Equity and Venture Capital - appointments within investment firms, together with leadership for the businesses they back
• Real Estate Investment - real estate funds, REITs and real estate finance
• Retail and Commercial Banking - high-street, challenger and commercial banks, building societies and credit unions
• Wealth Management - wealth managers, private banks, family offices and financial planning firms

Ownership counts for as much as the market. A mutual building society is accountable to its members, a listed bank to its shareholders and the Prudential Regulation Authority, and a broker or lender backed by private equity to an investor with a set plan for growth and exit. The question of who the new leader reports to shapes the brief from the start, and it also decides which candidates will see the role as the right next step.

SM&CR and regulated senior appointments

The Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SM&CR) requires the most senior people in a regulated firm, those performing Senior Management Functions, to be approved by the FCA or the PRA before they take up the role. Every one of them must have a Statement of Responsibilities, and a Duty of Responsibility applies to each under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.

According to the FCA, it must reach a decision on an application within three months of receiving it, and it may pause the clock while it requests more information or interviews the candidate. The regulator says it is likely to interview candidates for chief executive (SMF1), chief risk officer (SMF4), compliance oversight (SMF16), chair (SMF9) and senior independent director (SMF14) roles at large listed firms. For a regulated appointment, that approval period falls between the offer and the start date and runs alongside any notice period.

Before it applies, a firm should be able to demonstrate how it satisfied itself that the candidate is fit and proper, including through regulatory references covering the previous six years. The FCA looks more closely where a candidate has held a senior role at a firm with a poor regulatory history, or where there are concerns about individual misconduct, including non-financial misconduct. A candidate’s regulatory history and approval status are therefore best understood while the shortlist is still being put together, so that nothing emerges for the first time at the offer stage.

Where a firm serves retail customers, the FCA’s Consumer Duty, which requires firms to put their customers’ needs first, also brings conduct and customer outcomes into the brief for chief executive, product and distribution roles.

Deferred pay, notice periods and the timing of a move

Timing is a practical consideration in most senior Financial Services appointments. Candidates often hold deferred variable pay and have contractual notice to work, and in regulated roles they must also complete an approval process. All of these influence when the new leader can start, and each needs to be understood before an offer is made.

At banks, building societies and PRA-designated investment firms, the remuneration rules require part of a material risk taker’s variable pay to be deferred. Under the joint PRA and FCA remuneration reforms published in October 2025, the minimum deferral period is now four years for all relevant material risk takers, including senior managers. A senior banker who resigns may therefore leave unvested awards behind, and how those awards are dealt with normally forms part of the offer discussions.

Notice periods, garden leave and restrictive covenants vary from contract to contract. If the board establishes them early, it can plan around the date on which the candidate can realistically start, and arrange interim cover where the role cannot be left vacant.

How a Financial Services search is run

Every Financial Services executive search is retained, and a partner leads it from the first briefing through to the appointment. After the brief is agreed, the offer stage is usually reached within four to eight weeks, and for regulated appointments, approval and notice then add further time before the new leader starts.

A Financial Services brief should set out the circumstances of the appointment as well as the commercial plan: whether the role follows a planned retirement, a sudden departure, a restructuring or a new regulatory requirement, which Senior Management Functions it carries, and to whom the appointee will report. The profile required for a leader entering a period of transition differs from that of someone asked to build a new function.

Candidates are found in the organisations where similar leaders are already succeeding. That can take in peers in the same market as well as firms in a neighbouring market with a comparable regulatory profile. A finance director at a building society, for example, may suit a challenger bank, as both are deposit takers under PRA supervision. Each is then approached individually and in confidence, in line with our executive headhunting approach.

Every candidate on the shortlist is presented with a written profile covering their experience, their regulatory history and any Senior Management Functions they have held. We then manage the interviews, take up references and handle the offer.

FAQs

To discuss a confidential financial services recruitment requirement at board or executive level, please contact our team on 0333 800 1560.