My name’s Gareth Lewis, I’m the CIO at the FSA and I’ve been here nearly two years now. What attracted me to the FSA was the opportunity to make a real difference in the way that we regulate the financial services firms, both in the UK and in Europe. The first priority I have is recruitment. We have a large recruitment drive on at the moment; without the people, I can’t deliver the rest of the priorities. The second priority is to land the IS Strategy. We agreed the IS Strategy with the main board a year ago, that’s got many components, and it is really all about building a fit for purpose group, with all the tools and capabilities we need to land a major programme of change. The third priority is really all about delivering the portfolio. We have a portfolio of change which is about a third of the entire FSA’s budget. That’s an enormous portfolio of change by anyone’s standards, and we’re accountable for delivering that. It’s an interesting time to be at the FSA because we are right at the heart of trying to resolve the financial crisis.
The world out there is changing dramatically. We play an integral part in trying to resolve some of the issues that are inherent in our financial services industry today.
So the role the IS Division play in the facilitation of regulatory reform is that we are working with the business to help them come up with the answers about what they want to be in the new world. The key attribute I look for in my people, apart from obvious skill sets that are required either in technology or programme management or business analysis, is attitude. I need a ‘can do’ attitude.
This is an extraordinary place with an incredible amount of change going on. We need people who can help deliver that change. In terms of career progression, there’s a huge amount of opportunity here at the FSA. We are genuinely at the centre of the financial services world.
We offer opportunity, not only to learn the regulatory world itself, but to deliver new technical skills, deliver new programme and project skills, and ultimately, if you so desire, head off to Europe, or indeed further afield internationally, where the kind of expertise we have here is very highly valued.
The most rewarding aspects of my role are I think three things. The first thing is to make a real difference in terms of the way the financial services world works. The second thing is the excitement of working in what is effectively completely unchartered territory, and that’s a fantastic opportunity. And finally, probably the most rewarding thing is to actually work with the people in the team and see them grow and flourish and deliver the systems we need to do proper regulation.
My vision for the IS Division is to be that valued business partner, delivering all of that complex regulatory information that the business needs to really deliver effect regulation.
So why join the regulator rather than another financial services company? Well first of all, we are genuinely trying to resolve the financial crisis in the world, and in particular in this country, and that in itself is a fascinating place to be. Secondly, we’re deploying some of the world’s most advanced technologies in helping us do that, and it is genuinely interesting, and a fantastic opportunity, to be right at the heart of making that change.
So we have roles available right the way across the IS Division. In Project and Programme Management, in the CTO’s Office, in Vendor Management, in Security, Operations and most importantly, in Business Analysis and also the DDI, the Design, Development and Integration team which is really the heart of the technology machine.
My name’s Bijal Datta, I’m the Small Projects Portfolio Manager at the FSA. I’m a Portfolio Manager, which means that I have a number of projects within my portfolio which vary from pure infrastructure to procuring new solutions and also making changes to some of our core systems.
What attracted me to Information Systems at the FSA was that it’s largely about project and programme delivery. I come from a background of project and programme delivery as a Management Consultant so it sounded really exciting to be part of that level of change at the FSA.
The FSA provide quite a lot of training. The training that I’ve been on has mainly been around stakeholder management, influencing skills, negotiation skills, all of which is really key to help you deliver projects and programmes here.
The achievements I’m most proud of at the FSA are being involved right at the beginning with some major programmes of work here, so being there right at the start, putting together the business case, convincing some major boards to actually invest in these programmes of work. Right on the other scale, I’m also really proud of being involved in putting together the governance and the resourcing for the Small Projects Framework, so while these are smaller pieces of work, they often provide the larger business benefit in a shorter space of time.
There are lots of career opportunities at the FSA. In the next six months, I’d like to move on from the small projects portfolio management role to maybe managing and delivering a larger project of work. I think that will give me a lot more challenge and the exposure that I’m looking for in terms of career progression.
The key skill you need in order to deliver a portfolio of work is really, people skills. You need excellent stakeholder management skills, you need negotiation skills, knowing how to influence those stakeholders, because you need these people to help you deliver and address some of the issues that you’ll come across. You get a variety of people at the FSA, and that’s what makes it really interesting to work here. You’ll get people that are really, really intelligent, but still have the time of day to actually explain things to you, and you need that to help you deliver what you’re doing, but it really is a great place to work.
I would recommend the FSA to other people by saying, it’s a really, really exciting place to be here at the moment. There’s so much change happening in the regulatory market, there’s never a dull moment, also, the people here are fantastic. You’ll meet a variety of people, really easy to get on with, and also work-life balance, it does give you the challenging work but allows you to balance that with your personal life and things that are happening at home.
In terms of ongoing training, the Programme Management Group have recently invested a significant amount of money and resource in doing a skills assessment of all the Project and Programme Managers. The result of that will be to look at the assessment, assess what training is now required to get people to the right level of competency, and take that forward.
My name’s Hannah Lipscombe, I’m a Business Analyst at the FSA. As a Business Analyst at the FSA, I’m responsible for liaising with the business and documenting their requirements so that the technical team can understand what’s needed. Currently, I’m working on the Prudential Regulatory Authority Project to document the policy processes, both how they are now and how they will be in the new organisation.
As a Business Analyst, you have the opportunity to work on lots of different projects. As part of this work, you learn different skills, you get to be involved with different teams and you get to have different experiences. As part of this, you equip yourself well to have a long career at the FSA and at the new organisations which will be created.
The key skills you need as a Business Analyst are really strong stakeholder and relationship management skills. You need to be able to work with a large number of business people and you need to be able to manage those relationships so that they feel brought into the change that’s happening. In addition, you need to be very well organised.
We have a lot of different projects going on at the moment and we need to make sure that we are prioritising our time effectively.
The FSA is a great place to work. I have the opportunity to work with a diverse range of people. I’m also exposed to really interesting subjects, particularly the new regulations that are coming in and the new way that the FSA will be structured. In addition, I have a great work-life balance, which is fantastic.
I would describe the culture at the FSA as a very intellectually challenging culture and people like to carefully consider their answers, because the importance and the enormity of the decisions that are made today will have a huge impact going forward.
Regulation in the UK is changing. The regulator will be split into two new bodies and there’s an awful lot of regulation coming in from international bodies. It’s a hugely exciting time to be involved and that’s why I want to be part of the FSA and regulation at this time.
My name is Stewart Vallely. I am the Service Transition and Release Manager and I’ve been with the FSA three months.
How I describe my role, and a typical day for me, every day is totally different here, whether I’m sitting on a Project Board looking at how we coach my own team members, getting them to where they need to be, separately, actually dealing with day to day issues that come up.
Key skills and attributes that I need to be successful in my role range around people skills and communication skills. The most challenging aspects of my role are really around change. The pace of change that we have going within the FSA and within my role, within IS, we see that on a day to day basis.
The kinds of projects that I work on are pretty much any IS change project. Myself and my team will work on anything that actually has any significant impact to production.
Coming from a completely different market, and never working in financial markets till now, has shown me that the FSA, out of all the organisations there is, is actually trying to make a difference to the way that we manage our money. Being able to know that I’m making a contribution to the fact that they are making a difference is what attracted me to the FSA.
It’s an interesting time to be at the FSA, mainly for the amount of change and the exciting amount of change that’s going on within the organisation. What I look for in my people is good organisational skills, good communication skills and good people skills, and I think the ability to embrace change is paramount and a key attribute. What the FSA can offer someone who wants to progress their career is really three things.
One is that they’ll be part of an organisation that is going through a large amount of change, that’s giving them exposure to new things on a day to day basis. The second thing is really the training and the coaching that is available here, not just from their managers, but also from what is available online and within the organisation from classroom courses, etc. And the third thing really is the FSA is leading the financial markets in regulations, so to understand what’s going on in regulations, first hand, is key.
The most rewarding aspects of my role; one is seeing someone who works for me, a team member, who doesn’t believe that they can actually complete and get something done, and watching them succeed. The second thing for me, in Service Transition, is really seeing a project go through from idea stage through to production and that the business users are using that system that is of a significant quality.
The kinds of projects that I work on within the FSA are varied; the projects last from one to five days, all the way to four year programmes. As a team, we work on every single project to make sure that we take a project from the idea stage all the way through to delivery and onwards into operations and production.