Our people

Richard Rowney
Chief Executive Officer

Richard Rowney joined James Hay as CEO on 5 October 2020.

He was previously CEO of LV where he worked for thirteen years, helping to build it into the UK’s most trusted and recommended insurer. Prior to becoming CEO he led the life and pensions division, creating one of the leading specialist retirement and protection providers. Before LV he spent 14 years at Barclays in a variety of senior operational, risk and change roles, including leading the integration of Woolwich Building Society.

Richard studied Business Administration & Management at Harvard Business School and has an MBA from Henley Business School.

Mike Regan
Chief Financial Officer

Mike is an experienced board-level CFO with a track record of success in M&A, driving business transformation and developing high performing finance teams. He joined Nucleus in September 2022 from UK digital insurer BGLi where he was Chief Financial Officer for three years. 

Prior to this, he spent almost ten years at the Royal Bank of Scotland, and as part of this held the role of Finance Director for RBS’s Private Banking Franchise, Coutts.

A chartered accountant by profession, Mike has a breadth and depth of experience in the financial services sector, starting his career at PwC and later holding senior positions at financial giants UBS and HSBC and European commercial bank West LB. 

Alex Kovach
Chief Commercial Officer

Alex Kovach joined James Hay as Chief Commercial Officer on 1st June 2020. He’s responsible for all commercial aspects of our operation including business development and sales, proposition and marketing.

He has broad general management experience with a focus on digital, consumer and early stage business start-ups and corporate ventures. As Chief Commercial Officer at Interactive Investor he oversaw a period of rapid growth that led to the D2C platform moving from 9th to 2nd largest in the UK. His other recent roles include Managing Director of Camelot Global Services and CEO for International Development at Ladbrokes PLC. He was educated at Durham University and has an MBA with distinction from Insead.

Richard Warner
Chief Operating Officer

Richard Warner joined James Hay as Chief Operating Officer in November 2020. With over 30 years’ experience leading transformational change across operations, digital and technology, Richard will oversee the administrative and operational functions of the platform and ensure that delivering a high quality of service to customer is at the heart of everything we do.

Prior to James Hay, Richard held both COO and CIO roles during his nine years at LV, and before that he spent 21 years at the multinational technology, business and management consultancy firm, Accenture.

Richard was a former winner of the BCS CIO of the Year.

Andrew Smith
Chief Technology Officer

Andrew initially joined Nucleus at inception in 2006, becoming Chief Operating Officer (COO) in 2008 and then Chief Technology Officer, spearheading the design, development, and launch of what became the award-winning Nucleus wrap platform. He is now CTO for the combined group.

He was previously platform COO for AXA Elevate and VP of Technology and Operations at Thomson Reuters. Both roles involved managing large teams and focusing on integrating digital solutions to help transform the businesses.

Martin Ettles
Chief Risk Officer

Martin joined Nucleus in 2020 as CRO in a newly created role to help formulate and implement the platform’s risk strategies. Before joining Nucleus, Martin spent more than 20 years at Standard Life, shaping his career through various actuarial, compliance, and risk management roles. He is now CRO for the combined group.

In addition, he holds regulatory positions under the Senior Managers and Certification Regime including SMF4, SMF16 and SMF17.

Alison Longbottom
Chief People Officer

Alison joined James Hay in October 2020. Her career spans two decades, incorporating roles in the UK, Europe and Africa across FTSE 250 companies, Private Equity, B2B and B2G, and unionised manufacturing. Prior to joining James Hay she held a human resources leadership role at Portals, world-leading banknote and passport paper manufacturer, having supported the separation of the business from a public company and the establishment of a private equity-backed independent business.

Paul Bagley
Distribution Director

Paul Bagley is responsible for implementing and managing James Hay’s distribution strategy. His team partners with adviser firms providing end to end platform support, and Paul’s job is to make sure they get the most out of the breadth of choice available on James Hay. He does that by applying the lessons learned from over 25 years working in this sector, including 10 years at the UK’s biggest fund supermarket, Cofunds.

Paul held various sales manager roles at Cofunds and was responsible for landing and running the key clients at the fund supermarket. He joined the fund supermarket when assets under administration (AUA) were £1bn and when he left to join James Hay, Cofunds’ AUA was hitting £65bn. Prior to immersing himself in platforms, Paul was a financial planning manager at NatWest.