Dallas J. McGillivray is an experienced international regulatory and business manager.  He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountant, Member of Institute of Directors and a Member of the Chartered Institute of Securities and Investment. He has extensive regulatory experience in senior management roles including as a Director and Trustee. 

He is also the Managing Director of FMConsult– a company that provides compliance, regulatory, product development and risk management services to a range of large international and start-up financial services companies since 2004.

On top of that, Dallas serves as Global Compliance and Operational Risk Director at a major asset management company for all business outside the Americas for 17 years with experience in global regulatory issues, covering both retail and institutional. He’s also a Director of UK Asset Management Companies and Trustee of UK Pension Schemes. 

Here he speaks to Finance Monthly about asset management and tells us more about his company – FMConsult.

 

What attracted you to the consulting sector?

 What brought me to the sector was an invitation to work with a small consultancy, with the objective to grow it. We binned the company and set up FMConsult. The work is varied and you meet a lot of bright entrepreneurs that are just starting out who need a bit of “grey hair” to help them along.

  

What are the key sectors that you provide asset management services to? What are the unique challenges of each sector, from an asset management perspective?

 We have a very wide range of clients from start-ups (that want a collective investment scheme set up, introductions to management companies, investment managers to attach to, etc.) to very large mature businesses that need some support during periods of change ( e.g. interim Head of Compliance role ). We are in the asset management space from wealth management to institutional asset management and everything in between.

  

What strategies do you implement to ensure that your clients’ goals and objectives are achieved?

 At FMConsult, we adopt a risk based approach to assess those business functions that have the largest impact on the business. Where are the issues? That’s what we need to know to be able to add real value.

 

 What are the challenges that your clients typically face in relation to meeting regulation?

 In the smaller entities, it may be capital resources and regulatory knowledge. They rely on FMConsult to add the regulatory knowledge. Outsourcing compliance is an economic way of delivering compliance standards, but it cannot replace senior management understanding that they are responsible and need to understand their responsibilities. Outsourcing compliance is not an abdication of regulatory responsibility.

 

 What were your main objectives when setting up FMConsult?

 Our main goal was to be a well-respected, independent regulatory and operational & investment risk consultancy firm, committed to working with clients to assist them in aligning financial services processes with ongoing regulatory requirements. 

 We also wanted to provide compliance solutions that enable senior management of financial services firm’s to demonstrate that they and their firm are currently and will continue to be aligned with UK and other regulatory requirements.

 

 

 How would you evaluate your role within FMConsult?

 My role at FMConsult encompasses a focus on business development and looking after a range of clients. I’m proud that the company punches above its weight in the industry. We have a very diverse range of clients that do take compliance seriously.