Hargreaves Lansdown has appointment three new members to its independent governance committee (IGC), following the planned departure of three members and the appointment of Richard Butcher as Chair earlier this year.
Announcing the appointments, Butcher commented on how few female applicants had applied to join the IGC.
The new members are Rita Bajaj and Ian Costain, who are both independent members, and Mark Walter, a Hargreaves Lansdown employee member.
Helen Carey, an independent member since 2016, will continue in her role. The IGC now has four independent members and one Hargreaves employee member. The previous ratio was 3:2.
Bajaj is a financial services consultant with over 25 years’ industry experience. She has held senior investment positions at global and UK asset managers including Royal London and Invesco Perpetual. She also served as EMEA CAO at State Street and is a former Financial Conduct Authority regulator.
Costain has been an independent consultant for over 10 years. He has done advisory assignments at the FCA and TPR.
Walter joined Hargreaves Lansdown in 2010. He is responsible for managing HL’s relationships with the fund management companies available through the HL platform.
The Hargreaves Lansdown IGC is responsible for overseeing the value for money received by HL Workplace Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP) members and drawdown pathways investors. Part of the role of the IGC is to consider and report on HL’s ESG and broader investment policies for the products that the IGC oversees.
Richard Butcher, Chair, Hargreaves Lansdown Independent Governance Committee says: “I’m delighted that Mark Walter, Rita Bajaj and Ian Costain have agreed to join the IGC. We conducted a very thorough process designed to ensure we had a robust set of skills, experience and knowledge and that we had the cognitive diversity needed to generate constructive debate amongst ourselves and challenge to Hargreaves Lansdown. They will really compliment the rest of the team. We’re all looking forward to getting on with the work now.
“If I am disappointed about one aspect of the process we went through, it is that, despite our best efforts, we had so few women apply to join the IGC. Fortunately, those that did were highly qualified and so Rita will join Helen Carey, who I’m delighted to say has agreed to stay on the IGC.”