Hargreaves Lansdown has appointed Doug Abbott to be its chief product officer.
In this role Abbott will be responsible for HL’s £11bn fund management fund range, which includes its workplace offering — which currently serves 300,000 employees across its UK employer base.
Abbott will join from Vanguard, where he is currently head of UK client group. Prior to this he worked at Schroders for 15 years, holding a number of senior leadership positions.
HL says this appointment comes in a rapidly evolving market, and Abbott will seek to maximise new opportunities across a broad range of products. This will includes the HLFM fund range, retirement, ETFs and opportunities in private markets.
Abbot will report into Hargreaves Lansdown CEO Richard Flint.
Flint says: “[Abbot] brings an understanding of clients and their product needs, with a proven track record of developing and delivering industry-leading partnerships. I look forward to him taking our financial product offering from strength to strength, with the best choice and quality of instruments on HL’s platform.
“He will build on the fantastic work of Emma Wall, our chief investment strategist, who has developed our private markets offering, including LTAFs and VCTs, and work alongside our chief client officer, Simon Belsham.”
Abbott will sit on Hargreaves Lansdown’s executive leadership team, working alongside Belsham, who joined HL in May from Tesco, and Wall. Wall is one of the public faces of HL and leads its investment philosophy, research and analysis.
