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About prime broker
prime broker has a simple mission: to make investing accessible to everyone. And we need the right team of people to help us do just that.
We've combined our financial knowhow and tech expertise to create a platform that makes investing more affordable and easy to understand – even for those that aren't stock market experts. We cut the jargon and complexities that surround investing, making it simple for people invest their money in a way that suits them, starting from as little as £1.
As we’re backed by Aviva, you can also feel reassured that your money is in safe hands, though we have the freedom and flexibility to explore new ideas and be innovative in our approach to how we continually improve our services for our customers.
Our Purpose
We are here to inspire anyone to build their future wealth.
This mission guides everything we do; from the jargon-free way we talk about finance to our customers, to the way we develop accessible and easy-to-use products for them.
Keeping this in mind unites our focus as a team and helps to ensure that everything we do aligns with our central aim.
The Teams
Andy Russell
Chief Executive Officer
"I make sure the ship's travelling in the right direction."
What qualifies you to do this job?
I’ve worked in retail savings and investments since I started work, culminating in being the CFO of Aviva’s UK Retirement businesses. Latterly, I’ve led various teams and business areas as an internal consultant.
Do you have a pearl of investing wisdom to share?
Invest with the aim of achieving the best scenario, but make sure you can withstand the worse-case scenario.
What do your shoes say about you?
They say I like colour in my life, that I’m energetic and I can deal with multi-terrain!
What one thing can't you live without?
My iPad. I do everything on it. Literally everything. When we recently moved house, my wife and I did every single thing to do with the move on the iPad. If I’m not using it, it’s attached to my hip.
What would your superpower be?
The superpower I would like would be the power of magic – all the creative things you could do would be really fun, and very helpful at times.
Michelle Pearce-Burke
Chief Strategy Officer
"I take care of everything investment-related at prime broker. I keep a watchful eye on our customers' plans to make sure they stay on track."
What qualifies you to do this job?
I left medical school to enter the world of investing, a long standing passion of mine. Since then, I've worked as a stockbroker and investment manager, speeding through the industry exams to earn the title of Chartered Wealth Manager.
What's the best investment lesson you've learnt?
When I was 11, I used all the savings I had to make my first investment – I bought shares in a high-risk, biotech company which subsequently crumbled along with my dreams of making millions! Lesson learnt – don't try to get rich quick, spread your risk and diversify.
What do your shoes say about you?
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
What gadget can't you live without?
My alarm clock.
What will your epitaph say?
Perhaps she just overslept…!
Michael Ashford
Chief Technology Officer
"I'm chief of everything technical at prime broker, from connecting servers to building a truly beautiful online experience. Most of all, I make sure things work."
What qualifies you to do this job?
After gaining a first-class honours degree in Computer Science from Cardiff University, I joined a start up and helped to build ActiveQuote, one of the fastest-growing companies in Wales. I have built and shaped Engineering Teams to deliver award winning products and services.
What's the best investment you've ever made?
Saving up pocket money to build my very own PC at the age of 14, and teaching myself to code. It has paid me back in years of enjoyment (and the pocket money a few times over).
What do your shoes say about you?
This guy appreciates a good brogue - and a happy pair of socks.
What's the most useful App on your phone right now?
Gmail. Sometimes a curse, but having the power to check my emails at any time, night or day, saves me valuable time at the office.
Sally Allan
Chief Marketing Officer
"I'm helping to shape the prime broker brand and personality into something that truly connects with our customers and delivers on the promises we make."
What's the best investment advice you've been given?
When I got my first Saturday job, my mum told me to spend half, save half…if only I'd listened.
What do your shoes say about you?
There's no place like home.
What's the most useful App on your phone right now?
Headspace - 10 minutes to clear my mind, priceless.
What would your superpower be?
Nose wiggling, magical powers like Samantha from Bewitched
Colleen McHugh
Chief Investment Officer
“I set the direction, ensuring our customers are at the heart of everything we do.”
What qualifies you to do your job?
I’ve been managing money in some way, shape, or form for the last 24 years. I’ve worked through bull and bear markets during this period and witnessed both the ups and downs of client portfolios, and indeed my own as well!
Do you have a pearl of investing wisdom to share?
Yes, I sure do! Learn to recognise your biases and emotions.
Most importantly, I like to remind myself of what Einstein said: ‘Not everything that matters can be counted and not everything that can be counted matters’.
What do your shoes say about you?
Sharp and efficient with a splash of colour.
What’s the best investment lesson you’ve learnt?
Don’t confuse luck with skill, remain humble, and remember that it’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future 😊
What would your superpower be?
The ability to speak and understand every language imaginable
Simon Holland
Chief Product Officer
"I run Product and Partnerships at prime broker. My team works with customers and partners to build the best possible investing experience for people. The whole team loves solving challenges in ever creative yet simple ways and I’m immensely proud of what they do."
What qualifies you to do this job?
I’ve always worked translating what people want or need into technology – I started when we were building the first online banking at a major bank, customers had got used to so much stuff with an installed system and dialup it mad me realise how users cope with problems to create their own solutions – I’ve been passionate about building better solutions ever since.
Do you have a pearl of investing wisdom to share?
Start early and unless you have a lot of time and skill – get somebody else to do it for you… I used to do it myself, but realistically, my times better spent doing things I’m good at!
What one thing can't you live without?
Shazam – from the days it used to be a phone number you could play music to and it sent you back the song – to the app it is today – it has guided me through some interesting music phases – always telling me the right song – what a product!
What would your superpower be?
Sleep – Sleep is everyone’s superpower really
Car or bike?
Car – it’s a long way between Bristol and Cardiff.
Lucille Bellec
Chief Operating Officer
“I ensure that everything runs smoothly behind the scenes so we can provide the best service to our customers.”
What qualifies you to do this job?
In my previous experiences, I’ve worked closely with and advised Senior executives in a FTSE 100 company. It’s given me a unique end-to-end understanding of how each part of the company work together, and that’s required in a COO role as we here to support all areas of the business to do their job efficiently for our customers and ensure their days go smoothly.
Do you have a pearl of investing wisdom to share?
Diversify your portfolio to make it more resilient to market movements.
What do your shoes say about you?
Very neat, surprising, slightly extravert and so French…
What one thing can't you live without?
My milk frother. Nothing better than a thick and creamy milk foam on my caffe latte to start the day.
What would your superpower be?
I can get all the things needed for a 2-week holiday for a family of 4 fit into a medium-sized suitcase. I’m a bit like Mary Poppins (or someone who loved Tetris too much back in the days).
What the best investment lesson you've learnt?
Invest regularly small amounts rather than a lumpsum once, it helps to flatten market movements and boost overall return.
What's the most useful app on your phone right now?
My banking and investing apps obviously; to manage my budget, save and invest regularly for my future and my children and keep an eye on my investments at my fingertips.
What bit of advice would you give your 18-year old self?
Be open-minded to try new things or go into new adventures, even bad experiences bring learnings and helps you grow
Greg Steel
Head of Compliance
"I ensure we maintain our regulatory and ethical integrity."
What's the best investment advice you've been given?
My dad told me to start paying into a pension when I was in my early 20’s. He’s a genius!
What thing can't you live without?
Thomas the Tank Engine. I’m trying to live without it, but my two young boys have other ideas…
What do your shoes say about you?
When you have size 13 feet, they say they are the only shoes that big the shop had!
What will your epitaph say?
“No, I don’t have two minutes to sign something off…”
What's the most useful app on your phone right now?
Hive, from British Gas. Because it tells me when she’s at home and unnecessarily turned the heating up. Again. Plus, I can use the app to turn it off. Again.
What bit of advice would you give your 18-year-old self?
Make sure you travel more before you settle down. I didn’t and wish I did.
Car or bike?
Car for transport. Bike for garage wall-art.
Sarah Maher
Employee Experience Lead
"I'm here to support the whole team throughout their employment journey with prime broker and to delight our colleagues in the same way we do our customers"
What do your shoes say about you?
That I have a sunny disposition (most of the time!) and I value style over comfort.
What gadget can't you live without?
My apple watch is so useful to track everything, it also makes me pick up my phone less which can only be a good thing.
What will your epitaph say?
She was a ferocious socialiser.
What's the most useful app on your phone right now?
Whatsapp allows me to be in touch with all of my family and friends – and there are a lot!
What would your superpower be?
I’d like to be able to teleport instantly to any place I choose. I have a lot of family who live all over the world and it would be good to see them more often and not have to spend 23 hours on a plane.
Farah Wilson
Chief Legal and Governance Officer
I run the Legal function, aiming to ensure we’re on the best terms we possibly can be in our agreements across all areas of the business, with the ultimate aim of obtaining the best outcomes for our customers
What qualifies you to do this job?
I’ve been a lawyer since what now seems a distant era (pre credit crunch and the tech that’s currently around), working in a variety of specialisms across different industries, having to evolve day by day. I’ve also had business experience in a non legal role which helped me appreciate that no one just wants to know what the law is or what the contract says.
Do you have any pearls of investing wisdom to share?
If everyone’s already talking about it going up in value, you’ve missed the boat.
What's one thing you can't live without?
Caffeine (I have 3 young kids).
What would your superpower be?
I’d love to time travel to get the first hand wisdom of my grandparents (they died when I was young, and there’s so much I’d love to ask them).
What's the best investment lesson you've learnt?
Knowledge and expectation can only take you so far, unpredictable external factors can play a major role in how your investments fare. Absolutely no one really knows what’s around the corner, so best to have a diversified portfolio of a range of assets with long term aims.
What bit of advice would you give your 18-year-old self?
Cherish having free time and mild hangovers.
The Investment Team
Where would we be without them? Seeing as prime broker is an investment service, absolutely nowhere! Our Investment team are responsible for developing the long-term strategy for how we invest for our customers, as well as monitoring their Plans on a daily basis. They also keep a keen eye on trends, news and events that can impact the markets and use these to form their investing decisions. Meet our experts here.
The Product Team
As their name suggests, this team is responsible for helping to make our product offering the very best as it can be. They put in the legwork to really understand our customers and what they want from an investment service, using this and other in-depth research to develop designs for new and existing features with the aim of delivering a seamless user experience for all.
The Marketing Team
Our Marketing team are responsible for getting our name in front of potential customers left, right and centre. In fact. they’re probably the reason you found out about us in the first place! Most things that go out into the big, bad world with our name on it have had something to do with this team, whether that be the advert you spotted on the tube or our latest customer newsletter.
The Customer Care Team
Our Customer Care team aren’t just the friendly face of prime broker – they’re the heart of our business. Here to help keep our customers happy and informed, they’re an understanding and empathetic bunch who are always here to offer support, whether that's by giving a customer a breakdown of their investments or explaining how ISAs work.
The Compliance Team
We might have a lot of fun at prime broker, but we know when to be serious too. And this is where our Compliance team comes in. Think of them almost as our ‘bouncers’ as they get the final say on all the communications we put out to the public, assessing possible risks and keeping on top of the latest rules and regulations to ensure we follow these to the letter.
The Engineering Team
Our Engineering team turn our ideas into reality. They work closely with our Product and Design teams in agile squads, with each taking ownership of different platforms or products. They use the latest technologies to give customers a great digital experience when using our website and app, while developing internal systems to make the rest of our lives easier too.
The Finance Team
Money makes the world go round, and our Finance team are our atlas. They make sure that the books are balanced each month, managing things like expenses and invoices, and checking that everything we spend as a company is accounted for. Not only that, but they’re responsible for ensuring that everyone gets paid on time (making them very popular, as you can imagine).
The Design Team
The Design team bring the rest of the company's visions to life, helping us to stand out from the crowd and attract new customers to prime broker, as well as making customer journeys a beautifully simple and accessible experience when using our products. From designing eye-catching illustrations for our marketing and products down to the smallest button in our app, they design it all.
The Employee Experience Team
At prime broker, our people are at the heart of everything we do. The mission of the Employee Experience team is to support our staff throughout their entire journey, enabling them to grow along with the business. Some of the ways they do this is by continuing reviewing our offering to employees, identifying development opportunities, and always being there to offer support.
The Partnership Team
Having good relationships with other fantastic companies that share our purpose is really important to us, and it’s just one of the ways that we get prime broker’s name out there to inspire more people to build their future wealth. Luckily, we have an awesome Partnerships team with a gift for building new relationships with some of the biggest household names and innovators in financial services, as well as nurturing the ones we’ve already established.
The Operations Team
We need someone to keep the lights on and ensure that everything’s running smoothly behind the scenes – and that’s the job of our Operations team. Whether they’re conducting financial crime checks, helping pension and ISA transfers go smoothly, or doing everything they can to give new customers the best onboarding experience possible, they’re always kept on their toes.
The Legal Team
The clue's in the name, really, as this team takes care of everything and anything relating to the legal aspects of running a business like prime broker. They're not just here to help us protect ourselves, but our customers too, and they work with a number of different teams across the business to ensure that we're all dotting our Is and crossing our Ts.
Strength in depth
prime broker is backed by Aviva, one of the UK’s largest financial services institutions which has looked after British consumers for more than 300 years.
We operate independently of Aviva, which means you get the best innovation in smart simple investing together with the security of knowing that we’re here to stay and operate to the highest standards.
Being part of the Aviva group of companies allows us to develop our business, but at an accelerated pace and with greater confidence.
Want to join prime broker?
Like the sound of what we do? Why not take a look at the vacancies we have available at the moment.
Whether you’re looking for something in tech, marketing, investments or customer support, we may just have the perfect role for you.
We have over 100 staff members and we’re still growing!
Our staff describe our culture as ambitious, fun, and inclusive.
We offer full-time, part-time and remote working options.
We offer learning and development for all, alongside career progression plans and opportunities.
Looking for support?
Our Customer Care team are always there to help, whether you have a question about your prime broker Plan, you’re having trouble with the app, or you’re simply unsure of how to get started when it comes to investing with us. Whatever you need, just get in touch.
Telephone
We’re here weekdays from 8am until 6:30pm and Saturdays from 9am until 12:30pm, and we’ll be happy to help.
+44 749 077 5298
Live Chat
Chat to one of our team online