Overview
We are a specialist financial services change management advisory and implementation firm.
CommSol was founded in 2017 with a single mission: To be the best at helping provide solutions for you.
We approach each of you with fresh eyes to develop customised, unique strategies. Our approach to you is different as you have your own unique qualities, so why should we treat you like everyone else.
CommSol is a client-led change, advisory and delivery firm providing support and advice predominately to Investment Managers, Wealth Managers, Life & Pension and Insurance organisations. Our team are recognised industry experts and we have access to a large network of tried, tested and vetted Associates who consistently deliver outstanding results.
CommSol is supported by an independent Advisory Board of senior industry leaders who bring unique knowledge, skills and strategic advice which compliments the knowledge and skills of the CommSol team.
Our Values
Leadership
CommSol should be a source of leadership on transformations that you need to conduct and apply Change in your broader industry
Relationships
Across your Change agenda, you should expect CommSol to coordinate the resources, tools and knowledge needed to deliver Change initiatives. In doing this, CommSol will work with all interested parties to understand their needs and make sure the Change events meet these needs
Delivery
The expertise needed to coordinate the design and delivery of solutions to the threats and opportunities you are presented with, where Change is needed within your business model
What We Stand For
Supporting Change
CommSol supports a broad and complex range of cross functional regulatory, client and product type Change in the following arenas:
Asset Management and Wealth Management
Insurance
Security Services – Custody, Fund Accounting, Transfer Agency and Treasury
Capital Markets
Non-Financial Institutions – Public and Private Sector
Focus & Sponsorship
Focus is on 5 key themes:
Client Lifecycle Excellence
Client and Business Fiduciary
Regulatory Change & Remediation
Operational Optimisation
Resourcing Solutions
CommSol has the ability to shape itself to support large scale, cross functional, complex change; or to support a Business on singular Programmes or Projects or those that require remediation
Sponsorship predominantly comes from C- Suite Directors; Company COO’s, Head’s of Function, Distribution Heads and the CEO’s for the work we undertake
Creation and Vision
CommSol was founded by Steve Clifford, formally a Managing Director (MD) at J.P. Morgan Asset Management (JPMAM). In the 16 years he worked for JPMAM, Steve worked in various roles and locations in Asset Management and Wealth Management. His experience of Change Management derives from his position as Global Head of Change for Asset Management, where he ran a team of highly skilled individuals who implemented Business and Operational Change across the business globally. On leaving JPMAM, Steve had a goal of setting up his own company with two main aims:
Firstly, to help in all aspects of Change Management, an area he felt had scope for development, and to create a better approach to what he considered was still a subject some companies struggled with.
Secondly, and one close to his heart, was to provide outstanding Intellectual Property (IP) at great value for money, in other words, have a workforce that were the best in the workplace and would be an example to all those who looked for ‘change’ specialists.
Steve’s passion for Change Management is at the core of CommSol and will always be the driving force behind improving Businesses, their processes and functions. It is this enthusiasm that he feeds to all that work for CommSol and aims to carry this approach to every transformation, every successful change implementation and every project.
LEADERSHIP – RELATIONSHIPS – DELIVERY
Founder & CEO
Steve has been working in the financial services industry for over 30 years. His most recent role was Managing Director and Global Head of Business Change for JPMorgan Investment Management and JPMorgan International Private Bank.
He is a dynamic, versatile & commercially-led Senior Business Leader & Change Manager with diverse experience across financial services, corporate, investment and international business environments. Steve is known for delivering transformational leadership through effective collaboration & partnership, engaging with stakeholders at C-level / Board & 3rd parties, delivering ‘fit for purpose’ operations and business change.
Hugely successful at translating business requirements into tangible, realistic programme deliverables and outcomes, delivering positive change of real quality & value, helping businesses meet commercial goals with an excellent track record in designing and executing effective business strategies, vision and roadmaps.
Associate Director
Michael has over 20 years of experience working in the financial services sector. An accomplished Chartered Management Accountant with a broad experience of working within private equity, hedge funds, fund administration and alternative investment management. Michael has worked for starts ups as well as for multibillion dollar international banks.
He has a strong track record of initiating change, reorganisation and applying processes and controls into various workplaces, as well as an in-depth understanding of all processes from fund launch to fund liquidation. A successful manager with a proven track record of reducing costs, optimising efficiencies, improving third party relationships and ensuring deliverables are met.
A results driven track record, experienced in leading teams and ensuring projects reach completion, he is able to bring individuals, teams and departments together to work towards a common cause.
Senior Manager
Lucy has been working in the financial services industry for nearly 14 years. She has worked on a number of large scale projects, the most recent of which was the implementation of a new Institutional Digital Platform.
She is a keen, motivated and conscientious Business Analyst with technical expertise and management within the financial services and in particular Investment Management. Lucy has proven project management and business analysis skills with a strong understanding of change.
Lucy is a SME in reporting and has implemented a number of global reporting processes. She has designed new reports and designed and implemented the data from creation to production. Her unique set of skills enables her to work not only in projects but also within BAU teams across the Operations and Infrastructure spaces.
Senior Manager
Lucy is an experienced Business Analyst/Project Manager with 14 years experience in financial services. Strong experience of defining and analysing business requirements, mapping business processes, writing procedure guides and delivering business solutions on large-scale programmes.
Lucy has deep experience across a number of strategic platforms, including wrap platforms and back office administration systems and have designed direct-to-customer web pages. Excellent product knowledge of Defined Contribution pension schemes, Self Invested Personal Pensions (SIPPs), Small Self Administered Schemes (SSAS), ISAs, corporate, individual and stakeholder pensions, Guaranteed Equity and Structured Products and of investment trading.
Lucy is a very personable individual who very much believes in being a great partner and ensuring best client outcomes.
Associate Director
Robert has joined CommSol in 2019 to provide support in Strategy and Execution. Robert has been working in the financial services industry for 20 years. Before joining CommSol he was most recently Interim Senior Product Implementation manager for a Big4 Consultancy firm and prior to that Senior Change manager at both JPMorgan Asset Management and JPMorgan Bank. He was the global Location Strategy Programme manager for Global Fund services, focusing on Change and Execution management.
Reporting to Board level, Robert has also been involved in Vendor selections, Due diligence and a number of high-profile Regulatory change implementations from both a business as well as IT perspective.
Supporting the People, Process and Technology agenda’s, Robert’s key focus is in Change management, Transformation and large Programme implementations. He is Luxembourg based and brings a Global mindset, having worked in Europe, US, Asia and Australia with particular emphasis on Change and People impacts. Robert is part of the CommSol senior team and leads our Luxembourg presence.
Associate Director & Head – India
Siddharth Karmarkar (Sid) is a qualified chartered accountant with over 17+ years of experience. Having worked across the globe, he draws a repute of being extremely performance-driven and delivering innovative business solutions for numerous organizations, including world-leading banking and financial services companies such as American Express, Société Générale, HSBC & JPMorgan. Further deepening general management at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, he has gained expertise in analyzing and implementing strategies and business practices to improve overall efficiency, drive business growth and improve financial performance.
Sid has been instrumental in leading senior management through periods of rapid growth and business transformation to deliver the best results be it scale-up of market share, expand geographies and/or product marketing capabilities.
Sid has won several awards and accolades and skilled in leading multiple complex projects from concept to completion – including but not restricted to trading algorithms, NLP, Web-crawling technology, CRM, LEAN, etc in Capital Markets, Asset Management & Securities businesses.
Associate Director
Lilly is a performance driven Senior Finance Professional, has over 30 years’ multi-dimensional experience across financial and knowledge outsourcing segments in the Capital Markets domain. With her strong domain knowledge of Asset Management Services and established track record of leadership in overseeing large and diverse operations across domestic -UTI AMC, as well as international banks like State Street, JP Morgan, BNY Mellon and leading Capability Centers like Syntel and WNS Global.
Lilly has credible exposure in setting up and growing shared service centres, managing large and multi-locational teams and with excellent client interfacing capabilities has led transformation of work across geographies to the shared service hubs. She is a proactive change agent, instrumental in conceptualizing and implementing Centers of Excellence and driving continuous process improvements through Six Sigma and Lean initiatives in the institutions she has worked. Lilly’s most recent association was as Director Operations at BNY Mellon where she managed multi functions in the Fund Services and Asset Management space pan India. She was also the site head for BNY Mellon at Chennai where she had administrative oversight of all Business Partner functions in Chennai.
As a senior woman leader, she has been a part of the D&I National council of NASSCOM apart from being an active member of the GCC conclave, Chennai and representing her organisation in various industry forums. With a passion for teaching, she also delivers guest lectures at reputed educational institutions.
Associate Director
Pavan is an enterprising leader, chartered accountant and an executive coach with over 25 years of experience with leading MNCs such as GE, JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank and BNP Paribas and is known for building teams across global service organizations and bringing transformational change. From set-up to scale-up of shared service organizations including new operations and CoEs, he has an expertise to create structures for transition, and transformation of processes, defining target operating models, controls, risk mitigation and governance frameworks.
Pavan is also certified in Six Sigma, Project management and Yogic concepts/training and is also an Erickson Certified Coach. He is passionate about CSR and has been working with NGOs in the areas of Education and Ecology.
Senior Consultant
Shoaib has over three decades of work experience; during this period he has worked for start-ups as well as large billion dollar firms with global presence. The last fifteen plus years has been at senior management levels including CXO, and Director R&D. This experience is spread across niche organizations like Saba Inc., Tata, Unisys, DSL (Deutsche Software – part of Deutsche Bank), Banque Indosuez, Société Générale, Aditya Birla Minacs (part of 40 billion USD Aditya Birla Group) and most recently Syntel Inc.
His key responsibilities have been product strategy, development and go to market strategy, management activities of multinational
company’s Indian operations; streamline operations and turnaround of an ailing IT division of BPO/IT company; CIO and Operational Risk head for IT & BPO at a leading global bank; vendor management,
innovation and high-performance team building etc.
In the earlier part of his career, he had hands-on exposure to account /project management; requirement studies; system design & architecture; optimization and implementation of application systems for international banks, financial institutes and leading
technology/manufacturing organizations including software products companies.
As a senior consultant to CommSol, Shoaib supports our global CXOs in strategy, implementation and execution
CEO – Anextere
After 20+ years working for world class financial firms in Japan and Hong Kong, Kevin realised his long-term vision of creating a business and technology solutions company combining global expertise and localized solution implementation to serve clients in Japan and wider Asia. Kevin’s most recent position was Managing Director and Chief Operational Officer at PGIM Investments Japan, where he led the IT, Operations, Client Reporting, Risk and Business Management functions.
He also held Board of Director roles for JP Morgan Asset Management in Korea and PGIM Japan.
He is a bi-lingual leader who has a strong track record of identifying and implementing solutions that enable profitability growth and operational sustainability by integrating strategy, business processes, risk management and technology. This combined with his unique expertise of the APAC region helps deliver local solutions for clients.
Head of Recruitment at CommSol Solutions
Matthew has been working in the Recruitment Industry for the last 7 years, starting in the Public Sector before moving into Technology and Financial Services.
One thing that has been constant throughout Matthew’s career is his work partnering with clients to deliver Project lead engagements, through both staff augmentation and Statements of Work.
Matthew has taken this experience into CommSol Solutions, leading as Head of Recruitment and Resourcing, where he now supports the delivery of projects compliantly, effectively and efficiently from a resource perspective.
CommSol Solutions Consultant
Stuart has been working in Financial Services Recruitment for the last 2 years- specialising in delivering Project Lead engagements across multiple verticals within Change Management.
Previous projects have included sourcing and engaging bi-lingual freelance/ candidates in locations such as, Luxembourg, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Singapore.
Stuart works closely with senior stakeholders to take a consultative approach to delivering projects, supporting by navigating the nuances of local talent pools, employment legislation and delivery logistics.