Sara Wilson has been appointed as head of platform proposition at Embark Group, overseeing strategies for both the Embark platform and Advance by Embark.
Wilson transferred to Embark from Alliance Trust Savings, where she was head of platform propositions, following Embark’s acquisition of its advised client books last year.
She had previously worked for Standard Life and Xansa, a technology outsourcing company.
Dave Lowe, group head of propositions and technical, said: “Sara’s deep platform experience will be invaluable as we continue to develop our digital solutions for the investment savings and retirement market and ensure we deliver great outcomes for our corporate partners, advisers and their clients.”
Wilson said it was an “exciting time” for Embark as she looked forward to developing its platform offerings for advisers and corporates.
The news comes after Alistair Wilson, former head of retail platform strategy at Zurich, left Embark a mere eight months after it acquired the Zurich platform.
The former Zurich platform has since been renamed Advance by Embark.
Embark announced it had agreed to buy the adviser platform business of ATS from Interactive Investor in October 2019, carving the adviser platform out of ATS but leaving the direct to consumer element owned by Interactive Investor.
Interactive Investor had only acquired ATS from Alliance Trust earlier that year but the future of the ATS adviser clients had remained unclear until Embark’s buyout.
Embark has since ditched the flat fee model previously used on the ATS platform, claiming the model was regressive and “only advantageous to high net worth investors”, and completed the transfer of £7bn assets earlier this week (February 3).
The Embark platform now has assets under administration of £38.5bn and around 415,000 consumer clients.
imogen.tew@ft.com
What do you think about the issues raised by this story? Email us on FTAletters@ft.com to let us know
