Beverley Grierson

What was it about First Derivative that made you want to join the firm?

“I was ready for a change and felt that First Derivative were the right choice. First Derivative offers the opportunity to work alongside and learn from industry SMEs and gain experience across a broad network of clients. A real stand out for me is the relationship First Derivative has with the clients they serve. There is a real focus on collaboration, finding solutions for future success and ongoing partnership.”

You are working in the client lifecycle practice. Can you tell us more about that?

“Client Lifecycle Management is a key area for First Derivative. We have a team of skilled operational delivery staff, offering our clients the ability to deliver complex, scalable regulatory operations and programmes of work across our global network. Our SMEs support our global client base across the multiple aspects of Client Lifecycle Management: Client Onboarding, AML Remediations, Transaction Monitoring, Client Outreach, KYC Refresh, Customer Re-papering, Screening, Contract Reviews.”

It sounds like the world of client lifecycle management is pretty varied?

“It is, and that keeps it interesting. Covering multiple disciplines means we can support our clients holistically, offering recommendations for continuous improvement and forward planning as we understand the upstream and downstream benefits. From a First Derivative perspective, it means our teams understand the end-to-end process of the client journey and can build specialisms in key areas. We have SMEs in each offering, which is invaluable to our clients.”

What is the biggest challenge you think financial instituations are facing in the area of client cycle management?

“There are a few key areas for continued focus, however they all come under one umbrella – the customer journey. Ultimately the financial service provider wants their customers to have confidence in them, be able to do business easily and with minimum fuss. At the same time, they need to ensure they are compliant with the various regulatory frameworks. First Derivative support our global client base in those efforts. We work collaboratively with our clients, providing honest feedback and suggestions to enhance existing processes. We provide detailed metrics on project progression against target operating models, highlighting potential breaks in processes, bottlenecks in the workflow and working with the client to streamline and improve processes.”

What is the most rewarding part of your role?

“Seeing the analysts become more confident in themselves and their abilities is without doubt a huge win for me. I have team leads within my current project who had no experience in compiling a metric pack. Now, not only are they collating metrics packs, they are presenting these for discussion with senior stakeholders and holding their own in the room with MLROS, heads of business, and their peers. Within First Derivative, we nurture our staff and encourage them in their careers, to see that in practice is incredibly rewarding.”