Billy Burnside will join Criterion Tec Limited as Managing Director on 17th June 2019. Billy has a long and well-established career in pensions, savings and investments with Friends Provident, Standard Life and Aviva. More recently, Billy has spent some time consulting at Deloitte LLP. Prior to this he was Head of Platform Development & E-Commerce at Aviva UKI. Billy was a Criterion Non-Executive Director from July 2017 to March 2019 and has supported the development of Standards and Services for 22 years.

Caroline Mansley leaves Criterion after a handover period, to focus on her portfolio career. Caroline has been in post on a part-time basis since June 2017. As Criterion continues its path to independence, while successfully progressing with initiatives like STAR, a new full time Managing Director has been recruited.

Iain D Duffin, interim Chairman of Criterion:

“On behalf of the Criterion Board, I would like to thank Caroline for her hard work in helping set Criterion on the path to be a leading brand and the ‘go to’ open standards company in the UK.


The Board welcomes Billy in this crucial role in taking Criterion along this exciting journey. I’m delighted we have managed an orderly succession and the new appointment will help us continue our trajectory. Billy is a welcome addition to the team and has a wealth and breadth of industry experience that is second to none.

Criterion is on a journey to become a truly independent, not for profit standards body, providing the industry with standards and governance services that will help and support companies across UK financial services. It will continue to work together with the industry to integrate processes, improve efficiencies and deliver great outcomes for consumers.

With the formation of STAR, it sets a new collaborative way for organisations in the long-term savings and investments industry to define what excellence means in transfers and re-registration processes, and to demonstrate commitment to its implementation to consumers, government and regulatory stakeholders. STAR is working with industry participants to define the processes covered by that framework, specify good practice targets for each of those processes, and measure actual performance against those targets across the industry.”

Billy Burnside, commenting on his appointment:

"I am delighted to have the opportunity to take on this role at this exciting time in Criterion’s development. I know from personal experience many of the fantastic people at Criterion and look forward to working with them on delivering the vision and ambition for standards and governance set by the industry.
 

Having spent many years working in several financial services companies on the development of standards and governance initiatives that have delivered critical business services, I fully appreciate the importance of standards and of organisations working collaboratively for the benefit of all stakeholders to deliver better consumer outcomes. The success that Criterion has already been able to deliver to the long-term savings and investment industry through the establishment of STAR is a great example of how, through collaboration (with TeX), the industry can come together to meet the challenges we collectively face and improve the service we deliver to advisers and customers. My initial priority will be on building on this success and delivering the required outcomes of STAR for the industry and seeking out similar opportunities to work collaboratively across the financial services market."