D&W Management Consulting Ltd, as the new company is called, is based in Scotland, but Leeson said he expects it to advise companies from around the UK and further afield that are attempting to get to grips with the raft of challenges being forced upon them by the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) and other new regulations.
“The UK market is undergoing transformational change, and it requires businesses in financial services to do more than simply adopt a ‘work around’ solution in response, Leeson said, in a statement announcing the creation of D&W.
Post RDR, he said, providers of financial services products “will either need to seriously address their cost base, or else dramatically increase their new business volumes”.
“Wealth managers will need to respond to fast-moving changes in their dealings with advisers. For their part, advisers will need to develop client retention and education strategies in order to complete their transformation to the post-RDR world.”
Leeson compared the changes now under way in the market for financial goods and services as being similar to those that occurred some years back in the airline industry, when new, low-cost carriers first began to challenge the pricing structures of established airline companies, such as United Airlines, British Airways and American Airlines.
Prior to joining Axa in 2011, Leeson spent nine years with Prudential, and before that was with Aegon.
He said he expects to draw on his years of experience on behalf of his clients at D&W, the way he did at Axa, where he said he helped to transform that company’s business to accommodate the RDR world.
Leeson was succeeded at Axa by Frank Parsons.
