Location: Central London (Liverpool Street) | Salary: £160,000–£220,000 base + bonus/equity | Type: Full-time, Permanent
Role
A newly authorising insurance group is appointing its SMF19 — Head of Third Country Branch — as it establishes a UK branch of its European-authorised carrier and takes that branch through PRA authorisation and FCA regulation. This designation is one of the named individuals in the authorisation application itself, so the appointment is inseparable from the branch's regulatory case for existing.
Because the UK entity is brand new, it has no supervisory history of its own for the PRA to draw on. That absence shifts the weight of the assessment onto the individual: the regulators will be looking for someone who has already carried this exact kind of accountability elsewhere, not someone being trusted to grow into it.
Responsibilities
Carry ultimate responsibility for the branch's regulated activities in the UK
Hold the branch's prescribed responsibilities: risk management, compliance, systems and controls, capital and liquidity, regulatory reporting, the ORSA, business model oversight, outsourcing oversight, and escalation of regulator correspondence
Sit on a genuinely independent footing from the overseas (Malta) board when UK regulatory judgement requires it — this is a specific PRA expectation of third-country branch heads, tested directly rather than assumed
Serve as the branch's principal point of contact and accountability with the PRA and FCA
Qualifications
Personally held SMF19, SMF1 (Chief Executive) or SMF7 (Group Entity SMF), or a directly equivalent designation, at an authorised insurer, MGA or insurtech of comparable scale
Able to evidence — with specifics, not generalities — occasions where independent judgement was exercised against a parent or group rather than group direction simply followed
Prior direct engagement with the PRA and/or FCA in a designated capacity
Comfortable moving between an insurtech's pace and a larger carrier's governance discipline
Benefits
Base salary of £160,000–£220,000, with bonus/equity depending on group structure
A designation-defining mandate: sole named accountability for a branch's UK regulatory standing, not a role buried in a wider executive team
Direct involvement in a live PRA/FCA authorisation from the ground up
Central London, Liverpool Street
SMF Capital is the specialist arm of the Exec Capital / FD Capital recruitment group dedicated entirely to Senior Manager Function and FCA/PRA-regulated appointments. Where generalist search firms treat an SMF designation as a job title, we treat it as a regulatory event — because that's what it is. This search is confidential; the client will not be named prior to interview stage.