Welcome
Welcome to the Sanders Consulting website. We are a regulatory consulting service for the financial services industry. Here you can see the services we offer, read about some recent typical projects we have undertaken for clients, and meet the team.
Our job is to help you see a way forward on your regulatory challenges and light the way to their resolution.
If you think we might be able to help your business, you can find our contact details below. We look forward to hearing from you and working with you!
What We Do
​Sanders Consulting offers experienced professional advisory and consulting services to compliance and risk functions in the financial services industry. Our work involves navigating varied regulatory issues and includes compliance risk framework reviews, regulatory policy development, control reviews and risk management product development. All of the above is supported by our in-house specialist legal knowledge and experience.
We work with a variety of clients, from start-ups to household-names. We advise across the financial sector including banks, brokers, insurers, fintechs, AI systems developers, exchanges and payment providers. We work either directly with clients on specific assignments or within larger multi-disciplinary teams on larger projects, for instance as embedded specialist resources within wider law firm client engagements.
Recent & Current Projects
Project Director of a significant (7 months duration) FSMA s.166 review required by FCA in the areas of conflict management, information handling, market abuse risk, and client handling in primary and secondary equity market, including management oversight and SMCR. Overseeing a team of lawyers and consultants, managing liaison with subject firm board members, accountable for technical quality of work product.
Director of Compliance/Risk Governance project with major insurance broker and managing underwriter, analysing regulatory requirements, compliance and non-financial risk appetite, framework, controls, MI and governance; supporting CCO in realignment/redesign of function capabilities and structure.
Execution of a major advisory assignment (12 months duration) with a (household-name PLC) regulated group, providing expert analysis and critique of extant and proposed future-state group level control framework, policy standards and controls across employee conduct, ABC/conflicts, and PA dealing areas. Including technical analysis of relevant regulation as it applies to the client-specific situation, and the design of policy tools to facilitate control re-design.
Senior Consultant on independent expert review of regulatory risk change management controls in a global bank, and re-design of replacement control infrastructure.
Strategic and technical support of fintech client with the design of a target operating model for trading voice and text surveillance, and the research, design and development of the training basis of the AI used to build and operate the model. Including supporting the client CEO in meetings with global banks and global telecommunications partners.
Strategic and technical support of risktech client with the design of a Big Data/AI-driven compliance/non-financial risk utility for G-SIB banks and other regulated institutions. Including technical review of regulatory approaches to risk inventory, control inventory, and rule-mapping, and supporting the CEO in meetings with regulators and global banks.
Senior Advisor to CEO and senior team of UK fintech seeking MLR registration and eventual FCA authorisation in digital assets trading and custody; strategic and technical analysis of FCA Crypto Roadmap and impact of PRIN, SYSC, COB and market abuse regimes; reviewing and advising on regulatory interaction, application development and risk mitigation framework.
Senior Advisor to CEO and senior team of UK regulated insuretech developing credit risk mitigation platform for G-SIBs; analysis of PRA rules, reviewing and advising on regulatory developments, regulatory interaction, product development and risk mitigation framework.
Meet Our Team
Stephen Sanders, Director
Stephen has worked for over 40 years in the financial services industry, as regulator, risk manager, compliance officer, and senior executive. From 2015 to 2019 he was a member of the EMEA Executive Committee of JP Morgan Chase as Chief Compliance Officer for EMEA, leading a professional staff of 600+ across 30 jurisdictions, and a commensurate budget. He was accountable for major change and implementation programmes firm-wide, chairing programme boards across multiple front office and support function managements. Prior to this he led the firm’s Regulatory Policy capability across EMEA and APAC, serving as Chair of the Regulatory Reform Oversight Committee and as a member of the EMEA Operating Committee. He previously held senior management roles as a bond and equity market regulator with the London Stock Exchange, and in governance, compliance and risk with J. Rothschild Group (as a Director of J. Rothschild Capital Management Ltd), Deutsche Bank Group (as a Director of Morgan Grenfell & Co plc) and RBS Group (where he was also an Audit Committee Member for the Offshore Bank).​
Alongside his executive career, Stephen has maintained a leading position in the development of professional education and intellectual capital in the industry. Having written and edited books in the fields of risk and regulation, and taught for both City University Business School and the ISMA Centre at Reading University, he is now a Visiting Professor and Advisory Board Member at Kingston Business School. Industry appointments have included being the UK’s Representative on the EU Consultative Panel of the Committee of European Banking Supervisors and Chair of the AFME MiFID II Committee.
After receiving his BA (Hons) degree, Stephen qualified as a Member of The Stock Exchange, a Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investments, and a Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. He has an MSc degree from the London School of Economics & Political Science, with Distinction. He has completed management education programmes run by both Cranfield and Harvard Universities.
Alongside his Sanders Consulting activities, Stephen is a member of the Advisory Board of the fintech Umony Limited, and was from 2022 until 2025 a member of the Advisory Board of the risktech Acin Limited, having also been a Senior Advisor to the insuretech Bondaval Limited.
Penny Sanders, Legal Counsel
Penny Sanders has worked across a variety of commercial sectors including, for a number of years, as co-owner of an art import and sales business and later working in international banking.
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She has spent the last 25 years as a solicitor, specialising in financial services regulation, latterly as Legal Director of the Funds and Financial Services Team at Gowlings WLG, the global law practice. Her client work has included drafting exchange rule books, advising on authorisation applications to FCA and on the impact of financial regulation on fintech start-ups. Her current areas of focus include the intersection of financial services and telecoms regulation and emerging international regulation of AI systems.
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Alongside her Sanders Consulting work, Penny is Legal Counsel to Umony Limited.
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Penny took her LLB (Hons) degree at Birkbeck University of London, her Legal Diploma at the College of Law and went on to qualify as a Member of the Chartered Institute of Securities & Investments.​
​Outside of the law, Penny is active in the charitable sector. Recently, this has included participating as a member of The Brooke Advisory Board promoting, post-pandemic, the importance of global animal health alongside human health. Since 2018, she has served as a Director and Trustee of the Mrs DM France-Hayhurst Foundation, a charitable organisation dedicated to animal (particularly equine) health and welfare.
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Penny is a fluent Italian speaker.