Consultants with proven senior level experience who are:
can apply to become associates of our consultancy practice and help us deliver affordable expertise to client in a broad range of business disciplines.
Philip Ward is an experienced financial services professional with an extensive and successful track record in creating and implementing business initiatives and product innovations, both in Europe and the Middle East. He is an Associate of The UK Chartered Institute of Banking and is also a fully qualified “Prince 2” project management practitioner. Seeking new challenges, Phil now advises client banks and financial institutions on all aspects of banc assurance and mortgage business strategy. As a sound strategic manager and tenacious project implementer, Phil now brings his retail banking, insurance and mortgage lending experience to OVC Marketing.
Phil was born and educated in the United Kingdom where he spent the formative years of his banking career. He joined Barclays Bank in 1981, spending over seven years in branch banking before moving to the Barclays Regional Head Office in 1988, where he was responsible for analysing and authorising corporate lending applications and credit risk.
In 1991, Phil joined Barclays Insurance Services (BISCO), to develop new products and services, including payment protection insurance (PPI) schemes that became component features of most of Barclays’ personal and small business lending, overdraft and credit card products. These insurance products were a significant contributor to Group income and during his tenure Phil was directly responsible for increasing associated revenue from £150m to £325m. He also renegotiated more favourable contracts with the third party insurance suppliers, introduced a number of effective sales training programmes and developed PPI products and banc assurance business strategies to support Barclay’s expansion into Europe (Germany, Spain and France).
Whilst at BISCO, Phil developed the business case and rationale for the creation of a captive insurance company that would allow Barclays greater control over customer service and retention of all PPI revenue. This company (Barclays Insurance, Dublin) was formed and in 1998, where Phil was appointed as Acting General Manager for this new business, based in Dublin, Ireland.
On moving back to the UK, Phil returned to BISCO and was responsible for developing, managing and marketing all of the Barclays Group personal lines insurance products. (These included household insurance, motor insurance, travel insurance, extended warranty and several health insurance products). During this period he was responsible for a number of major strategic initiatives, including the re-entry of Barclays into the motor insurance market, re-engineering the home insurance product range and the development and implementation of a nationwide banc assurance telesales programme.
Seeking a new career challenge, Phil moved to the International and Private Banking division of Barclays in 2001 as Head of Mortgages, Loans and General Insurance. In his four years there he increased the value of Barclays mortgage business by 350% in his territories, re-engineered the operational and marketing structures and entered new markets including Nigeria and Hong Kong. He also developed several new products including a unique ‘complete property service’ concept for international clients wishing to enter the UK property market, a specialist loan product for Real estate purchases via corporate and trust structures as well as spear-heading a ground-breaking global strategic alliance with the Marriott Hotel Group.
In 2004 Phil conducted a major strategic review of the Dubai property market and options for entry. The following year he was asked to re-locate to the United Arab Emirates as Mortgage Director to take on the challenge of developing Barclays’ residential mortgage in the UAE. During this time, Phil was directly responsible for all aspects of the business (including strategic and business planning, operational design, product development, marketing, pricing, credit risk policy, third party relationships and regulatory approval). Under Phil’s leadership, Barclays UAE mortgage business launched successfully in 2006 and by the end of the year had captured 8% market share of new business.
