Matt Nelson will cover the North as business development manager (BDM) and has 25 years experience in financial services with 22 years in client facing roles. Prior to joining Ascentric, he worked for HSBC GAM, Sun Life Financial of Canada, Winterthur and NPI.

Lester Curley joins as a sales development manager and has over 20 years experience working with intermediaries in a number of client facing roles. He joins Ascentric from Russell Investments where he was a regional director. Prior to this Lester worked for Standard Life for over 12 years where latterly he was the investment development manager for the Midlands.

Commenting on the appointments, Mike Morrow, sales and marketing director at Ascentric, said: "We are particularly proud of our track record and reputation within the wrap platform market. Lester and Matt are important additions to our business development team as they both have considerable experience working with and understanding what intermediaries are looking for."

Last month, Ascentric announced the appointments of Philip Gilder and Jason Owen to its Propositions team.



Ascentric and Fundsdirect are the trading names of Investment Funds Direct Limited (IFDL). Investment Funds Direct Limited was founded in 1982, and Fundsdirect launched as the UK's first online fund supermarket in December 1999. Since that time, the company has built its reputation as a UK fund supermarket to provide financial advisers with a Wrap platform under the brand name of Ascentric. In October 2007, a majority holding of Investment Funds Direct Group Limited was acquired by Royal London Group.

Royal London Group includes a number of brands such as Scottish Life, Bright Grey, Scottish Provident, Caledonian Life, Royal London 360°, RLAM, Royal London Plus, Ascentric/IFDL and MoneyVista. Group businesses serve around 4 million customers and employ 2,930 people.