A multidisciplinary advisory, built for the problems that don't fit neatly into one discipline.
We work primarily with financial institutions and their senior leaders, though our approach applies wherever regulation is complex, scrutiny is high, and the stakes are significant.
We advise on the strategic questions where legal risk, regulatory expectation and commercial reality collide — and where getting the judgement right matters more than getting the paperwork right.
Who we are
The firm was founded by Martyn Hopper, who spent a decade at the Financial Services Authority — latterly heading enforcement — followed by over twenty years as a partner at Herbert Smith and Linklaters, advising financial institutions on their most sensitive regulatory challenges.
That experience — on both sides of the regulatory line — shapes how we work. We understand how regulators think, how institutions respond, and where the gap between the two creates risk.
We built the firm to close that gap: not with more compliance process, but with better judgement, better systems, and advice that integrates the disciplines regulatory problems actually demand.
We work alongside a consulting panel of senior practitioners in behavioural science, human factors, governance and compliance — brought in where their expertise adds value, not as a billing exercise.
What we help with
We advise boards, senior managers and executive teams on complex regulatory challenges — typically where one or more of the following is in play:
- The issue is multidimensional: legal, regulatory, commercial and behavioural considerations are pulling in different directions
- Regulatory scrutiny is emerging or expected, and the organisation's position needs to be defensible
- Governance, controls or accountability structures aren't keeping pace with the business
- A failure has occurred and the organisation needs to understand what happened, why, and what to do about it
- Transformation is underway and regulatory risk is accumulating faster than oversight can track
- Regulatory change is on the horizon and the organisation needs to get ahead of it — building understanding, capability and governance before compliance becomes compulsory
How we're different
Most regulatory advice comes from one perspective — legal, compliance, consulting or behavioural. We start from the problem, not the discipline, and bring together whatever combination of expertise the situation requires.
- Integrated by design. Legal, regulatory, behavioural and operational insight in one engagement — not parcelled across separate workstreams with separate fees.
- Senior throughout. No leverage model. The people you engage with are the people who do the work.
- Built for defensibility. Everything we produce — analysis, recommendations, reporting — is designed to withstand regulatory, judicial or board-level scrutiny. We know what that scrutiny looks like because we've been on both sides of it.
- Independent. No conflicts from a client list of two hundred institutions. No incentive to extend engagements. Direct advice, plainly given.
How we work
- Clear scope and outputs, with board-ready reporting where needed
- Independent perspective and candid advice — including the advice you may not want to hear
- Practical recommendations designed for implementation under real-world constraints
- Discreet engagement with a low-friction working style
Policy and capability-building
Our policy, research and capability-building work is integral to how we practise — not a sideline. It keeps our advisory work grounded in where regulation is heading, not just where it's been.
More detail is on our Services page.