Executive Leadership Team

Appointed to the Executive Leadership Team:
August 2025

Richard became Interim CEO, having held the position of Non-Executive Director and Chair of the Transformation Committee from March 2025, when HL began life as a private company under new ownership.

Richard has built a career leading and transforming businesses, particularly consumer-facing digital platforms. He led Sky Betting and Gaming from 2006 to 2018, where he oversaw a period of significant growth and won several awards for the company culture, including being voted No 1 CEO by colleagues on Glassdoor. Richard also implemented some industry-leading safeguards and initiatives to improve standards across industry for vulnerable customers, in particular.

Richard has also served as a Non-Executive Director for a number of startup and scaleup businesses including Butternut Box, Seat Unique and Ryde Studios.

Richard is passionate about HL’s mission to create a nation of retail investors, and is a lifelong Arsenal fan. He is married with two children and in his spare time can be found out cycling.

Appointed to the Executive Leadership Team:
August 2025

Darren is currently in the role of Chief Finance Officer, having led commercial finance at HL since 2023.

Darren has extensive financial and strategic leadership experience across client-focused businesses in the retail, data, and financial services sectors. Prior to HL, he worked in a number of senior finance roles at Screwfix, including as Director of Commercial Finance and Strategy and Director of Operational Finance, as well as in global businesses, including Experian and BAE Systems, in senior Group Finance, Commercial and M&A positions.

A qualified management accountant, Darren combines deep technical expertise with a commercial mindset.

Appointed to the Executive Leadership Team:
August 2025

Simon has extensive experience leading digital platform businesses and online retail platforms grounded in customer insights. In both the UK and the US, he has held senior roles at Equinox, Walmart, Ocado and Tesco, where he led the online business as Managing Director.

Through his background in digital retail platforms, Simon is expert in designing truly consumer-centric experiences and services to deliver what people need.

Simon received his MBA from Havard Business School in 2007.

Appointed to the Executive Leadership Team:
March 2024

Lucy has 20 years’ experience across corporate affairs, journalism and campaigning, working both in house for listed corporations as well as consulting for a range of national and international brands. She joined Hargreaves Lansdown following four years as Director of Corporate and Regulatory Affairs with the telecoms business TalkTalk Group, where she has led the communication of its delisting, demerger and refinancing. She began her career as producer at the BBC, covering EU News across Europe for four years, before working as a producer on Newsnight and BBC Radio 4 News programmes.

As a former senior director at a global communications consultancy, Lucy has also advised a number of UK and multinational businesses and their leaders on reputation, regulation and policy communications. Lucy has a background in building and leading campaigns having led the brand and communications for a major national political campaign.

Appointed to the Executive Leadership Team:
June 2024

Gary started his career as a Chartered Accountant with Ernst & Young in the nineties, before moving into the Asset Management industry, where he held roles across front, middle and back office. He’s also a CFA Charter holder. He became a Consulting Partner at EY leading their Wealth & Asset Management Transformation offering in the UK, specialising in leading large scale global transformation programmes for asset managers, wealth managers, asset servicers and alternative providers.

Appointed to the Executive Leadership Team:
March 2024

Afonso is a financial services strategy advisor. Prior to joining HL, Afonso was a Managing Director and Partner of Boston Consulting Group in London where he led the UK Financial Services Practice. He has extensive experience working in Wealth and investments, retail banking, delivering large transformation programmes and working with regulators.

Afonso received his MBA in Financial Management from MIT Sloan School of Management. He also has a BS in Business Management from ISCTE.

Appointed to the Executive Leadership Team:
August 2021

David started his career qualifying as a Chartered Accountant with EY in Bristol. After some time working in Vancouver, Canada with EY he has built up 25 years of Internal Audit experience mainly across the Financial Services industry. Prior to joining HL in 2017 he held Head of Audit roles at BAE Systems, AXA Life, Friends Life and TSB. David’s experience prior to HL includes providing assurance in organisations going through a variety of significant change including mergers, de-mergers, stock market listing, acquisitions and numerous large scale organisational and technology transformation programmes. As part of this he has specialised in building and leading high performing audit teams.

David and his team provide independent assurance to the Board over the effectiveness of HL’s internal controls and risk management practices. To facilitate this, they hold no operational or decision making responsibilities and David reports directly to the Chair of the Audit Committee with an internal reporting line to the CEO.

David is also Independent Chair of the Joint Audit Committee for Avon and Somerset Police.

Since August 2025, David has held the role of Acting Chief Risk Officer.

Appointed to the Executive Leadership Team:
March 2025

As Chief Legal Officer, Craig heads up the Legal and Company Secretariat functions for the Hargreaves Lansdown group. Craig is an experienced lawyer with a deep understanding of legal, corporate governance and regulatory matters, and has a long history at Hargreaves Lansdown, having been the Head of Legal for the Hargreaves Lansdown group since May 2015.

Craig is also a Trustee and Company Secretary of the Youth Adventure Trust charity.

Appointed to the Executive Leadership Team:
March 2025

Denise is a highly commercial People Leader with over 15 years of experience in Senior HR leadership roles. She has a sharp focus on driving successful change within businesses, known for delivering results both within her function and also enabling the business transformation.

Previously Denise was the Chief People Officer for dunnhumby, a global leader in customer data science and has led people teams and transformation across companies such as Experian, CGI and Coca-Cola.

She is a qualified Executive Coach and a Board Trustee and Chair of RemCo for Brain Tumour Research.