First Complete makes two new hires

First Complete has increased its team of regional sales directors appointing two new members of staff rounding off a year where First Complete has increased its head office staff by 10%.

The two new RSDs are Simon Pleasants, who will look after brokers in the South West and Wales region, and Chris Robertshaw, who will cover London and the South East helping brokers to develop their businesses in particular their protection skills.

Both are hugely experienced and their aim will be to further build on the significant growth the network has seen this year.

Pleasants has worked in financial services for 19 years, starting as a trainee financial adviser with Britannic Assurance, and then spending 15 years working in a variety of roles at Legal & General including setting up the BDM protection sales team within the intermediary division before moving into the role of account director responsible for managing a number of key strategic relationships including LSL.

Robertshaw has been in financial services for 24 years, previously working at Aviva, Friends Life and Friends Provident and has trained and developed over 19,000 IFAs and brokers.

Toni Smith, sales operations director for First Complete, said: "We are undergoing significant growth at First Complete. Earlier this year the number of brokers that were a part of First Complete exceeded 1,000 and this number still continues to grow with an extensive pipeline of brokers applying to join our network.

"To provide ARs with the support that they deserve and for which First Complete has become renowned, we have increased the amount of support staff across the business, most notably in compliance, in finance and now in the number of regional sales directors.

"These are really vital appointments as both Simon and Chris will spend significant amounts of time face-to-face with our brokers helping them to develop and meet the objectives they have set themselves. We also take their decisions to join our network as a huge compliment as they both worked with multiple distribution partners in their previous roles."