Our People

Ray Everett is the head of our Middle East practice, based in Dubai. He is primarily responsible for conducting consulting assignments with clients in the region and well as managing our survey program in the Middle East. Ray has significant experience designing and implementing annual and long term incentive plans, performance management systems and salary bands.

Prior to locating to Dubai, Ray was Head of our Consulting Practice in Asia Pacific, based in Hong Kong. He has also worked in our Stamford, Ct. office where he managed our Infrastructure, Equities and Mortgage Banking surveys and managed a number of global client accounts.

Prior to joining McLagan in 1997, he was with Watson Wyatt where he headed the firm’s HR Effectiveness Practice in Asia and before that in Toronto, Canada. Prior to joining Watson Wyatt he was with Ernst & Young in Toronto, Canada.

Helen Beck specializes in providing total pay consulting services to investment management organizations, including advisory firms, mutual fund companies, banks insurance companies, in-house managers and private banking.

Helen's consulting services for these organizations include: board and remuneration committee advice, designing and implementing annual and long-term incentive plans; benchmarking studies and analyzing competitive pay levels. In addition, Helen oversees the annual compensation survey program for Investment Management, Private Banking and Support functions to London and Europe. Over 100 Investment Management organizations participate in these surveys.

Helen joined McLagan in 1995 to establish the McLagan office in Hong Kong. Prior to joining McLagan, Helen had a career in Human Resources with Fidelity Investments in London and Hong Kong.

Helen received a BA (Hons) degree from Nottingham University and a Post Graduate Diploma from Thames Management College.

Chris Blain is the project manager of the GAUGE Investment Banking financial benchmark at McLagan, where he has attained an unrivalled knowledge of revenue, headcount and cost base analysis of the bulge bracket Investment Banks

Chris has worked for a number of major financial institutions including the Bank of England, Daiwa Europe Plc, UBS and WestLB. He has gained experience in a wide range of roles and functions including Finance, Product Control, IT Project Management and Fixed Income Business Management.

Prior to joining Mclagan, in 2006, he developed and led Ernst & Young Consulting’s Benchmarking Practice in Australia.

Chris has attained a Diploma in Business Studies and is located in London.

Michael Burke, Head of Europe and GAUGE, is responsible for financial productivity benchmarking (GAUGE) and the London office.

Michael’s prior experience includes Business Manager at Warburg Dillon Read, Credit Derivatives & Emerging Markets and Chief of Staff, Emerging Markets. Michael has previously held roles at BZW, Elf Oil UK Ltd, and BP Oil. Michael is a Chartered Management Accountant.

Chedli Ghouila is the Head of France & Fixed-Income Europe in McLagan’s London office. Mr. Ghouila joined the firm in 1999 to build the French business and has worked on building the firm’s relationship with the major French banks and other international financial institutions. He is currently responsible for the European Fixed-Income studies, including commodities products, as well as all Capital Market activities in France. Mr. Ghouila has successfully led a variety of HR/Compensation consulting projects for major financial institutions.

Prior to joining McLagan, Mr. Ghouila was a financial analyst with a multimedia division of Vivendi group. He completed his studies with an MBA in Finance from Cardiff Business School (University of Wales).

Francesca Kinghorn is a Vice President on the Z/Yen team. Since joining Z/Yen, Francesca has worked on the financial benchmarking studies to collate cost, headcount, volume and processing efficiency data from investment and commercial banks in order to measure operational performance. Francesca also manages the Operational Performance of Brokers surveys, assessing the needs and plans of ‘buy-side’ clients from an operational perspective and ranking each Bank / Broker’s performance in meeting these needs. Francesca coordinates the activities of both the Z/Yen team and associates and is also responsible for client service and coordinating and selling after-survey work.

Prior to joining Mclagan in 2007, Mrs. Kinghorn worked at Aspect International Consulting as a researcher on a variety of both quantitative and qualitative projects.

Mrs Kinghorn holds a B.A from the University of London.

Stuart works with all the firm’s major European and international clients to provide compensation and performance products and consulting.

Stuart joined McLagan in 1988 to build the international business and to develop relationships with key European and international firms. Mr. Main also manages the development of compensation surveys, covering an array of financial services businesses in Europe and other international locations.

Prior to joining McLagan, Stuart ran his own consultancy business. Earlier, he worked for Chemical Bank, Rank Hovis McDougal, Standard Telephone and Cables, and the Ford Motor Company.

Stuart completed his studies with an MA in Industrial Relations at Warwick University.

James has worked with Z/Yen since March 2003, within the financial services practice. His background is over 20 years in Investment Banking, most recently at Morgan Stanley, where he rose to the level of Executive Director. James served much of his tenure at Morgan Stanley as Head of European Network Management, establishing and maintaining relationships with the Firm’s Agent Bank Network for Europe, Africa, the Middle East and India. James had worked up through (and continued a detailed working relationship with) ‘back office’ Operations at Morgan Stanley’s Investment Banking (and earlier Global Custody) businesses, with particular focus on Equities and Fixed Income products. James played a key role in working with Morgan Stanley’s Agent banks to ensure a successful transition through EMU and Y2K.

Prior to Morgan Stanley, James had worked in Operations at James Capel and W. Greenwell stockbrokers (now both part of the HSBC world), and Nikko Securities – where he played a role in Nikko’s back office set up following their ‘Big-Bang’ membership of the UK Stock Exchange.

Jeremy Smith has been head of Z/Yen’s Financial Services practice since 2000, following 12 years with Bankers Trust Company and Deutsche Bank. Jeremy’s experience has covered private banking, corporate trust, derivatives and securities processing from both operations and technology perspectives. This included the set up and management of the industry’s first derivatives outsourcing business. Before moving into financial services, Jeremy worked in management consulting and software development at Accenture and Cap Gemini following two years spent programming video games. At Z/Yen, Jeremy has established Z/Yen’s range of market information studies which provide both benchmarking and client feedback on banking operations. These studies have included:

• Eight years of annual cost per trade benchmarking of equity, debt and treasury products in which more than 30 major banks have participated;

• Operational performance reviews, where over 300 investment managers are interviewed annually as to their needs and their rating of the providing brokers/banks;

• Specific client-led reviews into all aspects of back and middle office processing.

Z/Yen Limited was acquired by McLagan in February 2007. Jeremy holds a BSc. in Statistics from Bath University and is located in McLagan’s London office.

Belinda Watters is a Vice President on the Asset Management UK/Europe team. She is responsible for the Private Banking survey program within the UK and Europe and assists on numerous consulting projects.

Belinda previously worked at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, where she held several senior positions in the Group Compensation team. Belinda graduated from Wollongong University, in Sydney, Australia with a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Economics and Management.