Thistle Initiatives Bolsters Leadership with Two New Partners and New Change & Transformation Division for Financial Services Institutions

Thistle Change Transformation division has launched to help financial institutions manage regulatory change, digital transformation, and strategic growth. This expansion enhances Thistle Initiatives’ position in the transformation of financial services, under the leadership of new partners Sam Coe and Joe Marti.

The new Change & Transformation division will specialise in guiding scaling and enterprise-level financial institutions through critical organisational processes, including large-scale regulatory implementations, digital transformation initiatives, operational restructuring, and strategic growth mandates. It will also provide support across the M&A lifecycle, helping institutions navigate the associated organisational and operational complexities. The division aims to empower institutions to manage intricate transitions effectively, mitigate emerging risks, and achieve sustainable growth within the dynamic regulatory and technological landscape.

Joe Marti has worked with and in many of the UK’s leading wealth and investment management firms. Starting out as a discretionary manager with Barclays Wealth, he moved into consultancy in 2016 to specialise in the buy-side sector and has worked predominantly with private client firms. He arrives at Thistle Initiatives from Alpha FMC, where he was a Partner and senior member of the Wealth Management and Private Banking segment, supporting a range of private client firms to identify and deliver complex change to their propositions, business and operations.

The Thistle Change Transformation division is positioned to support scaling financial institutions through compliance-heavy initiatives, M&A restructuring, and tech innovation.

Sam Coe has 14 years’ experience leading large scale change and transformation programmes in the Financial Services industry, working with several Tier 1 institutions across Banking, Insurance and Wealth and Asset Management (e.g. HSBC, Barclays, Aviva). Sam started his career at KPMG before moving to Capco in 2017, where he was part of the Banking and Payments Leadership Team. He has since spent time at Elixirr helping to grow the UK Financial Services vertical before joining Thistle. He has led numerous Regulatory Change programmes including remedial responses to S166, Consumer Duty and Operational Resilience. His vast experience also includes delivering pre and post deal transformation programmes related to M&A activity (such as target operating model design and post-merger integration), Digital Transformation and Operational Efficiency programmes generating millions in cost-savings.

“Thistle’s new service aims to build upon the existing capability within the firm, allowing us to further support our clients by embedding our specialists into broader transformation programmes, whether that be tackling regulatory compliance, high risk legacy operational platforms or supporting with pre or post deal M&A activity. The Change & Transformation offering looks to expand the services we provide to our clients and support them with a more end-to-end capability, whilst continuing to deliver the exceptional services we do today. The business has built up a phenomenal reputation in its Risk, Compliance and Financial Crime domains and has a group of amazing clients and real momentum. The opportunity at Thistle is to offer relevant and tailored support to its clients and the technology and service partners across the industry and deliver on a wider change agenda on business leaders’ priority list”, state Sam Coe and Joe Marti.

With extensive experience in financial services compliance, risk management and regulatory oversight, Thistle supports clients across the spectrum of financial services, including wealth and asset management, banking, payment services, fintech, crypto and digital assets, consumer lending, and neo-banking. Thistle’s new division will work in close collaboration with its existing teams. This integrated approach will embed regulatory compliance, financial crime prevention, and robust governance expertise directly into clients’ transformation initiatives, ensuring that change is not only efficient and effective but also fully compliant and risk-aware from inception.

“Launching our dedicated Change & Transformation division is a natural progression of our mission to provide holistic support to our clients. We recognise that effective change management is as crucial as robust compliance, and bringing on two new partners of exceptional calibre like Joe Marti and Sam Coe will ensure we deliver unparalleled expertise in this critical area”, says Harry Cotton, Chief Commercial Officer at Thistle Initiatives.

Founded in 2012, Thistle Initiatives have worked with over 1,000 firms within the financial services sector, providing support with FCA Authorisations, Acquisition Due Diligence, Audits, Supervision and Enforcement, Financial Crime and Fraud Prevention, as well as ongoing compliance advice, guidance and support, in sectors including Investments, Payment Services, Credit, Mortgages, Digital Assets and General Insurance.

With the Thistle Change Transformation division, the company reinforces its ability to deliver strategic change solutions and comprehensive transformation expertise.