David Saunders and Gunner Burkhart have been appointed as senior advisers at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
Martin Wheatley, chief executive of the FCA, said of the appointments:
"Both David and Gunner come with impressive experience in their respective areas, which will be a valuable resource for the teams as they look at competition and wholesale issues. I’m delighted to have them on-board."
Formerly chief executive of the Competition Commission, David Saunders brings with him unrivalled experience to advise the FCA. David will work with both the competition department within the FCA and the forthcoming Payment Services Regulator to support them as they promote effective competition. He will also work with other business areas to ensure competition issues are addressed, for example in the course of thematic supervision.
Gunner Burkhart will be providing advice to the FCA on wholesale and markets issues. Gunner has over 30 years’ experience in investment banking and asset management. Most recently, Gunner was a managing director at Nomura International, responsible for senior relationship management and prime services.
Biographical information: David Saunders
David has worked for over 35 years as a civil servant in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and its predecessors. He has experience of business sponsorship, privatisation, export support and regulation. David was head of consumer and competition policy at BIS for four years, which included responsibility for consumer credit policy, before becoming the chief executive of the Competition Commission (CC) in early 2009. He retired from the CC in March 2014 and is a special advisor at Europe Economics.
Biographical information: Gunner Burkhart
Gunner has held a number of senior management and leadership roles throughout his career. Originally based in New York, Gunner moved to London in 1989 and has been managing global businesses from here since then.
Gunner spent 15 years at Goldman Sachs and was managing director, co-head of the European equities business. In 2001, He joined Deutsche Asset Management on the executive committee as global head of trading and broker relationship management. At Deutsche Gunner’s team launched the first online broker evaluation programme to provide transparency on Deutsche Asset’s commission spend.
Gunner then joined Lehman Brothers in 2004 as managing director of senior relationship management in Europe, working for the firm’s executive committee, managing some of their largest hedge fund and asset management client relationships. He also ran the firm’s capital markets prime services business in Europe.
Following his experience at Lehman Brothers, Gunner worked for PWC, assisting in the administration of the Lehman estate before moving to Nomura International as managing director/global head of senior relationship management and prime services.
Notes for editors
- On 1 April 2013 the FCA became responsible for the conduct supervision of all regulated financial firms and the prudential supervision of those not supervised by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA).
- The FCA has an overarching strategic objective of ensuring the relevant markets function well. To support this it has three operational objectives: to secure an appropriate degree of protection for consumers; to protect and enhance the integrity of the UK financial system; and to promote effective competition in the interests of consumers.
- Find out more information about the FCA.