The ShareIn team has grown quickly over the last couple of years. It’s our amazing people that make the magic happen. In our meet the team section we aim to tell you a little more about the people behind the scenes. This week we talked to Andrea Blackie.
Who are you?
Hi, I’m Andrea and I’m an Account Manager here at ShareIn. I joined the ShareIn team in the summer of 2017 after moving to Edinburgh from my native Canada, where I worked in financial services and also had the experience of co-founding a small book publishing start up.
What do you do at ShareIn?
While my official job title is Account Manager, in practice I divide my time between working as part of our regulatory Compliance function, liaising with our Client Support team on various projects, and lending a hand with the company’s marketing efforts. Working at a start up / scale up affords the fun opportunity to don many hats! As part of ShareIn’s Compliance team, a large part of my day consists of reviewing our Appointed Representative (AR) clients’ marketing materials to ensure they meet regulatory standards, delivering training to new clients on compliance matters, and assisting with the onboarding of new clients. On the marketing side, I am involved in putting together blog posts, press releases sharing the exciting new developments happening at ShareIn, and manning the company’s social media accounts (you can find us on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook!)
Does ShareIn provide Appointed Representative services?
Yes, of course! ShareIn are directly regulated and authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) (FRN 603332) and we provide Appointed Representative services for both equity and debt crowdfunders. Our crowdfunding umbrella service allows our AR clients to operate in a compliant manner without the need to go through the time- and cost-intensive process of obtaining their own authorisation. ShareIn’s role as a regulatory Principal means we are responsible for our ARs’ actions, compliance, and competence, and so we undertake rigorous due diligence on ARs at the onboarding stage. As part of providing a robust compliance solution, we provide our AR clients with a compliance manual and operating framework, and also deliver ongoing crowdfunding compliance guidance and tailored training sessions.
What’s something you would like to tell people about ShareIn that perhaps they don’t know?
Earlier this year, our CEO, Jude Cook, joined the Board of FinTech Scotland, the industry body for Scotland’s financial technology sector, and ShareIn’s Head of Finance, Mark Howitt, was appointed Director of the UK Crowdfunding Association (UKCFA). At ShareIn, we’re really proud of the level of diversity we’ve achieved across our team: we currently have 13 different nationalities represented across 25 team members, and over half of the team are women – including over half of the development team!
Tell us an interesting fact about you? Before moving from Canada and joining ShareIn I had never set foot in the UK before. I couldn’t be happier to call Scotland my home now!
