Access Financial Services has appointed Sue O’Brien as its new training and competency (T&C) supervisor, strengthening its compliance and adviser development function.
O’Brien (main picture) takes on a key compliance-focused role and will be responsible for ensuring that all advisers and relevant staff are appropriately qualified, skilled and competent to deliver mortgage and protection advice, while avoiding poor customer outcomes and regulatory breaches. She starts this month.
She joins Access FS from the Finance Advice Centre, where she spent almost seven years as a mortgage and protection adviser and worked in training and development roles.
O’Brien previously worked as a mortgage and protection adviser at Mansion Park. Earlier in her career, she held senior operational roles including operations manager at Bamford Mortgages and director of operations at Hadenglen Home Finance, where she was responsible for a team of 34 mortgage administrators.
CRITICAL TRAINING
Nick Jones, mortgage sales and marketing director at Access FS, says: “While we focus on hiring experienced mortgage brokers, we now have over 200 mortgage and protection advisers at Access FS and we need to provide a lot of great training not only to maintain the quality of our advice but also to help them develop their businesses and become more successful.
“While Sue will be involved with our in-house Broker Academy, which prepares new recruits for the CeMAP qualification, even the most experienced mortgage brokers need to maintain their skills amid changing products, rates and rules. Training is critical here and Sue will be absolutely central to its delivery.”
REDESIGNING PROCESSES
O’Brien adds: “I am looking forward to looking at the Access policies and potentially redesigning the processes that are used to assess and monitor the competence of advisers, including for new entrants and experienced advisers.
“But I will also be involved with supervision and assessment, training delivery and coordination, recruitment and onboarding, record-keeping and reporting.”
O’Brien will work alongside Mark Prudhomme within the training and development team and will report to head of training and competency Paul Bartliff. The wider training and development function reports into compliance director Jeremy Lock.
COMMUNITY SUPPORT
Lock says: “We needed to bolster the T&C team following the promotion of Michael Harrison to compliance manager recently.
“Access FS always looks to support our mortgage adviser community and part of that involves a commitment to training them – with a view to helping them grow their own businesses.”
The appointment follows the unveiling of the team behind Access FS’s new Equality Council in December 2025.
