JCW Group launches New York-based financial services consultancy Guideline
JCW Group, a London-based recruitment and career consultancy, has launched Guideline, a New York-based firm providing regulatory consulting to financial services clients. Guideline will provide strategic advice and leverage the staff augmentation network and expertise of its parent company.
The new firm will be led by co-founders Mark Westmoreland and Et Halstead, and will serve financial services companies in the US and Europe, including banks and fintech companies of all sizes.
Guideline’s core services are regulatory consulting, staff augmentation, and guided solutions – a combination of consulting and staff augmentation. A typical engagement might include a consulting engagement to redesign a compliance program or process, and then staff augmentation to fill short- or long-term gaps.
“The vision for Guideline is to offer companies more choice and scale when they seek compliance or risk expertise. Guideline brings together the best JCW Group has to offer – speed and scale for staffing large compliance projects – alongside strategic regulatory expertise to advise clients and manage projects,” Halstead said.
“Guideline gives clients access to the entire market of regulatory experts,” he added. “This means Guideline can offer clients more choices more quickly than a traditional consulting firm. We’re confident this will allow clients to solve regulatory issues faster and at lower cost.”
Halstead is currently chief commercial officer at JCW Group – which encompasses several specialist recruitment and training consultancy brands, including JCW, Catalyst Life Sciences, Cybernetic, and Xander. The company has offices in London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, New York, and Los Angeles.
Halstead joined JCW in 2009 and founded the firm’s US operations in 2012. He has spent most of his career helping financial services firms build regulatory teams with permanent recruitment and staff augmentation services.
Westmoreland brings 25 years of compliance and legal expertise to Guideline. He spent the last decade at Treliant, where he was head of a regulatory consulting practice serving bank and fintech clients. Before joining Treliant, Westmoreland served as in-house counsel at JP Morgan Chase, Capital One, and two fintech startups. He was also previously a partner at compliance-focused law firm Hudson Cook.
"By combining cutting-edge strategic advice with our network of subject-matter experts, clients can get the answers they need and the resources to staff almost any size team or project,” Westmoreland said.
Jamie Woods, CEO of JWC, further elaborated on Guideline’s value proposition. “Traditional consulting offers generalists who rarely understand the regulations or the regulatory dynamics in play for clients. Specialist firms are better, but still offer a fixed roster of regulatory experts that limits client choice. Plus, firms often swap out experts for generalists at some point after the engagement starts. Guideline gives clients the certainty that who they hire is who will do the work.”
