The chairwoman of Hargreaves Lansdown is leaving following severe criticism from one of the investment platform’s founders over her leadership, according to Sky News.
Deanna Oppenheimer has chaired the FTSE 100 company for the last five-and-a-half years amidst a particularly turbulent period for the UK’s financial markets.
Last October, Hargreaves’s co-founder and its largest shareholder, Peter Hargreaves, called on her to stand down, accusing her of overseeing a ‘diabolical’ performance at the business.
Leader: Deanna Oppenheimer has chaired Bristol-based Hargreaves Lansdown for the last five-and-a-half years amidst a particularly turbulent period for the UK’s financial markets
Since Oppenheimer joined as chair, Hargreaves has achieved significant growth in assets, customer levels and turnover during her tenure but has seen its share price more than halve.
It benefited handsomely during the first year of the coronavirus pandemic from a surge of retail investors, many of them young first-time traders looking to make a little extra money.
Yet trade slowed significantly as lockdown restrictions were loosened and people started spending more time outdoors and in the office.
The company has also contended with the fallout from the collapse of the Woodford Equity Income Fund, which Hargreaves had heavily promoted before it collapsed in 2019, leaving tens of thousands of investors nursing significant losses.
Sky News claimed that an announcement regarding Oppenheimer’s departure was ‘imminent’ whilst the search for her successor was already underway.
The American-born also chairs Crowne Plaza owner Intercontinental Hotels Group and holds non-executive directorships at media agency Thomson Reuters and technology consultancy Slalom.
She previously occupied board positions at Tesco, Whitbread, and payments processor Worldpay, held senior roles at Barclays and founded CameoWorks, an advisory firm to CEOs of early-stage technology businesses.
Chris Hill is already planning to step aside as Hargreaves’s chief executive next month, when he will be replaced by Dan Olley, the former head of data science provider Dunnhumby.
In February 2022, Hill launched a growth strategy that included proposals to invest £175million on its technology platform and launch a new financial advice service, partly funded through suspending special dividend payments.
But Peter Hargreaves has heavily criticised the plan, calling the proposed service ‘completely unnecessary’ and instead urging the group to implement a ‘huge round of cost-cutting.’
This is Money contacted Hargreaves for a response but did not receive a reply.
Hargreaves Lansdown shares closed 0.8 per cent down at 832.8p on Monday.
