Ivan Martin wins Widows' personality of the year award

Ivan Martin, executive chairman of the newly-merged Sesame Bankhall distribution giant, has picked up the industry personality of the year gong at Scottish Widows' annual IFA awards.

Martin has been particularly outspoken about the RDR, particularly issues concerning factoring and the long-stop, and last year branded the review's 'sales advice' category a "Frankenstein creation". It has since been changed.

Martin became head of the largest appointed representative network, with around 3,000 advisers, and the largest directly regulated service business, supporting over 1,500 firms, earlier this month following Sesame's merger with Bankhall.

Elsewhere, Helm Godfrey's head of employee benefits Roger Sanders OBE picked up the lifetime achievement award at the ceremony held at the Dorchester Hotel in London on 23 October.

Godfrey's 40 years in financial services, including as a founding member and deputy chair of the Association of IFAs (AIFA), have seen him work as an adviser to the Bank of England working party on Islamic Finance, as well as CESAR and FOS.

The industry initiative of the year award went to Tom Baigrie, co-owner of Baigrie Davies and LifeSearch, for his campaign to raise the profile of protection.

He was also commended for his efforts to highlight the need for mass business protection for SMEs going unprotected.

Tristan Freer of Bankhouse IFA, the Cheltenham firm he set up himself, won the best newcomer award.

Roger Black, MBE and double Paralympic gold medallist Sarah Storey presented the awards.

John Van Der Wielen, managing director Clerical Medical/Halifax Life says: "We are delighted to announce this year's winners of The Widows Awards. This is the fourth year we've run the awards which celebrate success, talent and effort in the IFA community. I would like to congratulate all of our winners and wish them continued success."