She will replace interim chief risk officer Shaun O’Leary, who has now left the business following the completion of his contract.

Sadler joined Sesame in May 2012 as head of operations and was promoted to operations director in November 2012. Prior to this, she had senior roles at Lloyds Banking Group and The Consulting Consortium.

A number of firms that have been punished for violating financial regulations, such as Barclays and RBS, have appointed top former watchdogs. At Barclays, for example, it has created a global compliance oversight role, hiring former Financial Services Authority chief executive Hector Sants. (The FSA has been subsequently broken up, with the FCA taking on the role of overseeing the wealth management sector, among other areas.)

“Julie has a key role in implementing our improved systems and controls framework. Alongside our multi-million pound investment in technology, this in turn will ensure that our advisors are delivering the right customer outcomes that can be clearly evidenced. Julie’s wealth of knowledge and experience of the risk and governance disciplines, gained over many years, will help us to ensure that our group’s future developments keep pace with the ever changing regulatory environment,” said chief executive George Higginson.

Last week, the FCA fined Sesame £6,031,200 (around $9 million) for failing to ensure that the investment advice given to its customers was suitable, and failings in the systems and controls that governed the oversight of its appointed representatives.

The penalty is made up of a £245,000 fine for Sesame’s advice failings in relation to Keydata life settlement products, and a £5,786,200 fine for systems and controls weaknesses across its investment advice business. Recent FCA data has also revealed that Sesame received a total of 1,978 complaints in the second half of last year, up from 1,060 in the same period for 2011. For more on this story, click here.