Pamela O’Neill

Pamela O’Neill is a Bates Consulting Expert with over 35 years of financial services industry experience. Ms. O’Neill has served in a number of positions with Shearson Lehman, Oppenheimer, Smith Barney and Morgan Stanley. Most recently, she was a National Supervision & Controls Executive with Merrill Lynch Global Wealth and Investment Management. The first half of her career was spent on the front business lines, directly supervising financial advisors, managers and staff. Ms. O’Neill also managed Operations functions and staff, including cashiering, new accounts, transfers, order entry and reconciliation, and later supervised the compliance side of large retail branch offices, including review and approval of transactions, correspondence, new hires, outside business activities and all sales practices. She then moved on to the home corporate office where she was responsible for the compliance posture and supervision of several divisions around the country.

Ms. O’Neill’s Compliance experience includes positions at Smith Barney as a Divisional Compliance Officer and Merrill Lynch as a Director/Compliance Officer, where she conducted hundreds of operations and supervision branch exams throughout the country. Later, as a Director, she managed a team of branch examiners and compliance officers who provided guidance for the sales force and managers. Ms. O’Neill conducted various compliance and supervision training classes for new and existing supervisors and presented at manager assessment programs and regional, divisional and national business programs. She wrote and presented parts of the Firm Annual Compliance Training program, participated in internal investigations and worked closely with inside and outside counsel on customer complaints, mediations and arbitrations as well as employee and employment issues.

Pam chaired the Heightened Supervision Committee, the Professional Designations Committee and was an active member of various other committees including the SEC Form ADV Committee, the Mutual Fund Task Committee, the Policies & Procedures and Written Supervisory Procedures Review Group and various Counsel to Management groups. She and her teams focused on FINRA sales &  supervision, and FINRA, NFA and State registrations for the Global Wealth Investment Management division.  While identifying and remediating gaps, they developed and delivered technology systems enhancements which yielded impactful efficiencies and controls and saved millions of dollars in registration fees for the firm and the businesses.

Over the course of her career, Ms. O’Neill has managed the remediation of many high risk self-identified, regulatory and corporate audit issues. She led and managed the remediation of a key suitability regulatory and business project in the UK and Europe, leading a team of 30 supervisors and working with various international senior business partners, consultants and regulators. A frequent attendee at industry conferences and forums, Ms. O’Neill has also been invited to speak to senior business leaders on supervision and compliance matters. She was a SIFMA C&L Division member, a SIFMA C&L Diversity & Inclusion Committee member, and held FINRA Series 7, 9, 10, 14, 24, 63 and 65 registrations.