Nicola Gleeson and Michael Conway appointed partners at Baringa
Global management consultancy Baringa has hired Nicola Gleeson and Michael Conway as partners. The duo will be tasked with scaling the firm’s technical depth and artificial intelligence capability for banks, insurers and asset managers.
Graeme Swan, head of Baringa’s financial services team, said, “Financial services firms don’t just need AI advice, they need people who have actually built and shipped these systems inside the institutions that will be judged on getting this right. Nicola and Michael bring exactly that: deep engineering credibility from inside a global bank, and a track record of taking AI from pilot to production across the UK banking sector. Growing our AI capability matters more than ever, as our clients think hard about who they trust with their most sensitive data and infrastructure.”
Founded in London in 2000 and now a 2,000-strong global partnership, Baringa is working to expand its technology and AI practice across sectors including financial services. The appointments follow several recent assignments helping major UK banks and insurers deploy generative and agentic AI at scale.
Nicola Gleeson joins Baringa, having spent her career inside large financial institutions watching AI move from a research curiosity to a board-level priority. She arrives from JPMorgan, where as a managing director she spent nearly a decade in senior technology leadership roles across engineering, architecture, product and AI.
Gleeson explained, “What attracted me to Baringa is the chance to bring that experience to a firm with the independence and the ambition to help the industry get this transition right, rather than simply reselling someone else’s platform.”
Michael Conway meanwhile joins from IBM Consulting. During his time there, he was a senior partner he built and led the firm’s UK Banking and Fintech practice and was a founding partner of IBM’s AI Consulting business in 2016, advising major UK lenders including Nationwide and Lloyds Banking Group on their AI strategies.
Conway added, "The UK has a genuine opportunity to lead on applied AI in financial services, not just talk about it. Baringa has built a serious, credible AI practice globally, including a centre of excellence in the UK, and that matters to clients who want a partner that understands both the technology and the regulatory reality they operate in. I’m looking forward to helping scale that."
In 2026, Baringa was listed in more than 30 of Consultancy.uk’s annual industry rankings. This included platinum ratings in the financial services, digital, and human resources categories, among others.
