James Hay completed its acquisition of Nucleus last month, with six Nucleus directors standing down from the company.

The takeover has created a merged platform managing £47bn in funds.

David Ferguson, CEO and founder of adviser platform Nucleus, is also stepping down from the company following a handover period. Barry Neilson, former Nucleus chief customer officer, is also leaving.

Senior appointments to the combined leadership team announced so far including Richard Warner as chief operations officer, Alex Kovach as chief commercial officer, Alison Longbottom as chief people officer, and Andrew Smith as chief technology officer.

Mr Ettles joined Nucleus last year as chief risk officer in a newly created role to help formulate and implement the platform’s risk strategies.

Prior to joining Nucleus, Mr Ettles spent 20 years at Standard Life in various actuarial, compliance and risk management roles.

Mr Ettles said: “I’m excited to be part of the next stage of Nucleus’s journey with James Hay. In a rapidly changing world, which faces new opportunities and risks at each turn, the importance of risk informed decision making, and strong risk management can’t be understated, and I look forward to working with the team to lead on this strategy.”

Mr Ettles holds regulatory positions under the Senior Managers and Certification Regime including SMF4, SMF16 and SMF17.

The six non-executive directors of Nucleus who stood down in August were Tracey Dunley-Owen, Margaret Hassall, John Levin, Jonathan Polin, Angus Samuels and Alfio Tagliabue.

James Hay says the Nucleus and James Hay platforms will continue to operate separately for the “immediate future” and there is no change to operations or services for the time being.

The company is launching a strategic review to help shape the creation of what it calls a “leading Financial Planning and retirement-focused adviser platform.”

Nucleus will continue to offer a range of tax wrappers along with a SIPP with enhanced drawdown capability.

The company says that after “extensive consideration” and in recognition of Nucleus’ brand with advisers in the UK platform market, the company will switch to using the Nucleus name in future for the group’s combined future platform proposition for advisers. The move will also come with a rebrand.