“Money is just a tool – it’s what it enables you to do that matters.”
I came to financial planning entirely by accident. I’d trained as an electronic engineer in the United States, moved to the UK for personal reasons in August 2003 and started in financial services in July 2007. Numbers had always been my language, so that drew me in. What kept me was the people. Nearly 19 years on, I wouldn’t change a thing.
I’m a Chartered Financial Planner with 19 years of experience, covering wealth management, retirement and pension planning, Inheritance Tax, trust and estate planning, and protection. A significant part of my career was spent advising hospital doctors and GPs, which gave me a specialist foundation in the NHS pension scheme and it’s still a significant source of referrals today. I joined Mattioli Woods through the acquisition of Kingswood, having originally started with Strategic Asset Managers Ltd in March 2018, and I’m 100% client-facing.
Early in my career, I worked in a bank environment that was built around selling products. I left because it wasn’t what I wanted to do. My job is to provide the right advice for the right situation, not to fit a client into a product. I see money as a tool, nothing more. A large investment balance only means something in terms of what it represents: the option to stop working when you choose to, the ability to absorb the unexpected, the freedom to live the life you want. That’s what I’m building towards for every client I advise and it’s the same approach I take to my own finances.
Outside of work, I apply the same structured thinking to my fitness as I do to financial planning. I’ve run marathons and half marathons for 25 years, but my training has become increasingly science-led – understanding what the body needs, not just putting on trainers and running a few miles. That approach recently took me to the Sahara Desert for the Marathon des Sables: a seven-day, 270-kilometre self-supported ultra-marathon across six stages, carrying everything on my back. My wife and I are also keen hikers – having just recently returned from Nepal where we trekked to Everest Base Camp. Our church is central to both of our lives, and at home we’re ruled by Aonach, our ‘larger than life’ Great Dane.
If you’d like to work with an adviser who focuses on what your money can do for you rather than what it looks like on paper, I’d be very happy to talk.
