Joanna Stocks

“Markets are one of the most powerful forces shaping the modern world – and understanding them changes everything.”

I’m a historian by training – and to a historian, economics and financial markets are one of the most compelling forces shaping the modern world. This insight set the course of my career. I started at Reuters after university, drawn by its journalistic heritage, but it was the markets themselves that captivated me. Within two years, I’d joined Prudential M&G, running multi-asset funds sitting behind people’s pensions and long-term savings. That’s when I understood the real weight of this work: the numbers on a page represent someone’s future.

Over the past twenty-five years, I’ve held senior roles at St James’s Place, Aberdeen, RBS Asset Management (Coutts clients), and M&G, building deep expertise in multi-asset portfolios, manager research, and alternative and private market strategies. Prior to joining Mattioli Woods, I had a role in another wealth firm where I sat on the investment committee overseeing approximately £180 billion across the fund range and was directly responsible for ~£17bn in alternative and private market assets.

I joined Mattioli Woods in November 2025, drawn by its dynamism, ambition, and the genuine calibre of the Investments team. Here, I focus on the integrity of our investment solutions, running the firm’s multi-asset solutions and developing the investment proposition – including recently announced strategic partnerships with world-class managers such as J.P. Morgan and BlackRock. I’m particularly keen to ensure investments are communicated to advisers and clients in a clear, engaging jargon-free manner. I see myself as a steward of clients’ capital: bringing clear thinking, decisive judgement, and high standards to every decision.

I’ve always believed that better decisions come from genuinely diverse teams, not just visible representation, but truly different ways of thinking. I’ve held senior roles on diversity initiatives across the industry throughout my career, and I sat on the board of the literary charity English PEN.

Originally from Edinburgh – which I maintain is the best city in the world – I now live in London with my family. Outside of work, music and languages are a constant passion.  While taking some time off before joining Mattioli Woods, I had the opportunity to  learn the cello and try my hand at Italian. It turns out that learning to listen carefully, to find the pattern beneath the complexity, is just as useful in investment as it is in music and languages. Both reward patience and curiosity in equal measure.