“I want clients to feel understood, not just advised.”
Studying food science and nutrition at university in Hong Kong taught me to break complex problems down into their component parts – to understand how each element interacts and what the whole picture looks like before drawing any conclusions. What it also taught me, fairly quickly, was that I’m a people person. The analytical thinking I wanted to keep. The isolation I didn’t. Finance gave me exactly that combination, and when a friend spotted that a major bank was hiring, I joined as a trainee and never looked back.
Every client I meet brings a different mix of assets, ambitions, tax positions, and concerns. Before I suggest anything, I map the whole picture – because the detail that looks insignificant on its own is often the one that changes the entire outcome. There’s no generic recipe in wealth management. Getting it right means understanding what’s unique about each person’s situation and building from there.
That approach recently made a real difference for a client approaching retirement with a self-managed pension and a significant estate. Most advisers might have stopped there. I looked further, identified a growing Inheritance Tax (IHT) liability, and proposed a smarter restructure – shifting his property portfolio into IHT-efficient investments and drawing down his pension more strategically. He told me he’d never considered it. Within six months, he said he could feel the difference in how his finances were being managed.
Moving from Hong Kong to the UK in 2021 gave me a new perspective on what financial advice can actually deliver. In Hong Kong, the conversation is almost entirely about investment performance. Here, smart tax planning – across pensions, estate planning, and retirement income – can be just as powerful. I’ve seen clients who expected to work until 70 retire comfortably at 60, simply because a more considered plan was put in place. That’s the difference the right structure makes.
I joined Mattioli Woods through the Financial Adviser Academy in December 2023, having achieved my Diploma in Regulated Financial Planning in just seven months. I’m fluent in English, Cantonese, and Mandarin, which means I can work effectively with a wide range of clients and explain complex financial matters clearly and without jargon.
Outside of work, I manage a local basketball team in Nottingham competing in the Sherwood Basketball League and England HKers Basketball League, and I’ve recently taken up tennis with my partner. I’m recently engaged, we bought our first home last year, and I’m very much building the life alongside the work – which I think makes me a better adviser. I understand what clients are building towards, because I’m building too.
If you’d like to find out what a whole-picture approach to wealth management, retirement planning, or Inheritance Tax planning could mean for you, I’d love to have that conversation.
