“The best part of this job is the moment someone realises their life has genuinely changed – and you were part of that.”
As a teenager I wanted to be Gordon Gekko. That’s the honest answer. Growing up, I was captivated by Wall Street, and after spending my early career working offshore in the oil industry, I made a deliberate leap into finance with the intention of eventually landing in fund management in London. I took a role as a financial adviser as a temporary stepping stone, something to do for a couple of years while I learned the industry. That was in the late 1990s and, a quarter of a century later, I’m still here.
What kept me here was the people. I quickly discovered that the intellectual satisfaction I’d been chasing in fund management was right in front of me – building bespoke portfolios and strategies for real individuals with real lives. No two clients are the same, even when the products are identical. That realisation changed everything.
Two moments have stayed with me. The first were clients drowning in credit card debt – £115,000 of it. We restructured everything, cleared the debt, and freed up around £2,000 a month for them. For years afterwards, she would spot me in the banking hall and run over to give me a hug. The second was a client recently diagnosed with cancer who didn’t understand the protection policies she already had. We went through everything together and, between the plans paying out, her mortgage was cleared and she had a significant sum left over. When I told her what was in her bank account, the line went quiet. She came back and said she wished I’d told her to sit down first.
Those are the moments that remind me what this job is really about. Today I work with clients across all areas of financial planning, with a particular focus on pensions, investments and tax planning – always looking to adapt and improve their plans year on year, not just review them.
Outside of work, much of my time is happily dictated by my daughter, with sport, family and the occasional round of golf fitted in around her schedule.
