“The best financial advice speaks your language, not just your balance sheet.”
When I graduated with a degree in French and Spanish, I had one plan: become a translator. What I didn’t expect was that I’d spend the next fifteen-plus years doing exactly that – just with pension planning, investment portfolios and Inheritance Tax rather than foreign texts.
That shift happened gradually. Leaving university, I quickly understood something nobody had warned me about: the real weight of money. Student loans don’t feel abstract when the repayments begin. The experience of navigating debt, learning to budget and working out how to get ahead, gave me something no textbook could: a genuine empathy for anyone who finds money confusing, overwhelming, or just a bit daunting.
I joined financial services in 2010 and worked my way from banking into wealth management, building client relationships across a range of backgrounds. Since joining Mattioli Woods, I’ve worked with individuals, business owners, and professionals, working with them to translate financial complexity into clear, confident decisions.
The language skills still come in handy, too. A number of my clients speak French or Spanish, and there’s something about switching into someone’s native language that shifts the whole conversation. It breaks the ice. It says: I’m meeting you where you are, not where it’s convenient for me. That’s how I approach every client meeting – whether we’re speaking French, Spanish, or just English.
Not long ago, I worked with a client who was facing some of the most challenging personal circumstances imaginable. She had already met with a financial adviser and had a reasonable understanding of what she was supposed to do from a financial perspective. But that wasn’t really what she needed.
What she needed was someone willing to put aside the spreadsheets, cashflow forecasts and five-year plans for a moment and simply have a conversation. A conversation about where she was right then, what she was going through, and what mattered most to her and her family.
We talked about her health, her personal goals, and I helped her structure her finances for the short term. I also helped her find a driver so she could get around which although wasn’t in the job description, was the right thing to do.
That’s what this work is really about for me. Yes, the technical side matters but none of that means much if I haven’t first understood the person sitting across from me.
I believe everyone deserves to feel confident about their finances, regardless of how much they know coming in. You don’t need a financial vocabulary to work with me. I’ll handle the translation.
Outside of work, I spend as much time as I can with my wife and two children. I’m at the gym three or four times a week and have a regular meditation practice – both keep me sharp and grounded. I’m also teaching my children about money from an early age, because I know first-hand that the earlier you learn, the better placed you are.
