Caroline Bevan

“Trust gets you to the table – the right person keeps you there.”

I studied French and Italian at university and was lucky enough to then secure a graduate training contract at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). My time at PwC didn’t so much make me fall in love with numbers, more it taught me something far more valuable: the art of building trust with people who have a great deal at stake.

With more than two decades at PwC, I worked my way to partner. My final ten years were spent building and leading relationships with clients – walking into rooms full of senior leaders and earning the kind of trust that leads to long-term relationships. The technical work mattered, of course but the real currency was always trust.

I joined Mattioli Woods as a non-executive director in September 2025, as the business moved into private equity ownership. My background advising privately owned and PE-backed businesses across transactions, audit, tax, risk and finance made it a natural fit. I sit as Audit Committee Chair and as a Board director, observing, listening, challenging where it counts and supporting the Executive team in doing what they do best.

What strikes me most about Mattioli Woods is this: a business does not grow to advise over 30,000 clients with £25 billion in assets under management, administration and advice without doing something genuinely right – not just in what it delivers, but in how it delivers it. The advisers here are building exactly the kind of trust-based relationships I spent my career building. They are trusted partners, not just service providers.

The right person in the room matters more than the brand on the door. I believed that as a partner at PwC, and I see it here every day.