A few years ago, Carlton Hood, customer director at Old Mutual Wealth, and his partner bought a one-way ticket to Timbuktu, and opted to travel back home on land.
The journey back involved a trip up the Niger river, and an “amazing” time coming back.
It is this element of unpredictability that drew him to retail financial services, after three years running insurance consolidator Confused.com.
“When I started out there were 13 consolidators, and by the time I finished there were four standing. It was those who had the best customer experience and the best guidance that stayed.”
He is seeing a similar process in retail platforms. He said: “There is a shakedown. Some are big, some are not. Can that number of platforms [27] all maintain a place in the market and be profitable? My experience is no. They’ve got to retain value and market share and not all will make it.”
Mr Hood’s role is to help flesh out the vision of Old Mutual Wealth chief executive Paul Feeney, that represents the positioning and proposition of the company – “It’s defining who we are and where we’re going, and delivering the things underneath that,” said Mr Hood.
A large part of that is becoming involved in product development. He said: “I didn’t just want to be more spin” – he was formerly strategic marketing director of Old Mutual – “I wanted to have to put my money where my mouth was.”
But he chose the name of the job, where he has been since January, because he wanted to be outward-facing. He said: “There’s a focus on the end customer; their voice hasn’t been heard perhaps enough. We need to move to an environment where their needs are heard more. We need to talk about building a company which is really for people who want to make a difference.”
He sees financial services going through a period of change, with people finally engaging with their finances and thinking long-term about their pensions.
The inevitable march towards consumers taking more responsibility for their pensions, is not necessarily a bad thing. Over the short term there will be difficulties, but in the long-term he thinks pension provision will work itself out.
He said: “You could argue the more paternalistic model is better, but it’s simply become unaffordable. It’s a new reality; we will just have to make sure that reality is as good as possible.
“I think adequate pension provision is achievable. I’m by nature an optimist.”
He has seen some long-term projections from the Treasury, and he feels comfortable with where the industry is heading, given the bedding down of auto-enrolment.
He said: “We’re in a period of transition, and I’m confident that we will get there. I do think there’s going to be a need for people to make extra provision for themselves. There will be the state pension, which is a great foundation; there is also auto-enrolment which is the next layer, and there are things you can do on top, and more and more people are thinking about it early.
“It’s quite a well thought-through strategy.”
However, he is conscious of the challenges consumers are facing, especially in the light of the lack of information they have at present. Mr Hood said: “In the short term there’s a gap, because advice is not being offered through the banks. It’s quite unlikely we will be able to fulfil all demand from 2015.
“But underneath it all, if one takes a longer-term view, it’s like AE, where they make contributions through their company. I think the extent to which this is becoming more discussed and more available, and the fact that advisers through charging fees are really raising their game.” In other words, all this contributes to a longer-term goal of consumers becoming more engaged with their finances and making sure they have adequate provision.
Commenting on the recently announced £585m acquisition of Quilter Cheviot by Old Mutual, Mr Hood said: “The acquisition means Old Mutual Wealth can work with advisers to offer a full range of managed investment solutions to a wide spectrum of different clients. It rounds out our offer and makes us truly one of the leading wealth management companies in the UK.”
The early part of Mr Hood’s career was in Boston Consulting, where he was a strategy consultant, before moving to Old Mutual where he was general manager for group strategy and marketing for six years.
He then moved back to management consultancy at Eden McCallum for a year, before working in the consumer insurance sector, at Confused.com, where he was chief executive for three years.
He proudly used the Twitter handle ‘@confusedceo’, but claims he is not very good at Twitter – he is either too controversial or too bland.
But he takes his customer representative role seriously. He said: “We are running product development in a slightly different way. We think of it around customer groups, for example, we have our ‘Later Life’ group, these are people who have stopped earning and contributing and they want to live off what they’ve saved. We bring all of the people together around the table who need to deal with that service.
“It’s different to having an actuary in the room, thinking about their rate of return.” Although he does add that he still talks to actuaries.
And talking to all sorts people is part of the skill, he said, to helping his employer evolve over the next few years.
Melanie Tringham is features editor of Financial Adviser
Carlton Hood Career ladder
2014 customer director, Old Mutual Wealth
2013-2014 group customer director, Old Mutual plc
2012-2013 presenter Channel 4
2011-2013 strategic marketing director, Old Mutual plc
2008-2011 chief executive, confused.com
2008-2011 head of interactive, Admiral Group
2007-2008 independent consultant, Eden McCallum
2000-2007 general manager, group strategy & marketing, Old Mutual plc
1993-2001 strategy consultant, Boston Consulting Group