What was your first job in financial services?
Calculating the surrender values on penny a week policies at an industrial branch life assurance office. Customers would come up to London to cash in their savings and then head for the shops.
What drew you to the profession?
The chance to practice my love of mathematics and economics.
What is the most important thing advisers (or a company) can do for their clients?
Get them to save. Because the amount saved has the greatest impact on the outcome – choosing a good investment fund and a low charge contract help, but getting them to save in the first place, and to save enough, is the most important.
What is the most important decision you have ever made?
That stakeholder pensions could work with a charge cap of just 1 per cent back in 2001. Within 15 months a million policies had been sold and we were well on the road to having good value pensions.
How do you think the industry has changed since you started working in it?
Consumers, and consumer champions, have become much more likely to return and challenge the advice or guidance that was given earlier. Instead of asking “did I get a good outcome”, they now want to know “did I get the best outcome, and if not who will compensate me?”
Other than property, what is the most expensive thing you have bought?
A classic Jaguar motor car.
What is your perfect day off?
Driving a classic Jaguar motor car, especially if the carburettors are in tune.
What would you tell your 10-year-old self?
That in the years ahead I will see several so called “once in a thousand years” events, particularly in investment and insurance markets.
Who would you recommend as a must-follow person on Twitter?
@AllisterHeath, the editor of City AM, because he always has a common sense view on unfolding news
What do you have set as your homepage in your internet browser?
The BBC news website. I love their economics and business coverage which is informative, insightful and unbiased.
