Your IndustryMay 31 2017

Firing Line: Liz Field

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Firing Line: Liz Field

Challenged about her qualifications for representing the future of advisers through the rebranded Investment Management and Financial Advice Association (Imfa) – and having already made a convincing case concerning her credentials and seeming like the non-nonsense player the adviser community might welcome – she said that as well as having a long career helming trade bodies and running her own business, she actually employs an IFA herself to manage her financial affairs. 

She said: “I’m very familiar with advisers and planners and I have one myself…who knows everything about me. Yes, I have an IFA and he is my trusted adviser. He doesn’t tell me what to do, he listens, he advises, he guides and he does it very well.”

Although, up until now, she has been dealing exclusively with wealth managers at the WMA in sectors including private banks, execution, discretionary, advisory and even online, she is aware that the management and advisory communities are increasingly crossing over with one another. This is one of the issues that informed her approach to Apfa and helped kick off preliminary merger talks 18 months ago. 

Apfa members gave their approval for the deal last month. So, barring any acts of God, as we go to press the new partnership is expected to be in place to create the nascent trade association. 

Ms Field will take control of the new body that is set to run under a refreshed tagline “Building Personal Finance Futures”. Current Apfa director general Chris Hannant has been given the option to stay on as a “strategic adviser” for 12 months, although whether he completes that term is currently in his hands: Ms Field herself has stated it is up to his “personal aspirations or thoughts” on how he proceeds.

She does not particularly play on being a woman in the male-dominated world of finance. However, when Financial Adviser told Ms Field that figures from industry measurement body IMAS revealed that in February this year there were 27,977 male IFAs and only 6,025 females in the investment distribution sector (essentially IFAs), she did not seem impressed that the differential in numbers was that wide, as she runs a trade body that has a 50/50 split on its senior management board.

She used the wider word "diversity" to get her point across, but said the industry and Imfa has to get a grip on making the valid point that to represent a diverse client base you should have a diverse IFA workforce.

Although she said there “are issues with recruiting women and attracting women to the sector in the first place,” she added that: "There is a “broader strategic ask, which is how we promote investment advice and the financial management community as a sector to people generally, whether that be men or women coming to work in the sector or to actually using investment managers and financial advisers for part of your own financial wellbeing.” 

She said she is actively “looking at the business benefits of diversity”.

It is an issue she wants to address in her first few months in the new role, as is the march of technology, or robo-advice, which she described as having the potential to be an "enabler", specifically for SMEs in the adviser space, but she said she empathises with some adviser fears that technology has the potential to "kill them off". 

Ms Field was quick to move in to allay other fears on the representation of advisers within a merged industry body, a gripe she is aware she will have to deal with. To that extent, she said one of her first initiatives after the vote will be to establish a “financial planning and advice committee, which will be made up of financial advisers”.

She added: “We couldn’t say we were a trade association if we didn’t listen to all our members. We’re not going to shoehorn everyone into one room and say you’ve all got to work together, it doesn’t work like that. That’s not the way we are going to achieve all that we need to achieve.”

Leading from the front can often lead to allegations of being “formidable” or even pushy, but Ms Field does have a self-deprecating side.

When asked about doubts leading up to the proposed merger, she started to laugh, and said: "I’d be lying that if at midnight, after a really long day, and I’ve not had a break for a while and I’ve been working all weekends, I’d be lying if at some stage or another I didn’t think, you know what – really? Or as my daughter would say 'whatever'.

“But the whole point in the first place was that strategically it made absolute sense to do it. It was a win-win on both sides."

With that, our time was up and she had to get on with what you would expect is a substantially increased schedule since the merger announcement. Ms Field was well aware that announcing a merger was the easy part; it is the execution that presents the difficulties.

“Come and ask me again in six months time and I’ll tell you if I’ve had an 'oh my God' moment,” she levelled as a parting shot.  Financial Adviser might take her up on that offer.

Mark Banham is a freelance journalist

 

Liz Field 

Career highlights 

2014-present 

Chief executive, Wealth Management Association 

2009-2013 

Chief executive, Financial & Legal Skills Partnership 

2005-2010 

Head of organisation development, Gerrard Investment Management 

2002-2005 

Chief executive, Financial Services National Training Organisation 

1997-2000

Chief executive, Banks and Building Societies National Training Organisation (BBSNTO)