Your IndustrySep 13 2021

'My sustainable focus pushed me to switch firms'

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'My sustainable focus pushed me to switch firms'

Lira joined Celtic Financial Planning as an IFA in May after seven years as an appointed representative at 2plan under her Conscious Money brand. 

Speaking to FTAdviser, Lira said: “2plan was great, but if you're bespoke, and what I do is entirely bespoke with sustainable investing, then it can be a little tougher, hence the reason for the move.

“Other than that they're a great firm and I have no complaints. A smaller firm can adjust to you better. The kind of research that I do is very time intensive and so I just needed a firm to understand and to make it easy for me.”

In her new role, she offers sustainable investment advice, referring to herself as a specialist. 

She provides clients with the choice of opting for sustainable investing and said of the clients that go to her, nine out of ten will do so.

There's quite a lot of work involved...the research I do is quite intensive

“I don’t push anyone into any offering, but sustainable investing, which includes the negative screening of companies and the positive screening of companies, means that you can't just go off and buy the S&P 500 or the FTSE100 tracker, you have to weed out and there's quite a lot of work involved. 

“My clients, I would say on the ethical spectrum, are quite high in terms of their needs. So the research I do is quite intensive."

She explained a large majority of advisers were so “bogged down by the boring things in planning like writing reports”, that they lacked the time to spend on other things.

“Celtic have a team that takes care of that for me so that's why I have this mindspace,” she said. “That's why when I left 2plan, I thought what can I do that can add value to my clients where I'm not just looking after their investments.”

Lira explained while she now operates as an RI under the Celtic brand, she keeps the Conscious Money brand close to her via the Instagram and Youtube page. 

She said 2plan thought it might be better for her to use the Conscious Money name as an AR, but added Celtic preferred her to be an RI. 

“Conscious Money is still my brand, but I operate as Cleona Lira. I want to keep the brand because it means something to me because I think we're very unconscious about money and so that's where Conscious Money comes from.

“It was just a technicality of how a certain company registers me; to the client, it doesn't matter as long as they’re dealing with someone who cares.”

Changing approach

Discussing some of the trends in the ethical and sustainable investing space, she said younger clients were once more aware of what they wanted, but now the picture was beginning to evolve.

She said: “Because I'm seeing clients already biased towards sustainable investing, for me it's got all shapes and sizes and colours. But when I started seven years ago, in the beginning it was more younger people asking for it, and women were more particular about wanting to invest sustainably.

“Men would ask about the difference in performance and would say 'maybe what I can do is I'll invest the money conventionally, but then I'll take the profit and do something good with it.' 

"Women, I feel, are more connected to community and family, and I think we don't compartmentalise as much. I'm generalising, but I think women are more values-driven.”

Lira also said she recently completed training with a company called Money Quotient, an American company that uses an evidence-based questionnaire approach to help better understand clients. It focuses on getting clients to talk about their life and what's important to them, then building a financial plan around this.

She said: “It's a fun exercise because you also talk to them about their history and how their parents related to money and that's quite interesting because we're so conditioned.

“Maybe it's just me but I think that as you mature as an adviser you start thinking 'financial planning is such a small part of my job, what else can I do?' But I think in the beginning, when you're setting up your business it's more transactional.”

Diversity push 

Last September, FTAdviser caught up with Lira where she discussed being a woman from an ethnic minority background and the pros and cons that come with it.

Since then, the Financial Conduct Authority has proposed changes to its listing rules as a way of improving transparency on the diversity of listed company boards and their executive management teams. 

The regulator is consulting on rules to require companies to disclose annually on a comply or explain basis whether they meet specific board diversity targets and to publish diversity data on their boards and executive management.

Commenting on the FCA’s diversity initiatives, Lira said they had to go beyond just representation.

“This representation of diversity is one thing. It's another thing to get everybody engaged and sharing power as equally as possible,” she said. 

“I think increasing diversity is always good in my opinion because you don't have as much groupthink. But my concern is if we have more diversity yet continue to retain the same sort of social structures that exist in society where the women don't speak, don't contribute or people of colour are silent, it doesn't help. 

“So whoever is facilitating the space also needs to be aware of these underlying dynamics that affect people and the culture, and use their power and influence to encourage what's needed.”

As an Indian immigrant, Lira said she recognises she is expected to meet European norms, but there are certain things that others need to understand, too.

“For example, it's very normal for me to raise my voice if I'm upset, but by European standards, that's very rude,” she said.

“Those kinds of things are important in just understanding people who come from different cultures. If people of colour are silent in meetings, the person facilitating the space needs to be aware of the systemic lens and use their power to address any issues. That way we can have both diversity by number and more importantly a true felt sense of equality.

sonia.rach@ft.com

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