Paraplanning company Plan Works has grown its team to five members with the appointment of Sarah Lees from Mazars.
Lees, who was the Chartered Investment and Securities Institute's Paraplanner of the Year 2021, has joined the team after a stint at Mazars.
Plan Works has now grown to five paraplanners over the past two years, with more than 35 years of financial planning experience between them, headed by managing director Nathan Fryer and chartered paraplanner and fellow director Siân Davies Cole.
Fryer said: “We have seen the demand for quality outsourced paraplanning grow over the past few years and we have worked hard to not only meet that demand but expand our team to enable us to support more financial planning firms."
Davies Cole joined as a director just over two years ago, and said the team has seen things go from strength to strength.
She said: “Finding an experienced qualified and amazing paraplanner is really tough, both for the firms that talk to us for potential support and when trying to find someone to join a team.
"However, we are over the moon that Sarah has decided to join us. Our clients turn to us for real collaboration and support with particularly complex financial planning scenarios and adding Sarah’s extensive experience to the team is exciting."
Lees commented: “I felt Nathan & Siân’s beliefs around providing holistic advice for clients and their high levels of standards and professionalism fitted well with my own beliefs.”
Lees recently spoke at a CISI conference on shaking off imposter syndrome.
As reported by FTAdviser at the time, Lees said imposter syndrome had reared its head many times during her paraplanning career, so much so it had sometimes caused her sleepless nights.
Lees said every time she filed a report to compliance, she could not help but think something she had submitted was inaccurate, or fear that her firm was going to ‘find her out’ and fire her.
“I used to lie awake at night thinking ‘I’m going to get sacked’...It got a little bit better after I got my qualification, but it [imposter syndrome] was still there a lot,” said Lees.
Before working at Mazars, Lees spent time with Towry.
simoney.kyriakou@ft.com
