Financial Planner Life Podcast
Welcome to The Financial Planner Life Podcast. We cover an intimate and honest account of what it’s really like to work in the financial planning profession.
Our guests share their stories of success, failures and learnings, as well as what to expect from a career in the financial planning profession! We host guests at various stages in their careers, as well as multiple roles to ensure that our audience has a variety each week.
Financial planners, business owners, paraplanners and back-office staff all have their own story to share, and The Financial Planner Life podcast is a platform for them to talk about their personal and professional journey. The podcast covers a multitude of topics, from mindset and motivation, health and wellbeing all the way to diversity and inclusion.
We approach each episode with the idea that it is going to educate and spark a conversation within the industry with topics that may not be openly discussed. So, if you are thinking of becoming a financial adviser, or you’re curious about learning more about this brilliant sector, we urge you to give the podcast a listen.
The Host: Sam Oakes is the host of The Financial Planner Life Podcast. since 2008 Sam has been supporting leading national and global financial planning firms in finding the best talent, he was the director of Recruit UK, a 7 figure turnover financial planning recruitment company that he successfully exited in 2024, Sam now works as the Head of Creative for Hoxton wealth, building out podcasts, YouTube and social content for this fast growing fee based international financial planning firm.
Sam has always had a passion for financial services, starting out as a trainer for leading product provider in the UK, he has been in the industry for over 20 years.
He sees himself as a partner to the industry and wants to contribute useful resources such as this podcast to educate those further who are seeking advice and help about how to push their careers forward in this amazing profession.
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Financial Planner Life Podcast
Want to Grow as a Financial Planner? Build the Right Team Around You - with Joanna Butler
In this episode of the Financial Planner Life podcast, we sit down with Joanna Butler, Director of Client Operations at Foster Denovo. Joanna’s 18-year career within the company is a testament to the firm’s culture of innovation, career development, and commitment to diversity.
We explore Joanna’s journey from marketing to operations, how Foster Denovo supports financial planners through a robust operational infrastructure, and the significance of leadership diversity—50% of Foster Denovo’s leadership team is female.
Joanna shares insights into team building, scaling a financial planning business, and the importance of investing in talent. She also discusses the impact of Crestline’s recent investment in Foster Denovo and how the company is positioning itself for future growth.
For anyone interested in the operational side of financial planning firms, career growth, or the future of the industry, this is a must-listen episode.
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And today's guest on the Financial Planner Live podcast is Joanna Butler from Foster De Novo, and she is Head of Business Operations. There isn't a job she hasn't done here at Foster De Novo in her 18-year career. We hyper-focus on that culture of innovation and career development.
Speaker 2:It is it's about leading. It's about absolutely that. It's about leading that function, for example. It is it's about leading. It's about absolutely that. It's about leading that function, for example, and having passionate people who really want to go that extra mile to deliver that service to your clients.
Speaker 1:Because fundamentally, that's what we're all here to do. We talk about the leadership team that has 50% women within it, which is super inspirational to the next generation of females coming into this business.
Speaker 2:I can see more and more younger partners joining us now, which is really encouraging. More and more women joining us as financial planners as well, and that's really encouraging.
Speaker 1:You're going to love this episode if you want to learn all about the operations of financial planning companies like Foster De Novo. Joanna, thank you so much for joining me today on the Financial Planner Live podcast. How are you?
Speaker 2:Very well, thank you.
Speaker 1:Good, this is your first ever podcast. It is Lucky me, I say well, first of all, right before we sort of go into the day-to-day of what it is you do here at Foster De Novo, this is of course a Foster De Novo talent attraction special.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:One of the things I love about Foster De Novo and every time I come in here is I'm learning more and more and more about the people within the business right and the foundations that you have in place. But it's people like you in the background, but I think, are the ones really holding the structure together, creating an ecosystem for good financial planners to come in and accelerate their business forward. Sure, and I think the unsung heroes come to mind. You know the Financial Planner Live podcast. Do we talk enough about the operational side of the business? We've had Helen on the podcast, we've now got you.
Speaker 2:yep, tell us what your job title is my job title is head of business operations and I'm responsible fundamentally for all of our client service teams. So all of the teams, such as our administration, our power planning teams, across all of the business. So within Foster Nova we've got several areas. We've got private wealth, looking after individual clients and their families and their financial planning. We've also got Second Sight, which is our employee benefits division. I look after both those support teams within those areas. We've also got our mortgages and protection as well. So I'm responsible ultimately for making sure we're delivering a first class service to our clients as well as to our partners and colleagues within FD.
Speaker 1:Fantastic, so you're in the leadership team.
Speaker 2:I am indeed Yep.
Speaker 1:Fantastic, and I hear nearly 50% of the leadership team are female.
Speaker 2:We are. We're very diverse here at FD, I'm delighted to say, yep, within our leadership team, we are 50% of us ladies, women, and within the business, actually, we've actually employed more women than we do men. So quite unusual, I think, in financial services.
Speaker 1:Massively unusual, just out of interest. Why do you think that is? Do you think that's because? Well, actually, I'm going to ask you first of all, why do you think there's more women in the business than most financial planning companies?
Speaker 2:It's a really good question, I guess we just, you know, we hire on talent, we identify talent within the business. Historically, we've just employed more women and therefore, throughout our journeys and many of us stayed here for quite a long time we've built our careers up, and you know, myself is a really good example. I've been here for a number of years, I've grown my career up and now I'm on the leadership team, like many of my other colleagues as well.
Speaker 1:I also think as well. And there's more women in leadership. But if they've got more women in leadership roles, I think it's more attractive to women.
Speaker 1:They're going to look up and see it's not a board or a leadership team of all men yeah, absolutely, there are women in that leadership team as well and, I think, as a profession, more women in leadership roles, more women in leadership roles, also promoting the profession as well. It's all well and good being in the roles, but are they promoting it externally to attract more talent and more progression within the profession as well?
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean we within fd um, I think we create a really positive environment around that. It's really aspirational. You know we've made a number of acquisitions already. I've had feedback directly from members of my team, as well as a broader remit of people within FD, how inspirational it is to see so many women in leadership roles within Foster De Novo and again, when we're going out to meet firms that we're acquiring or we're talking to other financial planners who might want to join again, the feedback has been really positive.
Speaker 1:It's really nice to see a good old selection really. So it's nice, it's really empowering, yeah, brilliant, and also, you know, learning through um the journeys of the individuals I've had on the podcast. The career development structure here at foster de novo is second to none. It is like people are accelerating through it at their own pace, but they can take a left turn, a right turn. They can pace, but they can take a left turn, a right turn. They can go into operations, they can go into marketing, they can go into power planning or running a practice or become a financial planner. I think it's really, really exciting. I think every financial planning company that has a clear career framework that is outlining how you can progress from one role to the next is hugely important and I think you guys are nailing that and it's clear because the people that are coming through on the podcast who've developed through the company are so excited to be here because they can go up to the next stage.
Speaker 2:Is that?
Speaker 1:important to you, involved in that as well.
Speaker 2:Massively. We're in a growth phase, which I think is hugely important, so there are loads and loads of opportunities For me. I love to be able to mentor, to coach, to develop talent around me. You know and I've done it with quite a lot of people We've got frameworks and systems in place in order to support myself and my teams to help grow them. You know, I in particular, do our leadership framework with a number of my direct reports. It's hugely empowering again and it's so important I think it's.
Speaker 2:One of my passions is to identify where there are people within our business that want to grow their career and, exactly as you've said, they can go down the financial planner route or they can go, you know, in the operational side and finance and it. We try to encourage that as much as possible. It's a really big driver for us. I mean, it's one of the reasons why we've you know we're iip platinum. You know we invest in our people. If you do that with the people around you, it makes you really successful. It helps you to deliver a really great client service to our clients so I think it's hugely important yeah, fantastic.
Speaker 1:I agree, 100 creates a great culture. Yeah, it does it really does excellent. Okay, so operations, you can make a I'm talking about careers, aren't we really? But you can have a fantastic career within operations. How long have you been here for?
Speaker 2:18 years wow quite a long time. I know I don't look it for 18 years is amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is. You know you'll have a clock soon. They give you a clock for that in 20 years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, carriage clock maybe, who knows?
Speaker 1:I'll wait to see it 20 years so tell us a little bit about that journey then, over 18 years. So, first off, how did you end up getting into financial planning, for instance? Okay, was it something you dreamed of as a child, or did you fall into it like everyone else? What was your journey? And then it was 18 years. Where is it taking you?
Speaker 2:uh, yes, uh, funnily enough, I didn't dream of it. I left uni, didn't really know what I wanted to do, um, and happened to fall into a job in an ifa practice in surbiton, surrey. Quite a small one just went in to support the directors. So you know, straight out first job loved it actually, really, really enjoyed it. Just Just great. People really enjoyed being in financial planning. Stayed there for five years. Then went on to work at a national financial planning firm. So very different from a really small working environment to a really big organisation Again.
Speaker 2:I had then started to specialise in marketing and I'd done my degree in business studies, so it kind of set me up really well. Spent five years there really great grounding. Again. Met huge amounts of people, really enjoyed learning about financial planning. I did my FPC as well, which is a long time ago. Also met some of our founding partners there, including including Roger, our CEO, and a number of other partners. So again, really great grounding. Left there, went to the other side, went to work at product providers only for six months. Did not like it. I love the flexibility and the agility of working in financial planning. Did not find that at all on the product provider side, very difficult making decisions, changing, having any influence at all. Um, and then, coincidentally, uh, some of the founding partners uh, darren and Mark in particular, who work in Second Sight approached me to see if I'd come and work at Foster Novo with them and I readily accepted. So I joined here 18 years ago as marketing manager for Second Sight, again, you know, reflecting what I've said already about our values and identifying talent and supporting I went through that journey and it was brilliant. You know, darren and Mark were fantastic, brilliant mentors Again.
Speaker 2:My next jump in my career Then went on to be the group marketing manager, so responsible for all of the business, so including our SQL funds at that time, private wealth, private client as well as Second Sight Grew a team, a marketing team, to around six people. Again, you know, for us that was a big investment in our business as well. And then had the opportunity, helen spoke to me and said you know, I think you'd be really good at operations. I'm like, okay, I don't know what that is, but I'll do it anyway. And then I took on the operational function so for Second Sight in particular at that time, again constantly growing my career and I wouldn't have stayed so long if I didn't have those opportunities.
Speaker 2:You know, 18 years it's a long time to be in one place and some people love it and I have loved it because I've been given those chances. So at that time I looked after all of our client facing functions again. So health and protection teams, our employee benefit advisors, our member services, our admin teams worked with a lot of really great people still work with a lot of those really great people who helped support me on my journey, for my learning and understanding. And then a few years ago I think it's probably four years ago I got the opportunity once again to take on a broader remit and be part of the leadership team as well, but also to take on the private wealth side and the mortgages protection. So again, I look after it and lead all of those functions across the business now.
Speaker 2:So quite a journey, really exciting. I'm responsible for the biggest area of the business have probably about 180. I'm responsible for the biggest area of the business have probably about 180 staff. I'm responsible for and lead, got a really great team around me, lots of brilliant colleagues but you know, a really secure, complementary team who are very focused on again delivering fantastic client services and operations.
Speaker 1:Amazing In awe, to be honest with you, in awe 180,. That's incredible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1:That's incredible. I think the most I've ever had is 25, but I certainly wasn't responsible for the operations side of it. I had somebody else that was looking at that. If I'm honest, the people management side of it wasn't my cup of tea. I'd rather lean into somebody who was more suitable for that.
Speaker 1:However, I'm really keen to find out personally from you, when it comes to building a team, what do you look for in somebody? How do you build such a solid team that do their job really well? That's really really interesting to me, and I think a lot of financial planners, for instance listen to this might well want to build a team, but don't quite know how to do it, because they're brilliant at financial planning, not building teams absolutely let's look at that like what advice would you give for me and them?
Speaker 2:um, I would say you know, I've worked with a lot of financial advisors, of a lot of financial planners over the years and there are a few that are really good managers, but actually they're brilliant at financial planning, they are not such great, so great at the operational the, you know, making sure that we're delivering the service we should be delivering, although they know what they want to do. So don't underestimate the amount of work it actually takes and the investment Really important to recruit people that are complementary skills to you. I think I've got a whole wealth of people that work with me and they've all got different skill sets. I suppose the thing that ties us all together is we want to deliver a fantastic service to our clients. That is number one. We want to make things better.
Speaker 2:So you know not being afraid to challenge where things might look like they need to be improved or there's gaps. You want to make things efficient, to have a real passion about that. I think that's really important, but I suppose really it's about having complementary skills to yourself. You can't all do the same thing, otherwise you'll just have gaps and being really cognizant of that and making that choice as well. So you might like somebody when you interview them. I think they're a great person, but if they don't have the skill set that complements you and that can go and deliver what you need them to do because you're not so good at that bit, I think that's really important.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the bit that I'm looking for now is finding those people that are amazing in the areas that I can be honest with myself to say that I'm weaking. It doesn't mean I don't want to put some energy and effort in understanding it, but I'd much rather have an expert who understands it, and I learn that way from them.
Speaker 1:Even if expert, who understands it, and I learn that way from them. Yeah, even if they, I'm considered to be managing them. I'm like it's not about managing, it's about bringing people who've got the right skill set to work alongside you so you can deliver a better level of service. Right, that's the key thing precisely it is.
Speaker 2:It's about leading. It's about absolutely that. It's about leading that function, for example, and having passionate people who really want to go that extra mile to deliver that service to your clients, because fundamentally, that's what we're all here to do is to deliver a, you know, a first class experience for our clients, and I think that's hugely important. So I think you've nailed it really perfect.
Speaker 1:It just sounds like foster de novo as well are just accelerating. Yep, you know they are accelerating A recent investment from Crestline acquisitions going on left, right and centre. How important was that investment from Crestline and what effect has that had on the leadership team and the business as a?
Speaker 2:whole, oh, hugely. You know it's enabling us to achieve the ambitions that we want around our growth and I think you know Roger has told you quite a bit about that on a previous podcast. You know it's enabled us to invest in our business, invest in our people, to acquire the right companies. You know we're all about culture, we're all about the right fit. You know Roger talks about facilitating our acquisitions and he's right. We don't want just, you know, buy companies, say goodbye to the team, just take the clients. It's all about having that right fit and it's hugely important. Crestline's empowered us to be able to do that. You know, and we do believe we are doing all the right things. We want other companies to come and be part of the journey with us.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, hugely important you've got so many different experiences in this business, so you've worked in so many different departments. What? How important is that for you, then, to be able to move into different departments, understand how they all work, and is this something that you would inspire a up-and-coming operations manager to consider? Ensuring that they do?
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean you don't have to have an operations background. You know you. Of course it'd be fabulous if you did, but there are so many other opportunities and I think it's really important to build strong relationships with other colleagues and teams. So if you can go and spend time in finance and IT and HR, it makes a huge difference and I think I've had that opportunity to be able to do that. I work again.
Speaker 2:You know my colleagues in the leadership team, my team around me. I've been hugely educational. I could not have got to where I am without them. You know, and I learn a lot from my colleagues. You know Louise Blair, our head of HR, paul Hurley, helena Bogdanovsky. I've really learned a lot from all of those guys and I think, if you know you are looking to enter the operational background and and this environment, I think it's really important to work with those sorts of people that can mentor you but also just get some exposure to different areas of the business and build really strong relationships with them yeah, I found it to be really important for me to get to know different people in different areas of a business.
Speaker 1:Even if I want to stay in my lane, even if I want to be an expert in marketing or podcasting or social media, for me to do the best of what I can do in my role, I need to understand what everybody else actually does and it becomes an internal relationship thing. It's winning hearts and minds internally because there are things that I could be doing that could be winding that person up over there.
Speaker 1:You know, I could be talking about recruitment on my social media and podcast and all that the other person's going on about. You're stepping on my toes here, or what you're saying is bringing in too many people, it's not going through the right processes and they're not going into the database in the right way. You're promising the earth and we can't deliver it, sam. And these are all the things that you've got to know. You've got to understand what everybody does, the problems they're under, the challenges they're under, but also, is there anywhere I can help them? Can I, can I fix some of the problems that they're experiencing?
Speaker 1:Because not everybody in every role is winning people's hearts and minds, and I think what I'm learning from you is it's like having that bigger picture, isn't it? It is like how does everything work? How does it all interconnect? And that's often how my mind works. Is I'm looking all the time right? I go into a new business. I want to walk around, shake the hands of everybody who's influential within that business, first of all, because I want to know how the brain works. You know, how is it all connecting? You know, is there any problems anywhere that I can help with and that I can fix? Are you quite that mindset?
Speaker 2:Are you kind of almost an engineer, isn't it? You know an engineering mindset? Yeah, I mean, we have really open lines of communication as well, and I encourage all of my teams you know they might work in different areas, so someone might work in private well, someone might work in second sight. A lot of them have got history as well, so they've built that relationship up but I encourage them really to be able to talk and to find out what's going on. But exactly that, you know, I'm very aware of strategically, because that's part of my role what is happening where our focus is and what else is occurring across the business. And I encourage my team to make sure and they're also aware of what's occurring, so exactly that if they're doing something, it doesn't have an impact over here. But equally, if there are opportunities that they've identified in another part of the business, absolutely we should be sharing them.
Speaker 2:And I think what we are also really good at is, if I go back to our acquisitions, which I'm often involved in, just because we've got processes and procedures or we do something in a particular way, it doesn't mean that we're going to ride roughshod roughshod over, uh, an acquired firm. Actually, if they're doing something better. We'll make sure that we adopt that process as well. So we're really open-minded and it might work really well over here in a financial planning firm that we've acquired, and it might work really well over here in another part of our business as well. So we're really cognizant and really aware of that.
Speaker 1:I think it is really important in this role yeah, remain teachable, listen to others um because sometimes the biggest lessons can come from the the smallest opportunity. You know there might be a small little firm you acquire and you think, well, hang on about they've, they're doing an amazing job there. Imagine if we put it into our business, which is a lot bigger.
Speaker 1:It's gonna have a huge impact. Yeah, absolutely got to find those opportunities in you, but you're not going to do that by telling somebody. You've got to be listening a lot of the time, haven't you? And I think a role like operations is a lot about using the old ears and listening to what people are up to and then influencing the flow of those ideas and that energy. So, when you talk about things like collaboration, music to my ears, because the last thing I want to do is go in somewhere and it's just everyone's. This is where I am, this is my lane, and it feels competitive.
Speaker 1:Um, competitiveness, I suppose in an operational role, in a leadership role, dangerous, yeah, you know, when people are too competitive with each other, it's, it causes toxicity. Um, I love that feeling of being able to. I said it quite recently I like the leadership team to almost feel like shades. You know, each person sits in a shade or in a certain color and you can kind of go through those shades and everybody's an expert in those different shades. You move up and down and flow, and that's how I visualise a good leadership team. Can I go from one end to the other and flow back and forth and everybody's got that. But they're all also connected. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it absolutely does. I mean we are really lucky to have a really good working relationship with all of our leadership team, really collaborative. You know, again, one of the reasons I love working here is fast paced environment and we're involved in so many different things. Many of us are, and it makes a huge difference, but we're all aligned. We know what our strategic objective is. We're all aligned behind that. Aligned, we know what our strategic objective is. We're all aligned behind that. But actually that shade of grey we do overlap at times, but in the right way. Actually it works really successfully and I'm I hope our people within the business also find that as well but I think it should overlap.
Speaker 1:You know people shouldn't stay in their lanes. It should overlap. So being able to take some time out of your own environment to sit in somebody's out else's environment is a positive thing, and I hear that happens a lot. So you've got, you know, the power planner that might then go sit in another team, you know, and learn about that side of the business yeah whilst we're here, because I've not covered this much on the actual podcast and you've been in that environment.
Speaker 1:But second site, yep. Can you just tell us a little bit about second site and how that inter interlinks with Foster Daynova on the private side, for instance?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure. So Second Sight is our dedicated employee benefits division. So we work with corporate companies on all of their employee benefits, whether that's pensions, financial planning or any other host of health and protection, for example, any other host of benefits that they might be interested in. We work with around 1300 companies, you know, quite sizable actually, um, and really I suppose our focus is absolutely on their financial well-being.
Speaker 2:So we what I suppose what sets second sight apart is that we can provide regulated advice to our corporate clients sorry, yeah, our corporate clients employees and pension scheme members but we're very focused on financial well-being as well. So we spend a lot of time and we work with a lot of our corporate clients, advising, guiding their employees on their financial future. How it works is we actually do work really closely with private wealth financial planners as well. So many of our planners actually work alongside the corporate clients or provide that advice and guidance, and sometimes and quite often, they will then, for you know, not just look at their pension planning or retirement planning, but actually seek out opportunities for the broader financial planning, and it works really well. It's quite a nice symbiotic relationship and we're you know we're um investigating and doing more and more that we can really, and I would say we're one of the pioneers really love it.
Speaker 1:Fantastic, thanks for that. Plug and play comes to mind. I'm a financial planner. I come into foster de novo, I want to plug in and I want to get going. So can you just kind of give us an idea of how, operationally, foster De Novo supports someone who's thinking do you know what? I want to be self-employed. I don't want to run my own business, I want to plug into FD. So can you just give us a kind of overview of what to expect if I was a financial planner like that, joining Foster Denevo?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure. So I think we've mentioned earlier financial planners are brilliant at financial planning, providing that advice and support to their clients. In our understanding and in our experience they don't necessarily want to do the administration and don't necessarily want to do the power planning, so we are able to provide that support. So if a new financial planner comes into the business, you've got a dedicated client experience executive that looks after you and that does all of your administration for you. So you don't have to worry about that.
Speaker 2:We've also got a central power planning team. I think we've got 15 power planners now, so it's quite a sizable team. We also have a number of outsource opportunities as well and we work really closely with the financial planner looking after all of their power planning needs as well. So they don't have to worry about any of that administration, report, research and writing. We look after that for them. We've also got a mortgage team as well. So if a financial planner also has opportunities for mortgages, whether they're a mortgage advisor or not, we can plug in there as well. So you know we can provide the whole remit really and holistic advice and support that a client wants.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's fantastic. Yeah, the last thing they want to do is, you know, crashing around in the dirt, thinking like where can I write this business? Who should I pass it to? Exactly? You've got an ecosystem that's going to be able to support them every step of the way. Uh, nikos was on the podcast previously and, um, one of the things that came up, was this ability to scale?
Speaker 1:yes, scaling your business quite quickly within the foster de novo environment is a lot easier than doing it on your own in your back bedroom. You know you can. You can use as much as you need. Absolutely you know if you need to ramp it up quite quickly, if you need a practice manager, if you need to tap into somebody like helena bogdanovsky who'll go out and find you a specific type of person who'll work alongside you again, it's just one less thing that you actually have to worry about whilst you're also benefiting from I always find this as well it's like benefiting from the brand development. Uh, because we forget like it takes energy, money to develop a brand and to ascertain yourself as a leader within the market, and you've worked in marketing before I have how important do you think marketing is in financial planning? Why has it always been secondary?
Speaker 2:I know it's a really nasty thing, isn't it? I mean, I'm hugely passionate about about it and if I look at my marketing team, who are fantastic um, they spend a lot of time supporting a lot of our partners, but it's really hard if you're just an individual financial planner or a very small firm to get that brand presence. Um, you know, we've invested substantially over that time. We've invested, in particular, more recently, in new tools and opportunities to help partners financial planners with their actual business development as well. So it's really important, but it takes time, it takes money, it takes specialism, you know it takes dedication. It does take time from a financial planner if they want to help build up their own profile. You know what it's like. You spend a lot of time having to do it and I think it's underestimated. It's really important to have a really good team with complementary skills again coming back to that theme around in order to build the brand, but it's tricky otherwise.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, absolutely. I think it's a really exciting time for financial planning. You hear a lot of negativity. You know the advice gap. There's problems, advice gap, ageing advisors, not enough young people coming in, and we hear that a lot. But there is also an incredibly huge amount of opportunity. I mean like 5 trillion being passed down intergenerationally over the next 20 to 30 years to me is a significant opportunity. What excites you about financial planning? What excites you about it as a career? Why should somebody who's thinking about it get into financial planning? So what's exciting about financial planning and what's exciting about the future of Foster De Novo?
Speaker 2:So when I look at my experience and how long I've been here, I have seen the demographic massively change of financial planners within the business and you know I can see more and more younger partners joining us now, which is really encouraging more and more women joining us as financial planners as well, and that's really encouraging. You know, and I see as well some of our financial planners, as I mentioned earlier, working really closely with Second Sight, speaking to pension scheme members and how they can build up their own opportunities, but also plugging that advice gap. The difference here and it's not just here, but the thing that I really love about it and it's never changed is the fact that we help people make decisions that are really sensible for them. We're providing them with that financial security, whatever that might be, whether that is securing a mortgage on their first home to making sure all of their estates are sorted out, whatever it might be. And I am really lucky. We ask clients for feedback and I get to see all of it and it really resonates. You can see the feedback and you know we've got hundreds of pieces of feedback, thousands of pieces of feedback over the last 15 years, but you can really see the difference we are making and that's really empowering. It might sound a bit grand, but it is true, so I really like that.
Speaker 2:About financial planning, I have to say Foster De Novo mentioned earlier we're in a growth phase. You know, we are investing in our business, we are innovating. We are absolutely looking at other opportunities to plug the advice gap, whatever those might be, but we're investing in our processes, our systems. We're looking at AI. You know there's a big project going on at the moment, so it's a very exciting place to be.
Speaker 2:I love the fact that we have not really changed. We are a people-based environment. It's never changed. Our cultures are still exactly the same. Our values are still the same. I love the fact that we um, you know we want our people to grow and develop and we have a lot of graduates join us and we help support them. You know, to get to the next level, we have lots of people join us and just because you've come in and you do a particular role, it's really important for us to again identify where, actually, how do you want to be able to grow your career? Where do you see yourself in five years time, next year? And all of our managers have been coached, you know to do that as well. So you know, just, our investment in our people is really, really empowering and I, you know that's for me it makes a big difference yeah, huge growth mindset here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is, I think it's I do think it's a really exciting uh company and a great place to be, and I'm not just saying that because I got you on the podcast, it's because I've actually met people in here who've had some incredible career development here, um, and culturally. That's what it's all about is investing in those individuals, recognizing in their skills and where they can take their career, but then actually encouraging them and empowering them to say look, you can do this, you can move forward. And I'll tell you what you're not in a box. You can go anywhere you want. Within here. We've got huge amounts of opportunity and we're not slowing down.
Speaker 1:I think you know, when you have a lot of small to medium-sized financial planning companies ran by people that are probably thinking about exiting their businesses, they're not really thinking about career development for the next generation coming through, and it does really fall on the shoulders of companies like foster, the novo, that are of the size now where you're going to have a significant impact, significant impact right now. You know, and I think if I was in a position in the uk thinking, where do I want to go? Who do I want to join this, a really, really good company? To do it, because evidence suggests you do add value to the employees and push them forward. Listen, I could talk to you all day long, but I think you've given a really significant overview of what you do, the impact you're having and where Foster De Novo are going. So thank you so much for joining us today on the Financial Planner Live podcast.
Speaker 1:We obviously wish you and Foster De Novo all the best and all the success in the future. Thank you very much, cheers.
