My Journey & Financial Sector Experience & You

At times in our lives, we might need to take some financial advice, be it to discuss our mortgages or the protection that runs alongside it, or the retirement plans you have etc.

However, after doing some research, you contact a financial adviser to look at how they can help you the question is do they understand you and how long have they been helping other people like you?

Sharing my journey with you felt like something I should do just so that you can see who I am, where I have come from, what experience I have and why I should be included in your potential financial adviser selection. Too many don’t do this and its this that is often the most important information for prospective customers.

So here is my journey –

• I guess firstly my real passion for numbers and finances came through my school/college years and family connections. With my parents running a business I generally took the reigns to help with the accounts where I could. This is what gave me a real passion to become a financial adviser and help people succeed financially.
• At the age of 18 I became a cashier at Portman Building society in Guildford. Young, bright eyed and fresh from college I wanted to get ahead and was a very motivated individual with a major passion for learning.
• At the age of 19 and with a few advancements up the chain I was now an acting manager at Portman. This would only further fuel my passion for learning and of course I was customer facing and I was loving every minute of my career.
• At 20 I was approached by one of my customers of Portman to move over to Lloyds TSB (the senior branch manager of Lloyds Guildford) and become a personal banker helping more people with their day-to-day finances. This enlightened me even further and meant that I was even more confident in what I wanted to do for the rest of my career.
• Age 22 I wanted to understand financial services on a deeper level and the role we play as advisers in greater detail. I decided that I had a good understanding of banking but wanted to try something within the financial arena and moved into an underwriter position for mortgages. It was also fairly specialist as we offered second charge mortgages, and this was very early on thus increasing my knowledge and ability further.
• By 24 I had been head hunted by Santander to go back into personal banking however with the view of Santander training me further around savings and investments which is where I took my first set of qualifications (CF1, CF2, CF3, CF4). This spoke volumes to me and meant that I was able to further my abilities and increase the amount of advice I could give.
• At age 28 Portman and Nationwide had merged and previous colleagues from my Portman days (they had stayed in contact over many years) are now asking me to come back to my roots and work as a senior financial planner. With the assertion that I would be able to achieve my diploma qualified I agreed to join them and further enhance my knowledge and skills.
• 5 years later I got that itch once again and felt there had to be a way of me furthering my career, knowledge and more importantly help my customers. I decided to further my experience with a move to an award winning Independent Financial Adviser (IFA) company based in Newbury. My knowledge and understanding increased considerably through this time so much so that I undertook a further exam and became qualified in long term care (CF8). Towards the end of my time with DSWM I had decided it was time for me to take control and offer my customers a professional and friendly financial advice service like no other. I started putting together the business that today is Corcillium Wealth Management in the background.
• With Corcillium Wealth Management now a trading company I was approached by a very large, restricted, professional and well-regarded financial advice firm who on a regular basis were asking me to set up and run my own business using their network, compliance etc. This is where I took Corcillium Wealth Management in Jan 2017, I joined St. James’s Place, after understanding financial services this was a brand-new challenge of how to successfully run a business. Building my client base, I found myself still feeling that there was something missing. Only being able to give financial advice on a restricted level meant that I was not really serving my customers bespoke needs correctly (that’s how I felt anyway).
• After 6 years of working with SJP and a further exam (my mortgage exam CF6) I decided that it was time to take my business to the next level. Not to earn more or to gain more but more to give my customers truly impartial and trusted advice they could rely on.
• My last advance with Corcillium Wealth Management has enabled me to become independent by joining a new trusted and professional network, 2Plan Wealth Management, with far superior systems, technology and access to the whole of the market I am now able to offer an enhanced offering to my clients than anywhere I’ve been before.
• Who knows what is next for Corcillium Wealth Management, but I can assure you that any new movements will have 1 aim and 1 aim only and that is to help our customers succeed financially which has always been the motto.

I guess the next step is to employ more people and also to grow our customer base but without ever losing our local, friendly, thorough and professional approach to financial advice. Maybe in time we could look to franchise but whichever step we take next our customers will always be the most important asset to our business.

Certain industry researchers are estimating that over 50% of financial advisers intend to exit or retire from financial services in the next 5 years. Whether this is the case or not I ask all of my clientele or prospective customers to ensure that they do thorough research into any company or individual they are looking to engage with because of this.

As an independent financial adviser with a track record of well over 2 decades in financial services and a penchant to help individuals succeed financially, I can certainly say I will be carrying on into my retirement years.

Whatever your needs I would love to chat to you and truly with no obligation on your behalf. If your already talking to someone but just don’t quite feel they are the right fit why not email me directly on leon.alden@2plan.com or pick up the phone and lets have an informal chat on 01483 654135.