There’s nothing that quite beats getting out of the office to meet real Financial Planning professionals and to test the pulse of the profession and I was grateful I managed to achieve that this week at the PFS Awards held in London.
As a guest of the PFS, I attended the PFS Awards hosted by the ever ebullient Carla Brown, chair of the PFS board, and her equally enthusiastic new PFS President Kate Gannon.
Having attended recent industry conferences too, it’s clear the profession is positive and enthusiastic about the future, in contrast to some of the doom and gloom that pervades elsewhere.
While the Prime Minister has been recommending we stock up on tinned food, we enjoyed an excellent lunch 42 floors up in the Leadenhall Building in the City of London to celebrate success. I wonder who is more in touch with the reality of the UK economy?
There were quite a few things I learned from some enjoyable chats with several of the prize winners and the other Financial Planners and Paraplanners who attended.
Overall I found the mood among them to be optimistic and positive. The main concerns were about the impact of AI, particularly on admin jobs, and the effect the upcoming Budget may have on client confidence.
Mostly, however I was chatting to Financial Planners and Paraplanners who were very happy with how business was going at their firms and most were experiencing consolidators knocking on their doors on a regular basis.
One important insight from the event I noticed was that nearly half of the winners were women and many of the attendees overall were female. It was a relatively niche audience, so not necessarily a representative sample, but there is no doubt that women are now a very significant presence in Financial Planning and that’s not going to reverse any time soon.
I also noted the relatively young age of many of the Financial Planners and Paraplanners, particularly the winners. We’re always being told what an ageing profession that Financial Planning is but most of the attendees and award winners seemed to be in their 30s and 40s (apologies to those in their 20s!). Perhaps younger Planners and Paraplanners are more likely to enter awards but it was noticeable.
Among the award winners were many familiar names with Katherine Parkes of Cazenove Capital winning Chartered Financial Planner of the Year, with de Mellow & Co winning Chartered Financial Planning firm of the year and Katie Tang of the Private Office taking the Paraplanner of the Year award.
A special award was made to TV’s money saving expert Martin Lews whose ITV show has probably done more to raise awareness of personal finance among the public than any show I can think of. He seemed genuinely chuffed to win the award, presented to him on video after one of his ITV shows. Well done to him.
So it was a welcome day for celebration and in these tough times we need more of this, recognising that despite all the challenges facing the British economy it still has several thriving and growing sectors including Financial Planning.
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Kevin O’Donnell is editor of Financial Planning Today and a journalist with 40 years of experience in finance, business and daily news. This topical comment appears most weeks, usually on Fridays but occasionally other days. Email: