the
CLUB CARRINGTON WEALTH MANAGEMENT
“I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination." Jimmy Dean
to WelcoMe the Summer edition of the
caRrinGtoN CluB
to WelcoMe
The ClUB
It is believed that Heraclitus compared existence to the flow of a river, saying that you could not step into the same river twice. This could not be more evident than it has been over the last 12 months or so. So, as we navigate yet another round of changes, we felt this was an apt theme for our latest edition of the Club magazine. In this issue we explore some of the types of change that you may experience over your lifetime and briefly discuss how we can assist you in effectively planning for those times. We speak to a truly impressive young woman, Rachel Morris MBE, who has excelled as a gold medal winning Paralympian. She shares with us some of her exciting (and rather mind blowing) plans for the future.
We are joined by a wonderful client, Teresa Hamilton, who chats to us about how she has coped with the significant challenges and changes she has faced over the years, and how she is making positive steps forward. We were then lucky enough to sit down with Deirdre Cooper, co-fund manager at Ninety One who shared with us her passion for changing the face of ESG investing and helping the planet at the same time. Thank you so much to everyone who contributed their time and stories to help us bring you another thoughtprovoking issue.
Mike & Al
Ali Moorehouse
Mike Hodges
Cecily Chapman
Mohsin Bukhari
Eric Woodward
Rachel Hogg
Tommy Fairbank
Carolyn Stewart
Sophia Adams
Nicola Craxton
Alistair Candlish
Marissa Harpa
Carrington timeline
the
2010
FEB 2014
AUG 2014
MOVE
LAUNCH
LAUNCH
Moved to Baker Street & launched New Client Service
JUN 2019
Launched a Graduate intake programme hiring our first Grad
JUN 2019
LAUNCH Launched our Carrington Sustainable Growth Portfolio
Mohsin Bukhari awarded the 2019 Trail Blazer Award at the Investment Week Fund Manager Awards
MAR 2020
Launched Family Wealth Planning Service
Won'Excellence in Client Services' at the International Adviser Best Practice Awards & New Model Adviser Top 100 Wealth Manager Firm
MAR 2020
APR 2020
MOVE
REBRAND
LAUNCH
Moved in to our new Chapel Place offices
Changed our name and rebranded to Carrington Wealth Management
Notes on Life Planner for clients to collate their important information & wishes
9 Team Members, including 3 Advisers
Won the Money Marketing Advice Firm of the Year Award!
NOV 2017
APR 2018
NOV 2018
PUBLISH
LAUNCH
COMMUNITY
Welcome to the first edition of the Carrington Club Magazine
Charity of the Year initiative & raised over £7000 for NPRF
Won ‘Excellence in Client Services’ and NMA Top 100 Firm
Made a pledge to the Women in Finance Charter
JUL 2020
NOV 2020
FEB 2021
JUL 2021
JUL 2020
LAUNCH
AWARD
HOSTED
CHARITY
GROWTH
Launched our PreRetirement Planning Service
Named a NMA Top 100 firm for the fifth year running
Intro to Personal Finance webinar and Octopus IHT webinar
Team took part in the Castle Series Festival of Endurance to raise money for Full Circle Fund Therapies
13 Team Members, including 5 Advisers
Change HOW CAN WE HELP?
In a recent conversation a couple of interesting thoughts were brought up about the last year and the changes it has necessitated. The enforced adjustment people have had to make in terms of the way in which they work, how living arrangements have had to adapt (either everyone being home all the time or spending time completely alone in isolation), changes to relationships, and financial situations. In many cases this has in turn brought about some big questions about longer-term changes. Some people may have decided that they quite like working from home, so they’re investing in a garden office and putting off retirement for a few years, others have realised that they want to spend more time with their family so would like to retire early, and I’m sure we all know some people who have realised that it is definitely now time for the kids to fly the coop!!! And then there may be some who are lucky enough to be contemplating what to do with the savings they have been fortunate enough to squirrel away – add to their investments or take an extended holiday? The perhaps slightly daunting next thought is… how do I make any of these changes happen?
"Change is painful, but nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you don’t belong." Mandy Hale
CHANGE IS INEVITABLE, GROWTH IS OPTIONAL… AND PLANNING IS STRONGLY ADVISABLE! Change is a psychological experience and the brain, being the stubborn, headstrong organ it is, doesn’t like the uncertainty associated with it. So, even if this change in our life is something we’ve chosen, and indeed sometimes welcomed into our lives, it can still feel hard, difficult to navigate and at times completely overwhelming. For us as financial advisers and planners, change is probably the pivotal point in your life where we can offer the most valuable and supportive advice. Working together, through effective planning, we will create your financial plan – what could be described as your “Roadmap through change” – enabling you to answer those big, pressing questions. This planning is as effective whether the change is required now, or whether it’s something you’re considering in the future. Having the knowledge and clarity, especially around your financial situation, to make decisions at times of change will hopefully give you a sense of security and allow your brain the space to concentrate on your future plans with a sense of excitement, rather than trepidation. Whilst we hope that the planning that we do for clients enables them to cope, financially at least, with ANY change that should come their way, we have picked out a few scenarios which we find we encounter regularly which we discuss below. We most definitely don’t hold ourselves out as change management experts, but anything that we can do to help clients gain financial security, and to support them through times of change, we will!
CHANGING CAREERS OR TAKING A STEP BACK Jobs for life are increasingly becoming a thing of the past, this combined with many people retiring later than ever, and a shift to people adopting an approach of lifetime learning, means that more people than ever are now choosing to have a complete change of career at some point in their working life. Some people of course love their chosen career but want to take a step back – whether that means retreating from the city to somewhere more rural, choosing to work for themselves rather than for an employer, or cutting back hours to spend more time with their families or take part in their favourite hobbies. With any of these changes there are of course important financial decisions that need to be made before making a leap into the unknown. It is vital that any change in career is made knowing that you have the ability to look after yourself, and your family, financially in the short term and into the future. Through financial planning and cashflow analysis we will help establish your current financial situation and draw up a plan for what you will need in the future, and how best to structure your finances in order to make that happen. It will give you the peace of mind that you are covered financially for any changes that you want to make in your life – allowing you to take that step with confidence!
CHANGE IN FAMILY CIRCUMSTANCES OR LOSS OF A LOVED ONE None of us knows what lies ahead (and sometimes it’s perhaps a good thing we don’t!) and even if we feel that we have everything under control, life can still throw us a curve ball. The comforting reality though is that some of life’s risks can be minimised by assessing your current situation, stress testing it for all eventualities and creating a plan that builds some form of protection into it. This could be in the form of an investment nest egg with income strategy or an insurance policy or two, ensuring you and your family are adequately covered for those times which you least expect.
THINKING ABOUT RETIREMENT, EITHER SOON OR PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE Retirement looks different for everyone. Given we all lead different lives, have different goals & attitudes to working, why should we all stop work at the same time? Some would like to retire early and spend their time with family and/ or ticking items off their bucket list, other people would prefer to keep their toe in the water and not fully retire, but rather take a step back or maybe change tack completely and do something for the ‘fun’ of it. Whatever camp you fall into, we want to ensure that you can continue to fund your desired lifestyle, leave a legacy to your children (if that is important to you) and achieve everything you want to in this new stage of your life. From a financial planning perspective, when and how you retire, is one of the most important life-stages to plan for. After a lifetime of working and building up your savings, do you know if what you have saved will be enough to support you through retirement? By taking you through our Pre-Retirement Service we are able to establish at what point you will reach ‘financial freedom’ - when you can work less hours, stop completely or make significant life changes outside of your career. Whilst we can’t protect you and your family against all of the challenges that come with change, we can help you plan for any financial aspects, which should take at least some of the pressure out of the situation. If you’d like to read more about the areas of change where we can assist, pop on over to the new ‘Services’ page on our website and have a look at the revamped ‘Bringing our Services to Life’ page where you can find more information, along with client case studies.
N.B. Sometimes it’s not just about finance – we’re very proud that each of our team are great listeners and have endless ability to chat over a cup of tea (or something stronger) either over Zoom or in person – so never be afraid to pick up the phone to one of them for a chin wag should you need a listening ear.
QA &
CLIENT INTERVIEW
Teresa Hamilton Teresa and her late husband Nick came to Carrington as clients back in 2016 for a financial overhaul and to create a plan for their retirement. Unexpectedly, Nick tragically lost his life to cancer in 2017 after a very brief period of illness, and we speak to Teresa about how she’s dealt with his loss, on top of other close family and friend bereavements in the years before. We hope that by sharing Teresa’s story, and the ways in which she’s coped with her loss and all the changes that it’s brought about, it will help others who have also experienced loss or have gone through a significant change. We thank Teresa for being so open and honest with us about her journey.
TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT YOUR LIFE NOW I’ve recently moved to a place called Seend, which is about three miles west of Devizes. It’s perfect in terms of location for visiting places like Bath and Bristol and has happily worked out to be conveniently in the middle of my three children who are now in Cornwall, Manchester and Brighton. The new house is lovely – it’s on the side of a hill and has the most awesome views looking over towards Salisbury Plain. It was a totally random choice; I didn’t know where I wanted to go after Nick passed away. I had been thinking of selling the family home for a while but hadn’t a clue where to move to. When we originally bought our last house, it needed a LOT of work to make it into the lovely family home Nick and I both envisaged, but we always had it in mind when the time came, we’d sell it for our pension fund. So, it was always in the reckoning, it’s just happened a lot sooner than I expected.
Initially I thought I would never be able to leave the house because Nick was everywhere. I still saw him in so many places - pottering about in the garden (his favourite way to relax), at his desk in the office, or stretched out on the sofa, pencil behind his ear doing a cryptic crossword – but as the time went on, I needed to run away more and more from the cloak of grief that seemed to cover me whenever I was in the house. I would go and stay with kind friends all over the world and travelled as much as I could, just to feel a bit lighter, but each time I came up the drive again to return home, my heart would sink. I didn’t realise at the time, but I was sinking into depression. It was just too difficult to pretend I was ok when I wasn’t. Everyone’s life seemed to have carried on whereas mine had stopped. Making the decision to sell the house was the hardest part and the thought of all I had to do to make a move possible caused me much anxiety, but I leant on family and friends who supported me to realise I only had to take it a step
at a time. I knew a big change was the way for me to move forward and find a life again – some people find comfort in where they are – but for me it’s different. Some people call me headstrong, but I know that for me, making a big change in life is what I have to do, I have to shake my life up – and okay I might get it wrong but hey, I’ve done something. And it’s better to do something than nothing at all – that’s how I feel. In my new house my grief is still with me, it will never go. Nick will always be tucked in my heart but I’m learning to grow around him and, as much as I love him, here, he’s not in my face all the time. I can choose what I tell new people I meet about my circumstances, and I don’t have constant triggers of the life I’ve lost when I’m going about my day.
HOW DID YOU MEET THE CARRINGTON TEAM? We met the guys at Carrington through a good friend of mine, Celia. We’d started the business and wanted to sort our finances out. We were talking to her one day when she said, “I use a great firm and can’t recommend them highly enough.” We had a meeting with Mike in the autumn before Nick got diagnosed in the February – so from my point of view it was really fortuitous that we’d had such an in-depth chat with him and gone through all our finances in detail. When Nick was diagnosed, he
and I had a conversation in the hospice. I said “Tell me now what you want and then we won’t talk about it again but concentrate on living. What do you want me to do – do you want to be cremated or buried?”, he replied “cremated”, and I asked him “where do you want to be put?” He just looked at me and said, “I don’t care where I am as long as I’m with you.” I then asked him, “what should I do about the finances – what do I do about money, what do I do about pensions?” He then said one of the most comforting things I could hear at that moment, “leave it with Carrington, leave it with Mike. I trust them, they’ll sort you out – they’ll look after you – just leave it with Mike”. At this point I was trying to cope with our whole lives imploding – Nick’s illness and the shock of his swift decline, doctors and oncology appointments, the family, whilst also running the company. It was such a comfort to put that side of things away – knowing Carrington would take care of everything and make sure that I was okay. I very much feel that they’ve got my back, which is what I need in my situation. I’m very fortunate that with selling the house we renovated, I’m financially okay. Mike reassures me of that every time we have a meeting. He looks at the cash flow forecasts, with his red and blue graphs, and says “you’ll be fine.” He explains everything and I use this opportunity to tell him my future plans, usually ending with me asking, “will I be ok?’ That’s what I need to know. I’ve also ‘borrowed’
Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow Helen Keller
CLIENT INTERVIEW
a close friend’s husband, Chris, who is in finance. He comes to the meetings with Carolyn and Mike and afterwards Chris and I go for a fine lunch somewhere as a treat, when he runs through everything again and reassures me I can rely on the advice they’re giving me. Now that I’ve sold the house, it’s a real comfort to know I’m okay financially, that I don’t need to rely on anyone else. I never expected to be in this situation and widowed at 58.
WHO IS YOUR BIGGEST INSPIRATION? My mother. She was a great inspiration to me. She was the most loving, kind and generous person I know. She’d been married for 30 years with six children. My father was coming up for retirement and she was very unhappy. She decided she needed to make a big change and had the courage to leave her marriage. I’ve always believed that if you are unhappy with your life, it is your responsibility to do something about it. My first marriage wasn’t a success and my mother’s courage to do something about her unhappiness gave me the instigation to do something about mine. It certainly wasn’t an easy time and not something I’m proud of but I wasn’t going to blame anyone else that I’d had an unhappy life. I met Nick
and it took us a few years to end up together as we were both determined to make sure our life plan was on the same page. The same need for change came about when I was diagnosed with cancer at 40 – we had a terrible five years. I was ill, I lost my mother and sister to cancer, Nick’s sister died from cancer and a close school friend and her family were lost in the Asian Tsunami. I went on a five-year cancer drug trial, and I remember saying to Nick, “unless we do something completely radical, I’m going to end up on Prozac”. I felt like I had lost my sense of hope. Back then we had a year’s window to move the kids’ education before Jo went to into sixth form and Ellie to secondary school. Nick grew up in a village environment and we both wanted to move out of London and try a new place, so we moved the family from south London to Sussex, again we were lucky to find a lovely village by chance. We completely changed our lives to start again. So, I knew I could do it again, - I was just doing it on my own this time. I knew making a big change had worked for me in the past so I had to have a go with what I hoped would work in the future. But I had to give myself time, time to come to a place where it felt right. I’m not the person I was. I’m just not. In the year before Nick was diagnosed, I lost my brother to cancer and Nick was sorting out his own brother’s estate while going through his treatment.
I very much feel that they’ve got my back, which is what I need in my situation
CLIENT INTERVIEW Vital Statistics... BORN: Croydon, South London, April 1959, Number 5 of 6 children LIVES: Seend, Wiltshire FAMILY: Three children - Jo, Ellie & Harry. Two dogs, Dill & Roo FAVOURITE HOLIDAY DESTINATION: Skiing/Cornwall BOOK: Captain Corelli’s Mandolin Louis de Bernieres CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT: My family – oh, and a good cup of coffee! HOBBIES: Tennis, surfing, cycling, walking and spending time with family and friends WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY/ HOW DO YOU RELAX: See above! FAVOURITE FILM: ‘Untouchable’ starring Omar Sy & Francois Cluzet
Bereavement has changed me. I think what they say about grief is true, the first year you’re in shock, the second year you’re starting to wake up to your reality – and it can get better or implode at that stage. I think in the third year, because of the pandemic, as well as everything else, everything just fell apart for me. I could see no hope in life. I was diagnosed with depression, and it was the steadfast support of my family and friends that helped pull me through. But there’s a stubborn streak in me. What example am I to my kids if I don’t rise again? What example am I if I don’t show them that sh*t happens, and that life is sh*t sometimes, but if you don’t keep ploughing away, if you don’t keep getting up (and there are many times when I’ve not seen the point of getting up, I’ve just wanted to be under that duvet) what example is that? And I suppose in a way I feel I’m honouring Nick. He fell in love with this strong, gutsy woman, if I give in, what is that saying about him and me, and the woman he fell in love with? So, there are lots of things that make me get on and get up every day, and when I’m at my worst and having a bad day, I ring my sister or my girlfriends who will readily give me the prod I need to get back on track. I’m so lucky to have a great network of friends and family. It’s really hard to know what to say to someone that’s grieving. A lot of people cross the road because they don’t know how to approach
you. You are showing them their worst nightmare. They can’t say or do anything that is going to make the situation go away for you. You just want someone to acknowledge your grief and walk beside you, that’s all. Just say “yes, it’s horrible and it’s sh*t and it’s awful for you”, and just be there, and just listen when you want to bend their ear. No expectations, no words of platitude, just help you bear the pain of the grief by being there. I took girlfriends to appointments with me or asked them to make phone calls when I wasn’t able to say the words ‘I’m ringing because my husband’s died,’ when dealing with his estate and probate. Grief makes you so fragile, however strong you think you are; you can break down in the gentlest of breezes. It’s been a really good move to come here – I feel a lot more hopeful; I feel I’m starting to get things in the right place – I’ve got my finances sorted, the kids have all picked up and are carving a path for themselves now, which is great to see and how it should be. I’ve always wanted to surf but told myself I was too old/too stiff and that I needed to do more yoga! Last year, when we had that little window over the summer when lockdown eased, I said to a friend that I needed to go away and do something and mentioned to him that I’d always wanted to surf – he replied, “well go and surf then!” I found this surf company down in Cornwall who were brilliant, and I found a little Airbnb as I knew that I had to start
doing things on my own. I realise, particularly going back to my flying days, that I love to travel – I like to check in at home, but I also like to go away a lot – so I told the kids I was going surfing. My daughter, Ellie, wanted to come with me. She did and she also loved it, and she’s now changed her direction in life and is working with the surfing company, which is fantastic. More recently I’ve been Zip Wiring over a quarry in Wales, cycled along the towpath of the Kennet and Avon canal to Bath and I’m learning to paddle board.
WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO SOMEONE GOING THROUGH GRIEF OR A PERIOD OF CHANGE? I think you’ve got to allow yourself time. Change is such a difficult thing, and you get so many emotions coming in – anxiety, insecurity, questioning whether it’s the right thing to do. There are so many questions that come to mind, you can easily talk yourself out of making a change – you can overthink it terribly, and then you risk not doing anything at all. I think if you’re going through a great change, you need to feel your way into it and just take your time. Lists are good - I love a list! I’m very impatient, but I’ve learnt that things evolve, whether you want them to or not. You can make choices, but some choices are made for you that you’re not aware of and that you have no control over. It’s like the swan where you’re gliding along but there are things furiously going on underneath – sometimes you fight against them and it’s exhausting, change is exhausting. Sometimes you have to give yourself space, you’ve got to give yourself time to breathe, sit and reflect, and then move forward a bit more – and also be aware you can go two steps forward and one step back, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing – because that gives you time to reassess, it gives time for other influences to come in, and you might then go in a different direction. Don’t look at the mountain, just look at a step at a time – just do little bits and step by step you’ll get there. You’ve also got to be open to the fact that if you pushed one door and it didn’t quite open there might be another one
CLIENT INTERVIEW
You’ve just got to keep pushing the doors until you find your fit
behind it in the corner that you hadn’t seen, and that might be your door – but if you’re not opening the doors in the first place how are you ever going to know? That’s one thing I tell my kids, I think their twenties are the time to get out there and meet people and try things before responsibility, mortgages and life takes hold of you. Okay, so you don’t like that job so try another – it’s not the be all and end all – you’ve just got to keep pushing the doors until you find your fit.
WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO START YOUR BLOG? The Empty Nest was all about when your kids have left home. There are so many blogs about toddlers and bringing up babies but there didn’t seem to be many about when they leave home, and how that feels for parents. Especially for women who are home builders and have brought up the family, they feel a big void. I’ve always tried to write humorous blogs – I used to write humorous articles on our relocation to Sussex from London for regional magazines such as Sussex Life - just about funny things that happened to us – such as me, the towny, being chased across a field by a ram in my sparkly flip flops on the way to the school pickup. So, I asked the kids if they were okay
with me writing about them and I just wrote about some of the funny things that happened to us. I love writing. Writing a novel is a long process and writing a blog is immediate – and I like the combination of the two. That’s why I started it – for my own entertainment but also to share funny family moments, and I thought that other families in the same situation would be able to relate to them and laugh! I just want people to read my posts and enjoy them, I want them to be light relief, there’s too many horrible things in the world, and I just see them as a bit of fun, humorous, and I’m very sarcastic!
DO YOU THINK IT’S HELPED YOU BY WRITING THINGS DOWN? It’s helped me enormously – writing is my creative outlet, and I wasn’t going to publish the early posts on my blog after I lost Nick, because they are very personal and they’re very honest, and as with all writing, you’re opening yourself up and putting yourself out there, but I’ve had a lot of people come back to me and say that they’ve been helpful to read. It also helps me to see, when I go back to the first ones, what a different place I’m in now, because I told it as it was in the beginning, and it was dreadful,
but now I can see it’s a lot more upbeat and my humour is coming through again. I only tend to blog on special anniversaries, and I often write it as a letter to Nick because it just helps me formulate my ideas. It’s like telling him how we’re coping without him, how he’s left a huge void in our lives but we’re getting there, we’re making our lives work again. I hope it helps other people to see that you don’t come through grief, you don’t move on, it’s the analogy of grief being a void in your heart and it’s huge, but you grow around it – you find a way to live with it – it doesn’t disappear, and when I have a thought that really touches deep down it brings it all back, but I can at least still go on every day – whereas in the beginning I couldn’t even face the day. So, it’s helped me enormously in that way. I hope my blog is helping people, life’s hard and don’t be afraid to ask for help. I shamelessly ask anyone now who I think might help. I am quite a private person which sounds crazy, when I write a blog about my life, but this is my way of putting it out there, you have to just keep going, every day, a step at a time, that’s all you can ask of yourself.
WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS? To be as popular as Adele Parks! I don’t have an agent or publisher at the moment, I just love writing – I wish I could make it pay and I could spend all day doing it. I’ve had lots of small successes - my two novels, Love, Suzi (based on my diaries when I was cabin crew) and Choices are out in the world and I’m working on another book at the moment. I’ve written a children’s middle grade adventure, short stories and a poignant but humorous memoir of my year of cancer. They say never give up and I won’t, I’m obstinate – I think that’s what’s pulled me through. Other goals include to travel more. When I was an air stewardess I really enjoyed coming and going and I miss that. But mainly my goal is just to be okay, it’s not such a huge goal anymore, just to be okay, okay is good. To be comfortable, to be content, to enjoy my home and garden. Of course, there are things that I want to do but I’ve achieved a lot, I’ve had a lot in my life, I want my kids to be happy, I want to be part of their life – and just for everyone to be okay. I’m not bothered about getting old. After thinking my chips were down when I was 40, every birthday is a bonus. I want to enjoy the day, wake up, see the sunshine and watch it go down thinking “hey, today was a good day”. Whether I sat and read, cycled, went to work,
I think if you’re going through a great change, YOU NEED
CLIENT INTERVIEW
to feel your way into it and just take your time
did paddle boarding, or spent it with friends. There’s nothing I like more than having the kids and their friends round, eating and drinking, a lot of banter, lighting the firepit – that is the perfect day for me, just all being together.
THINGS I’VE LEARNT ALONG THE WAY I’ve been thrust into retirement, not what we were planning – we were planning to work for another five years at least. And then we were going to downsize and retire – we were going to live by the coast as Nick wanted a boat, we were going to change our life and travel, and spend our “golden years” together after all the hard work. We did have a lot of times where we had very little money, but Nick could always see the bigger picture. When I got my cancer, I had to have all the lymph nodes taken out of my groin and so my leg swells up. I decided then that we couldn’t do “hot” holidays very well as a family because it’s a balance between the swelling and a heat rash with my leg – it’s okay if you’re lying down all day but you can’t lie down all day with young children! So, I thought “right, we’re going to enjoy cold holidays” so we took the children skiing and they have been the best holidays of our lives. Even now we can sit around the table and crease up with laughter recalling the funny
antics of our group while skiing. The years that we couldn’t afford to go skiing I’d say to Nick “we really shouldn’t do this” and he would say “don’t worry, we need to make memories now – we’ve got the money, it’s in the house, it’s in these bricks, we just don’t have it in our hands, don’t worry about it, we’re going skiing because we have to live for now”. I’m so glad that he did that because of course, now the bricks and mortar materialised, they paid up, and we’ve got the most fantastic family memories of holidays where we just laughed the whole time – if he hadn’t been able to see that bigger picture, I would have been too cautious. Finances are a funny thing, I’ve always been very worried – I suppose because as a woman, having taken time out to raise the family and only doing part time jobs – I knew I couldn’t have afforded to keep myself and the children on my salary. It depends what you do as a couple but I see it as team work. Nick was earning, he loved his job and he was earning more than me and initially when I was teaching I could work part time – not possible in his line of work. Then when we started up the construction company we worked together, (I learnt to do as I was told). That’s a test of any marriage – together 24/7. They were the choices we made, as a couple for our family. We each worked in our
own way to ensure our family was financially safe and that everyone also felt loved, nurtured and happy. I asked Nick once if he worried about the kids and he replied, “no, I know you’ve got that one.” Nick taught me a lot about things like that – not to worry about the small stuff – look at the bigger picture because the small stuff will often take care of itself, and by overthinking it you get caught up in anxiety and what’s the point of that? 90% of what we worry about doesn’t happen. Worry takes away from now, it takes away from the moment - we don’t have tomorrow yet, we’ve lost yesterday, we have now. We have to keep that in the forefront of our minds, and I know it’s hard because everyone worries – but you have to think about now. In the words of Randy Pausch “It's not about the cards you're dealt, but how you play the hand,” that’s what it’s all about. You have to keep coming back to the now, now is the time to live – because who knows what’s happening tomorrow. On my bad days I think “okay, even if I take things a little slower, a little more gently, because I’m feeling a little fragile – that’s okay”. It’s important to just give yourself some time and do it for the now. For all that has happened to me, and these last few years have been the hardest challenge I’ve ever had to face - I am blessed. I had a wonderful marriage to a truly wonderful man. I have three amazing children and I can live in this beautiful place – he has left me well provided for. I’m very thankful to him for that. It’s up to me now to make a life.
FINAL THOUGHTS One of my favourite poets is William Blake, he wrote an inspirational poem about imagination, vision and seeing the bigger picture - ‘To see a World in a Grain of Sand. And see a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand. And Eternity in an hour.’ That sums up life for me.
To read Teresa’s blog, go to:
https://teresahamiltonwriter.wordpress.com Love, Suzi x & Choices are available on Amazon.
CLIENT INTERVIEW "To see a World in a Grain of Sand. And see a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand. And Eternity in an hour." William Blake
Carrington’s Top Tips for embracing change
Change [cheynj] To alter or to modify; to replace; to substitute one thing for another.
Everyone will encounter some form of change at some point in their lives (just look at the last 18 months, we’re pretty sure no-one has escaped without having to navigate through many different changes). Whether it is a “life changing” change in circumstances, illness or a loss of a loved one, or something seemingly insignificant in the “grand scheme of things”, change can seem insurmountable, and it can feel like you’ve hit an impasse where it’s impossible to move forward. We’ve gathered a few top tips which we hope might offer some ideas for how to deal with, and indeed embrace, change. We’d love to hear from you if you have any ideas of your own as to how you’ve dealt with change in the past – let us know!
Get informed find out the facts. Uncertainty and ambiguity cause anxiety and stress.
Acknowledge your fears and take charge taking action and setting new goals in the face of change in spite of fear (which often accompanies change) can help construct a more positive thought process and outlook.
Be kind to yourself give yourself time to process what you’re going through, acknowledge the change and learn to accept it. Allow yourself the space to grieve if you’ve suffered a loss.
Have a strategy for dealing with change research (Yeager & Walton, 2011) has shown that even small actions can help boost self-confidence and perceived ability to handle future challenges.
Look to try and create opportunity from a challenge.
Don’t look at the whole “mountain” ahead of you, just concentrate on taking one step at a time, and celebrate each step. (Teresa Hamilton, 2021)
Ask for help from a loved one or a professional don’t be afraid to put your hand up and get support or advice if you need it.
If we can be of assistance in helping you navigate a change that you and your family are facing, please give us a shout.
QA &
GUEST INTERVIEW Vital Statistics... BORN: Born and live in Farnham. I have a brown Labrador called Wispa. Wispa has a twin sister called Lucky who’s with me half the week. They’re mad as a box of frogs! FAVOURITE HOLIDAY: Climbing Hadrian’s Wall BOOK: I don’t really have the time to read! HOBBIES: Walking Wispa, cycling, skiing WHAT MAKES YOU MOST HAPPY: Being outside, any kind of training but camping is my really happy space. CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT: Wispa FAVOURITE APP: OS Mapping apps – I like recording my walks and being able to see the maps of where I’ve been and where I can go!
Rachel Morris MBE Rachel Morris MBE is a double gold medal winning Paralympian, winning Great Britain’s first ever handcycling gold medal in Beijing 2008 and winning a rowing single sculls gold medal at Rio 2016. She also won handcycling bronze in the London 2012 games. As a runner as a teenager, training on the Olympic pathway, she damaged her ankle on a dry ski-slope and developed a condition known as Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. This condition causes her body to reject its own injured limbs and results in constant pain. In the following years Rachel had to have her legs gradually amputated and now relies on sport and an active lifestyle to help manage her pain. We chatted to Rachel to find out more about her life inside and outside of professional sport: what it felt like to sit on the podium in multiple sports; how she overcame such a big physical and mental challenge; about her completion of the Hadrian’s Wall challenge – where she became the first wheelchair user to complete the 46 kilometres of hiking; and what exciting challenges now lie ahead for her.
TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOUR DECISION TO GET INTO PARALYMPIC SPORTS I sometimes feel like I don’t know who I am really! I am a runner turned no legged athlete – wrong combination. What I’d always wanted to do was be in the Olympic Team, and as a runner I was on the Olympic pathway, so after my (seven) amputations I made the decision to go into parasport. To me it was simple in a sense – if I can’t become an Olympian then I’m going to become a Paralympian. I think it’s probably because I was always driven and constantly focused on what I wanted, so I can understand that bit of myself. Because I was on the Olympic pathway, I knew I could be an athlete. I didn’t know what I could do but I did FEEL like an athlete. I do think that made a difference for me. It’s quite a pressured environment and hard work to get into the Paralympic team, but I loved it.
WHAT DID IT FEEL LIKE WINNING YOUR FIRST GOLD MEDAL IN CYCLING? It’s amazing. It’s the most incredible feeling but also the weirdest feeling, you don’t experience it anywhere
else. It’s impossible to replicate and I was just so lucky that I got to compete and podium at the home games in the 2012 Olympics. It’s like you’re feeling every emotion all at once when you’re competing, and even more so when you’re on the podium.
YOU HAVE COMPETED IN SAILING, HAND CYCLING, ROWING AND NORDIC SKIING – WHAT DROVE YOU TO CHANGE SPORTS EACH TIME? I love the challenge of trying to learn something new – when everyone else around you is saying “there’s no way you’ll do it” and actually going out there and saying “told you”, it’s very empowering! I also love challenging myself physically and mentally and moving from one sport to another gives me that challenge, and it mixes up my training which keeps things interesting.
WERE YOU TEMPTED TO GO TO TOKYO 2021? I did actually qualify as a kayaker to go to Tokyo and part of me wanted to do it all again. But I found the decision a bit of a battle because, although I felt like I wanted to be a part of it, I also didn’t want to go to the games and not be properly prepared. None of us have been able to train properly because of Covid. I didn’t want to be an athlete that
if I can’t become an Olympian then I’m going to become a Paralympian
GUEST INTERVIEW
went to the games and then didn’t do okay, didn’t do what’s expected (or meet my own expectations) because I’d not been able to suitably prepare. Or I could have gone and perhaps got a gold medal, perhaps in part because no-one else had trained properly, and that wouldn’t have meant anything either. I also wasn’t sure I wanted to put myself back into that pressurised environment again – if it was just about the sports themselves, I’d do it – I love that element, absolutely love it. But now I’ve set myself different challenges to focus on, which I’m so excited about. I get to train for those and experience different places and people, without having to worry about the pressure, and it’s just really nice. I now get to choose what I want to do, what’s important to me and I’m thrilled, especially having completed the Hadrian’s Wall challenge.
TELL US A BIT ABOUT HADRIAN’S WALL I decided to try the 46 kilometre trek of Hadrian’s Wall (organised through a company called Charity Challenge, who run fundraising challenges all over the world) to raise money for a fantastic charity called LimbPower. LimbPower use exercise, physical activity, sport and the arts to support children, young people and adults - who have had amputations, or
have limb differences - through the rehabilitation process to aid their physical, social and psychological well-being. As well as raising money I really wanted to take part to push the boundaries of what people think is possible as I was the first person to attempt to complete the walk in an allterrain wheelchair. Hadrian’s Wall and the area around it was lovely – it’s just so beautiful up there. I don’t think I’ve ever been to Northumberland before; I’ve driven through it but I’ve never really stopped. I’d heard it was amazing and it really didn’t disappoint. We were just into the national park and it was mindblowingly stunning, and the sense of solitude - on the beaches you can be the only person for what feels like hundreds of miles. I can’t recommend it more strongly. We stayed in a youth hostel which was a really great experience, the people I was doing the hike with were such a good group of people as well. It was a two-day hike and it was hard work of course – the terrain was hard to cover on my
I really wanted to take part to push the boundaries of what people think is possible
GUEST INTERVIEW bike, and I had to lift myself in and out of my chair to climb up some of the terrain and over walls, but it was fantastic and it was great to do it with a brilliant bunch of people.
TELL US ABOUT YOUR CHARITIES THAT YOU SUPPORT I’m a trustee with Challengers, a charity providing inclusive play and leisure activities for disabled children and young people, as well as a trustee with LimbPower, the charity that I did the Hadrian’s Wall hike for. I frequently do fundraising challenges for both of these charities as well as others. I believe one of the most important things we can do as athletes is to support charities like these, and the individuals and families that they support. I also act on a voluntary basis to support individuals, and their families, who have recently had amputations with some of the physical, psychological and practical changes that they experience. My ideal scenario would be to get funding to provide support like this, as many people experiencing amputations or other life changing physical changes struggle, particularly in the early stages. Unfortunately, there is very little support of this kind available from the NHS. I would love to be able to draw on my own experiences and knowledge to help
others navigate these changes and challenges.
WHO IS YOUR BIGGEST INFLUENCE IN LIFE? Dame Kelly Holmes is a huge influence for me. She was the first female to go out and “do stuff” and prove to other women that they could do it too. I really feel like she has a positive attitude to body image too and she’s done a lot for athletes, particularly women, in this respect. There is a lot of pressure on all athletes to look a certain way, which can affect them very badly not only mentally but also physically, and I feel like Dame Kelly Holmes has, and is continuing, to work on changing that.
WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS AT THE MOMENT? I am planning for a few big challenges at the moment, all of them to raise money for charity and once again to push the boundaries of what people believe is possible. My first big one is to climb Kilimanjaro, which would be about a two-week climb, and I’m hoping to follow that with a hike to Everest Base Camp, which would take about three weeks. Both of these would be with the company I did Hadrian’s Wall with, and I’m hoping to be able to do them in the next couple of years. My ultimate goal would then
be to do an expedition to one of the Poles (which one is yet to be decided) which would involve about 16 days of skiing/sledging. I obviously need to complete each one before I can move on to the next, but I’m feeling determined to get there and achieve each of these goals. In order to be able to do these challenges and accomplish my goals I am going to need to get some new equipment, mainly a new day chair which is agile enough to get up the terrain and a new bike to train on to keep my fitness levels where they need to be. This is obviously a very big undertaking and for it to happen I am going to need to get a sponsor on board. I’d really like that to be a company who buys into what I’m trying to achieve, and that what I’m doing really means something to them. I would also like to become part of what they’re doing by speaking to their teams and perhaps helping run fundraising events for them to take part in.
Photo credit: British Rowing
GUEST INTERVIEW WHAT ARE YOU MOST PASSIONATE ABOUT IN LIFE? My expedition ideas - raising much needed funds for my charities, pushing the boundaries of what people feel is possible, and also challenging myself physically and mentally - that would be a big part of it for me at the moment. I’m a very active person, so being in the outdoors and training for my challenges, and of course walking with Wispa, is really important to me.
IF YOU COULD GIVE ONE PIECE OF ADVICE TO SOMEONE GOING THROUGH A PERIOD OF CHANGE WHAT WOULD IT BE? Keep focused on what you want to do at the end of it. And I think if you’re not entirely sure what it is that you want to get out of it, you need to break it down into smaller steps. Then just keep focusing on what you need to do to achieve each step.
Round up
What the carrington team have been up to... CHANGES-A-FOOT Firstly, and with great sadness, we are wishing farewell to Anne Renshaw of Flamme Rouge. Anne has been part of our team for the last 5 years, providing marketing and business development services, unwavering support and sage advice. She was there, right from the start of the Club and even featured in one of our early editions. Always roped into our crazy charity challenges, Anne has been a vibrant and lively addition to the office and has approached everything with passion and a huge smile. Anne, we can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done for us. We wish you only the best for your future endeavours and know that you’ll always be welcome and a part of the team. You may have already heard that Tom, who has been an integral member of our team for a number of years, is relocating to the beautiful city of Edinburgh. We wish him all the best for a bright and successful future and hope the Scots appreciate what
they have been gifted – not only a talented, budding adviser, but a pretty good bowler to boot! This year has also welcomed many positive changes and achievements at Carrington, it has seen several members of the team receive promotions as they excelled in their roles over the course of the pandemic. Sophia, having completed her arduous studies has attained Chartered Status (the only member of the team to do so!) and has joined the advising team as a Financial Adviser. Marissa has been promoted to Office Manager and Rachel to Senior Client Relationship Executive. Cecily and Ali are back hitting the books again, with specialist exams booked for early next year and Tommy is now halfway through completing his exams towards his Diploma in Financial Planning. Go Team!
MILESTONES The end of June saw the team slowly start to return to the office on a staggered basis. Having not fully enjoyed our
beautiful new space since “moving in” 18 months ago, we’re all loving it (especially the terrace now that the sun is out) and we look forward to welcoming guests and visitors. p
ACHIEVEMENTS The day before his charity cycle was a momentous occasion for Al, who scored his first hole-in-one on the 8th at St Georges Hill. There was much celebrating, and it may account for why he very almost missed the start of the cycle!!
On a winning streak, Ali, a member of Balham and Clapham Albion, a newly formed football club in its first South London League season played the Lions United FC in the final of the Brian Howard Cup. It was 2-2 after extra time and they won 7-6 on penalties. It was a brutal battle of 120 mins and Ali has been hobbling around ever since the final whistle.
very proud and pleased for Mo as he leaves his mark on the industry!
The support was amazing, with family and friends coming from as far as Middlesbrough to watch! Being their inaugural season, they were thrilled to walk away with the silverware!
To keep in tip-top shape, Rachel and Sophia are taking on the infamous National Three Peaks Challenge in October. They are both hard in training and we are certain that it will be a day to remember as they attempt to climb the highest mountains in England, Scotland and Wales (Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon) within just 24 hours! Best of luck to them both.
Carolyn believes she too deserves a mention, as having been nabbed by track and trace she had to self-isolate with a toddler whilst trying to work. Your medal is in the post.
INDUSTRY RECOGNITION For a fifth year running, Mo was invited to judge the UK Smaller Company, UK Growth and UK Income sectors category at the prestigious Investment Week Fund Manager of the Year Awards. We are
WELLBEING Following some Covidrelated health scares this year, we are pleased to say that all of our team are back to fighting fit. We hope that this is true for you and your families as well.
Marissa decided it was time to step out and make the most of her unused commute time. She set herself a goal to walk 10,000 steps daily and to date she’s been smashing it. Carolyn unfortunately had to pull out of the Castle Series Festival of Endurance due to injury, but she was
"If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living."
so envious watching the team compete, Gail that she’s booked in a 10km race for later in the summer. Ali too was pining for the swim and bike after having to pull out of his race, so he is taking part in the Calfman standard distance triathlon at the end of July…let’s hope he comes out the udder side in one piece.
NEW ADDITIONS Eric and his family welcomed a new daughter/ sister-in-law into the fold recently. The beautiful ceremony was held at the iconic St Mary’s Church in Wimbledon. We wish Stephen and Jill many wonderful years together. Also new to the family are Fred & George! Rachel decided that this was the year to become a fur-mum and adopted two adorable kittens. The cheeky duo keeps us all entertained as they can’t resist a Zoom call. #WorkingFromHomePerks For regular news and updated please follow us on LinkedIn.
Sheehy
QA &
PROFESSIONAL INTERVIEW
Deirdre Cooper Co-head of Thematic Equity at Ninety One
www.ninetyone.com
Mohsin Bukhari, our Head of Investments, first met Deirdre at a sustainable investment conference at the start of 2020, shortly after the launch of her fund. She gave a very insightful and thoughtprovoking presentation on the idea of decarbonisation, and her passion for what she does was quickly evident. She had clearly spent a long time researching and investing in this area but, for the attendees, it was a fairly new concept. Soon after meeting her (and after thorough due diligence, of course), we purchased the Ninety One Global Environment fund for our Sustainable Growth portfolio. We’re thrilled that Deirdre took time out from her very busy schedule to chat with us about her career to date, her passion for what she does and how each of us can help effect change.
TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF AND YOUR CAREER I started at Morgan Stanley in the Mergers and Acquisitions department. I left after about four years because I was interested in doing something which was more aligned with the things that I believed in, so I went and worked in Pakistan in micro-finance for 6 months. After that I went to Harvard business school. During the summer I worked in microfinance at the United Nations on a project called the Micro-Entrepreneurs Awards Programme. Following that I went back to Morgan Stanley to work in Sustainable Finance, working for Jeremy Heywood who went on to become the Cabinet Secretary. He was a really inspirational person to work with and an amazing mentor for me. In 2006 I started Morgan Stanley’s Cleantech Investment Banking Group in Europe and the following year I moved to a small boutique called Ecofin. It was then I started to work with my colleagues at Ecofin on how to invest in decarbonisation in equities. In 2009 we won a mandate from the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund to run a decarbonisation portfolio for them and I comanaged that for ten years. It was a really good experience working for the world’s largest Sovereign Wealth Fund – thinking about how best to invest in
Glossary of terms Climate Finance:
Local, national or global financing that seeks to support mitigation and adaptation actions that address climate change in developing countries.
Decarbonisation:
The process of reducing the level of carbon dioxide (CO2) output through lowering the amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced by the burning of fossil fuels.
Emerging Market:
A country that is in the process of developing its economy to become more advanced. It is transitioning from low income and is rapidly expanding due to high production levels and significant industrialisation with a higher standard of living. Examples of emerging markets include China, India, South Africa & Brazil.
Micro Finance:
A type of banking service provided to unemployed or low-income individuals or groups who otherwise would have no other access to financial services. It allows people to take on reasonable, small business loans safely, and in a manner that is consistent with ethical lending practices.
Supply chain carbon analysis:
The analysis of the level of greenhouse emissions that are produced through a product's supply chain. A supply chain includes everything from initial sourcing of parts needed to produce the product, to final delivery of the product to the consumer.
Sustainable Finance:
The process of taking environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations into account when making investment decisions in the financial sector, leading to more investments in sustainable economic activities and projects.
PROFESSIONAL INTERVIEW
the sector both for output (returns) and for impact (on the environment). During this time I’d gotten to know Graeme Baker and Tom Nelson and the team at Ninety One, as they were on a very similar journey and our paths naturally crossed, being in the same industry. They were the managers of the Ninety One Global Energy Fund at Ninety One, and were early in identifying companies that were driving the transition to renewable energy. So, in 2019 I joined them, and we launched the Ninety One Global Environment Fund. We are now managing two and a half billion US dollars. It is a highly concentrated portfolio, investing in the companies that are both the biggest beneficiaries of decarbonisation and also those having the biggest positive impact. We track the level of carbon avoided companies so that we can find those that are doing the best job amongst their peers to reduce the footprint in their own business, but also helping develop products that are addressing other people’s carbon footprints, and therefore having a positive impact.
WHAT DO YOU FIND MOST SATISFYING ABOUT WHAT YOU DO? Graeme, my Co-Portfolio Manager and I really like meeting the companies, meeting the management teams, particularly in their own context. One of the things we struggled with this year is that we haven’t travelled due to restrictions. We try and manage our travel, so we do long trips and visit lots of companies at once, keeping our flights to a minimum. If we want to decarbonise we have to address not just developed market emissions but also emerging market emissions. 90% of emissions growth is coming from emerging markets so you really
need to get out and meet those companies. For example, China is a very big part of our investment universe as it constitutes about 30% of global carbon emissions. We think if we want to understand whether or not a company is truly sustainable it’s really important to understand not just the data but also the company’s culture and the context, and that requires getting out there and actually meeting the teams. So that’s the bit I enjoy the most.
I also enjoy talking to investors as I think more and more investors are starting to think about how to invest for impact. I think (and this is true for us at Ninety One as well) that we’re all very much at the early stages of this, nobody has the perfect answer, so sharing thoughts on how best to do this, how best to monitor progress in a way that is easy to explain to retail investors but also doesn’t oversimplify what is a very complicated area.
HOW HAVE YOU SEEN THE INDUSTRY CHANGE OVER THE LAST FEW YEARS? Oh my gosh, it’s been unbelievable. I’ve been looking at sustainable finance for almost twenty years and there’s probably been more change in the last year than the entire previous nineteen! And it’s hard to put a finger on what has caused that – I think part of it is probably increasing extreme weather events, I think that definitely has an impact. I think activists have really driven this up the agenda too – whether you’re Greta Thunberg
PROFESSIONAL INTERVIEW
or David Attenborough, there are many great people helping to bring this to people’s attention. I think generational change has also possibly helped. All of our kids, well my kids certainly, are the people in the house that come back and say “oh you can’t throw that away” or “you need to be more careful about the way you recycle” so I think that’s part of it too. But it’s very hard to tell for definite what’s driven the change – somehow it all seems to have come together. It’s great that it’s happened over the last year but it’s perhaps a little late. There’s no question this year that emissions will grow by about 5% against last year, and that’s the single biggest growth in emissions ever, other than in 2009 (emissions are highly correlated with economic growth). Last year there was a big decline because economies worldwide declined but as the economies come back that trend will be reversed. We’ve had governments and politicians talk about net zero, but all those pledges get you to a place in
2030 where emissions will be about 0.5 of a percentage point lower than where they were in 2010. If we were on a net zero pathway that number should be nearer 45%. So that’s depressing on the one hand, but it also means that there’s a lot of opportunity for positive surprises – and I think the momentum is there. While the politicians signing up to 2030 net zero don’t really change the pace, the implementation of that does. I think that’s a really exciting tailwind for the companies that we invest in and I think it gives us the potential to be cautiously optimistic that we are actually starting to move towards a more sustainable pathway.
HOW DO YOU SEE THE MARKET CHANGING IN THE FUTURE? I think that a lot of the answer to that is in my answer to the last question, but this will be a pivotal year because we have the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 26) in Glasgow in November and that’s going to be really important.
YOUR CAREER HAS BEEN FOCUSSED ON REDUCING THE CARBON FOOTPRINT OF HUGE INDUSTRIES AND ORGANISATIONS, BUT WHAT CAN WE DO AS INDIVIDUALS, ON A DAY-TO-DAY BASIS, TO HELP EFFECT CHANGE? There are lots of things, I guess I would point you to my book recommendation, as it’s worth looking at the carbon footprint of everything. We do that when we invest, for example when we look at investing in electric vehicles (EV) we look at the fact that to make an EV is about twice as carbon intensive than to make a combustion engine – but when you drive it you save emissions, and as the electricity grid gets greener you’ll save even more emissions. That’s why we feel very confident that the EV is actually having a positive impact, but it’s really important to look at the whole value chain, and that’s a big part of our process. We’re doing a lot of work at the moment on the decarbonisation of the food chain and again the answer isn’t perfectly simple – yes, we need to move more towards plant based and less meat, but different meats have different carbon footprints, different plant based alternatives have different impacts on biodiversity and water, so that sort of systems thinking is really important. It’s important to be careful of the source of your information gathering on subjects like this as well, as there will be people with vested interests. If your information on “EV’s are bad” comes from a refiner, they probably have a reason as to why they have that point of view!
Change is hardest at the beginning, messiest in the middle and best at the end Robin S. Sharma
PROFESSIONAL INTERVIEW
YOU’RE ON THE BOARD OF THE NON-PROFIT ORGANISATION “GIRLS WHO INVEST”, WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT TO YOU? HOW HAVE YOU SEEN THE INDUSTRY CHANGE, IN TERMS OF WOMEN IN INVESTMENT/ FINANCE, SINCE YOU FIRST JOINED THE INDUSTRY? It’s really important to me. The people who make decisions as to where capital is invested have an enormous impact, and as of today women are massively under-represented, particularly in the portfolio management/ investment decision-making side of the asset management industries. Women tend to be more in sales and marketing operations, and I think it’s really important to change that – to have a more diverse group of people making decisions as to where to allocate capital. That’s exactly the mission of Girls Who
Invest - to take that percentage of the world’s investable capital that is managed by women from single digits today to 30% by 2030. I really feel very strongly about mentoring and growing young women in the asset management industry, it’s an incredibly rewarding and interesting job, and is one that maybe isn’t high enough on the agenda for bright young women graduating and thinking about what they might want to do with their lives.
Vital Statistics... BORN: Limerick, Ireland LIVES: London FAMILY: Husband, three children and a dog FAVOURITE HOLIDAY: West Coast of Ireland HOBBIES: I like to paint - oils and acrylics. I really enjoy it and I paint with my kids. WHAT COULD YOU NOT LIVE WITHOUT? My family – including the dog (pre covid dog!)
"Try again, fail again, fail better." Samuel Beckett
PROFESSIONAL INTERVIEW DO YOU THINK THAT THOSE WOMEN KNOW HOW TO GET INTO THE INDUSTRY? THERE’S A LOT OF INFORMATION OUT THERE FOR HOW TO BECOME A LAWYER, AN ACCOUNTANT ETC BUT PERHAPS NOT ENOUGH ABOUT HOW TO GET INTO INVESTMENT? No probably not – we as an industry need to do more as I think finance in general is put into one category and there’s a big difference between the job that I started life in at Morgan Stanley and being an asset manager, particularly at somewhere like Ninety One. At Ninety One we look at long term fundamental based investing, so you really are spending time understanding companies, understanding management teams and their culture and then allocating capital. And that I think we would argue is the really rewarding part of the asset management industry. It’s important that we can communicate this to women, along with clear guidance as to how they can enter the industry.
IF YOU NEVER HAD TO WORK AGAIN WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH YOUR TIME? I really enjoy what I’m doing so I don’t want to stop working.
COULD YOU SHARE A FEW OF YOUR PROFESSIONAL/PERSONAL GOALS? Our mission, not just me but the entire team at Ninety One, is to allocate capital sustainably – the company’s slogan is “Investing for a better tomorrow”, but what that really means is that we want to allocate capital sustainably, allocate capital to those companies that we think are really investing not just for their financial shareholders but
for all stakeholders. Me particularly, I’ve clearly always been especially focused on climate. Where we are today is that the world is investing about $6-700bn a year in climate finance, that number needs to be $3-4tn. So, I would like to play, what would be an absolutely tiny part in that, but if I can play that tiny part then that’s absolutely worth doing. One of the things that we’re very conscious of at Ninety One is that the biggest gap, when it comes to capital allocation, isn’t in developed markets, it’s in emerging markets. So, one of the reasons I chose Ninety One is that it’s a firm that has a very different perspective on many things sustainable. As a firm born in an emerging market - South Africa, a market that has a lot of physical climate risk, a lot of transition risk (it’s a very coal-based economy) and it has significant social issues (e.g. high unemployment) - we’re very conscious of the fact that more than half of investment in climate finance has to go into emerging markets, because 90% of emissions growth comes from
those markets. Our mission is therefore to grow that kind of climate finance but we really want to focus on those countries where capital is most scarce.
IS THERE ANYTHING YOU DO OUTSIDE OF WORK THAT CONTRIBUTES TO YOUR OWN SENSE OF WELLBEING THAT YOU FEEL IS REALLY IMPORTANT? My painting – it’s great because it’s very mindful.
IF YOU HAD ONE THING FOR PEOPLE TO THINK ABOUT FOR HOW TO AFFECT CHANGE WHAT DO YOU THINK IT MIGHT BE? Don’t give up. Try again, fail again, fail better!
PROFESSIONAL INTERVIEW
WHAT IS YOUR CURRENT FAVOURITE BOOK? Mike Berners-Lee – How Bad are Bananas? The Carbon Footprint of Everything. It explains the carbon footprint of everything, and we use that detailed supply-chain carbon analysis in our process. It’s also interesting because it’s counter intuitive as to what is and isn’t sustainable. It is called How Bad are Bananas because people think bananas are terrible because they are transported – but because they’re shipped and not air freighted, and because they’re energy and nutrition intensive per unit, they’re actually good. We’ve worked with Mike Berners-Lee over the years in terms of foot printing and environmental analysis
AND FAVOURITE APP? Well, I’m going to have to promote my new most favourite app which is Onto, which is an electric car rental app in the UK. It’s absolutely fantastic – they’ll have an electric vehicle (EV) outside your door in a week, at a reasonable price (I have a Hyundai Ionic). It’s very reasonable and it comes on a one-month lease agreement, so if for example you’re away for a month and you’re not going to use it, you can give it back. It comes with your tax, insurance and charging all included and the app tells you where the nearest charging points are. I think it’s a very sustainable way to use cars – you lease it when you need it, and you give it back when you don’t need it.
All investments carry the risk of capital loss. Sustainable, impact or other sustainability focused portfolios consider specific factors related to their strategies in assessing and selecting investments. As a result, they will exclude certain industries and companies that do not meet their criteria. This may result in their portfolios being substantially different from broader benchmarks or investment universes, which could in turn result in relative investment performance deviating significantly from the performance of the broader market. This interview is being provided for informational purposes only. Circulation must be restricted accordingly. Nothing herein should be construed as investment advice, an offer to enter into any contract, a recommendation of any kind, a solicitation of clients, or an offer to invest in any particular fund, product, investment vehicle or derivative. Any decision to invest in the Fund should be made after speaking to your financial adviser and reviewing the full offering documentation, including the Prospectus, which sets out the fund specific risks. Fund prices and copies of the Prospectus, annual and semi-annual Report & Accounts, Instruments of Incorporation and the Key Investor Information Documents may be obtained from www.ninetyone.com.
Book review
Whilst the title of this book may very well have been a question that many of us probably asked as we opened the door of the fridge during lockdown – desperate for that piece of stilton or brie to provide solace from the stress of the pandemic…. NO this book is not about our search for actual cheese…. (as much as the Carrington team love it!). Who Moved My Cheese is a very short, simple and thought provoking story discussing change and how different people (or parts of us) react to it. The book promises to show you how to: anticipate change; adapt to change quickly; enjoy change; and be ready to change quickly, again and again - and we feel that, like a camembert baked with rosemary and garlic, it does not disappoint.
Who moved my cheese? by Dr Spencer Johnson
“Cheese” is a metaphor for what you’re striving for in life – it could be a career, money, a house in the South of France, that new Aston Martin Vantage F1, or a relationship/ love. We all have our own ideas about what our cheese is – and we can become fixated with getting that particular cheese, and once we attain it we can get complacent about its presence in our lives, and it can be truly devastating if it’s taken away. The story is set in a maze – another metaphor for where you’re searching for your cheese – it could be within the firm where you work, your family or community, or it could extend more widely to the world around you.
The characters in the story take the form of two mice – Sniff and Scurry, and two little people, Hem and Haw. Each of these characters represent parts of each of us (the mice representing the simple parts and the little people representing the complex parts), many of us having moments where we act like each of these characters. Sniff sniffs out change early, Scurry scurries into action the moment change is afoot, Hem denies and resists change as he fears that the only outcome from change will be negative, and Haw learns to adapt in time when he sees that change can often lead to something better.
The characters are living in “the maze” and various unexpected changes deprive them of cheese – so they need to change and adapt (or not as the case may be) in order to find new cheese. It talks about how the little people became comfortable when they found their cheese, taking it for granted and not really appreciating what they had… feeling a sense of entitlement over the cheese that they had – and when one day that cheese is taken away, they struggle to deal with the loss. It covers how their powerful human beliefs and emotions take over and cloud the way they look at things - making life in the maze more complicated and challenging generally, but particularly when faced with change. The mice, however, being simpler in their approach, burst into action the moment that their cheese is lost – who will find their new cheese the fastest? The story is simple but deals with some really important issues around how our brains deal with change, how we can overanalyse and get stuck in negative patterns, and how fear can affect our ability to move forward. It also suggests, in a rather endearing cheese-based way, some key learnings that we can use personally
in order to deal with change more positively. A few of our favourites are: WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU WEREN’T AFRAID? A challenging and powerful question to ask yourself at any point in life. And this gets covered well in the story, discussing how our fears can stop us moving forward at any point in life, but particularly after change arrives. It covers how moving out of our comfort zone can lead us to feel more in control of our situation and thus less stressed, rather than staying in a “cheese-less situation” and letting things happen to us. “When you move beyond your fear you feel free”. IMAGINING YOURSELF ENJOYING NEW CHEESE EVEN BEFORE YOU FIND IT LEADS YOU TO IT. VISUALISE YOUR NEW CHEESE! As many writers and psychologists speak about – the more powerful your visualisation of your new cheese (or dreams) the more likely you are to achieve them. So picturing yourself achieving your success, how it feels and what your life will look like, will help lead you to your goals. It will also make it much easier to take that first step towards your cheese.
SMELL YOUR CHEESE OFTEN SO YOU KNOW WHEN IT IS GETTING OLD. We can often get stuck in a rut. Because we’re in that “dream” job that we strived for ten years ago, or because we’re living in that house that we thought would bring us every happiness – we don’t look around us and assess whether we’re happy, or whether we’re taking what we have for granted. If we take time out to review where we are (and sniff (like the mouse) our cheese), we can identify areas where we’re no longer enjoying our cheese, where we feel that change might be needed or thrust upon us – and hunt out some new cheese! Or equally if we decide we are still blissfully happy with the cheese that we have it reaffirms the choices and the journey we’ve made to that point. MOVE WITH THE CHEESE AND ENJOY IT Should change come your way and move your cheese, head out in search of your new cheese. You might not even know what this cheese is right at this moment but the sooner you start your journey, making strides (or scurrying like the mouse) to venture out into the maze (or the world) the
sooner you will find your cheese. Once again, as is said by many a writer, the book talks about the fact that much of the enjoyment of searching out your cheese is in the journey, so take time to enjoy each step of your journey on your way to reaching your mountain of cheese. We’re pretty certain that anyone reading this book would be able to recognise parts of themselves in the characters, and that whether you’re going through significant change right now or not, you will take a lot from this book. Whilst simple and “cheesy” in its approach, it packs a lot of good advice and might just help you navigate your way through the maze and help you find that cheese that you’re searching for and, perhaps just as importantly, help you enjoy the search until you find it. Now where’s that fresh loaf and piece of brie we’ve been saving until we finished this review… We can’t find it... WHO MOVED OUR CHEESE?!?!?!
a day in the
life of
HEAD OF CLIENT EXPERIENCE
STAFF INTERVIEW
:
: Anytime from 6am but hopefully closer to 7am. One of the main changes I have experienced in the last three and half years is the fact that I no longer need an alarm clock! My husband and I take turns to get up with our son Finlay and so when it’s my turn, the day starts with Peppa Pig, Paw Patrol or possibly some videos of bin lorries on YouTube if we’re really lucky. When it’s not my turn, I spend 30 seconds thinking I should get up and go for a run, and then decide to have an extra half hour snooze instead. Although having Finlay has changed my life, it still hasn’t made me a morning person! Either way, the morning whizzes by until I drop Finlay at nursery and then I can stop being Mummy, and start being Carolyn.
For the last year, like most of us, I have been working at home which whist having its challenges, does give you the gift of time. Rather than rushing onto the train, I can come home, have some breakfast and start checking my e-mails and get set up for the day. This has been a welcome change and actually something I will miss when things go back to ‘normal’. We start most days with a team zoom catch up where we all go through our to do lists. This is another change that lockdown brought which I think is a really positive one. I certainly feel more in tune with everything happening in the office and what stages we are at with different clients or projects. As Head of Client Experience, I have many hats, but my main aim is to make sure that you
Bucket List
To stay in an over water villa in the Maldives with a slide into the ocean A balloon safari over the Serengeti
Have a holiday home somewhere hot
Drive an Aston Martin
Watch my husband watch Scotland win the Rugby World Cup
(our clients) feel supported, looked after, and confident in everything we do. Being informed is a huge part of this. One of the best bits of my job (aside from winding up Mike whenever possible) is that no one day is the same. I could spend the morning on a proposal for a new client, some follow up work for an existing client, or, and these are the best bits, working on projects to try and improve our processes and in turn, improve the client experience. Project work is where I aim to spend most of my time – we don’t want to sit on our laurels and so we’re always thinking of things we can change that would make the Carrington experience more positive or more useful. I know first hand that big life changes are made much easier to navigate if they are part of a bigger plan, and given planning is a huge part of our service, I want to constantly question our methods and implement changes where possible.
: During lockdown I completed the Couch to 5K challenge and this is something I try and build into at least 3 days of the week. I’ll choose a serial killer podcast (sorry - I wish I could say it was finance related but it’s a gory
Top 5 Facts
I once presented flowers to Harold Wilson
My parents were told by the producer of 'Yes Prime Minister' that I should be an actress after seeing my performance in a school play I’m a bit of a plane spotter I’ve been stung by a jellyfish – twice I got engaged over e-mail
STAFF INTERVIEW murder that gets me through the 5km) and head out for a run. Again, another change I couldn’t (or wouldn’t have done) pre lockdown. I come back and have a bit of lunch and then get ready for the afternoon.
: I tend to spend the afternoon doing more ‘usual’ client work. So, this could be setting up meetings for the advisers, working on a suitability report, doing some follow up work after a client meeting, or just replying to e-mails and ticking off the to do list. I manage a lot of the internal Carrington processes (the things you don’t see that mean the things you do see are excellent) and there is always work to do in those areas. This could be doing some internal training, updating approximately 5 million spreadsheets, checking processes are being followed and most importantly, making sure we don’t get into trouble with Nicola. I’ll always try to have a chat with a client most days too – that’s usually the best part of the day as we rarely talk much about finance – definitely one thing that hasn’t changed is my ability to talk!
: We pick Finlay up at about 5.30pm and generally spend the next hour and half in some form of negotiation. Whether it be about food, toys, bath, bedtime stories or going to bed! Whilst I used to finish work and look round the shops, meet friends for dinner or go to the gym, it's now all about getting the small person to sleep!
: I’m the chef in the house and so unless I want scrambled eggs or mashed potato (the two things Dave cooks – and very well I might add) then it's straight to the kitchen to make dinner. Being at home means if I’m feeling especially organised, I’ll prep dinner earlier in the day but most of the time it’s a ‘what can I cook in half an hour that’s delicious and nutritious’ situation.
: This is when I get my real work done – so making sure I’m up to date with Line of Duty, Keeping up with the Kardashians and all manner of other questionable box sets. Bad TV is how I wind down and if I’m not out seeing friends for dinner, this is where you will find me. That definitely hasn’t changed!
STAFF INTERVIEW
"The measure of intelligence is the ability to change." Albert Einstein
chAriTY With Covid dashing our plans for raising money for our chosen charity Full Circle Fund Therapies in 2020, we (meaning Nicola – we really shouldn’t let her loose with fundraising ideas…) set about finding another challenge for our team, clients and friends to take on, to raise much needed funds for this wonderful charity. With each of our team increasingly finding that getting out and about in nature and the fresh air helped them get through many of the challenges of the last 18 months, we felt that, once again, our challenge should be active in nature – to give us added impetus to getting ourselves off the sofa, lacing up our trainers, or pumping up our bicycle tyres.
So, with this in mind we signed up for the Hever Castle Festival of Endurance (how it can be called a Festival when it isn’t solely based around beer, music and food but rather blood, sweat and tears we don’t know – we will be lodging a complaint with the organisers!). The Carrington team, and some of our lovely clients, signed up for the cycling sportive, half ironman triathlon, marathon and even a 50-mile ultra-marathon (yes we know… we feel tired just thinking about this too!) and began training in earnest back in January. The months passed, many miles were covered on foot and on two wheels, and Mike even became a YouTube influencer (we might be exaggerating slightly) providing updates on his training sessions
for the sportive from the turbo trainer in his garage, and from the side of a hill (where we think he stole a 10% sign and stuck it in the background for effect). The weekend of the festival arrived and on the Saturday morning Mike, Al, James and Gordon (Nicola’s other half, well he was her other half until she roped him into all this) took part in the 90km sportive. Now this ride is HILLY, and even Mike’s fake 10% sign probably hadn’t prepared him for this – but all the riders dug deep, climbed up the Kent hills and scooted down the other side of them with glee and the odd hands-free selfie! Al decided that the distance just wasn’t enough for him and did some extra hills to
cement his prowess on a bike (what this ACTUALLY means is that he took a wrong turn and got lost – luckily for us his financial planning abilities far outweigh his navigational skills!). In the meantime, David and Neil were taking part in the 50-mile ultramarathon – they came 9th and 17th respectively, covering this whopping distance in impressive times. All competitors were welcomed back with a loud cheer (socially distanced so as to be Covid friendly), a welldeserved medal and a pint of beer (now THAT’s more like a Festival!). The Sunday morning saw Tommy take on his first marathon, attempting your first marathon on such a hilly and muddy course is a huge feat and we’re so proud of all the training that he did in the run up to the event! The marathon relay team took the slightly easier option of running 10.5km each to complete their marathon, whilst still a big challenge with each of the loops including the muddiest terrain any of them had ever encountered, it was perhaps more akin to an ice-skating rink at many points. Nicola, Sophia, Anne and Ali (who unfortunately wasn’t able to complete the half ironman that he was training for due to an incident involving an attempt at DIY, a chair
and a lack of balance two weeks before the event…) passed the baton superbly between them and finished the relay in first place! Okay, so they were the only relay team but HEY, we’re taking the win! And thanks to the cheers from our supporters who made the journey down on the day – you made us all feel like winners. What was even more impressive, and something we’re absolutely thrilled about is that we have managed to raise over £6,000 so far for this wonderful charity, who support very sick children and adults. If you haven’t made a donation yet and you would still like to, you can find our fundraising page here https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/ Carrington-Festival-of-Endurance. We, and the charity, very much appreciate the support shown by all of our wonderful clients, friends and family, thank you.
As you know we try and do something each year to support causes close to our hearts and so we’re sure next year will be no different. However, some of us are hoping that next year’s will involve beer, music and food...but if Nicola has something to say about it then probably not. Needless to say, you will of course all be welcome to join us in whatever challenge we take on – so watch this space!
CARRINGTON WEALTH MANAGEMENT
"The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new." Socrates
One Chapel Place • London • W1G 0BG t. 020 7078 4849
w. carringtonwm.co.uk
@CarringtonViews