Happy Retirement Chris!
After the announcement of Foresight’s investment into Five Wealth we also want to let everyone know that Chris Little, one of the founding directors of Five Wealth has now retired after a long and extremely successful career in financial services. He asked us to pass on these words and we all wish him the best in retirement. If anyone would like to get in touch with Chris please let us know.
Not sure where to start with this one but ,in short, the time has come for me to fully retire from Five Wealth. It is a strange feeling .
I entered Financial Services over 40 years ago having graduated from Liverpool University with a degree in philosophy. Such a degree was very useful preparation for the Financial Services sector as the likes of Plato and Socrates had such strong views on, for example, pension planning and passive versus active investment management. Other philosophers, like Kant and Wittgenstein, also had strong views, but no one had a clue what they were going on about.
Office life was a bit of a shock, firstly, as it did not run on student time. A wool suit and no air conditioning was also uncomfortable. I recall that permission from the chief clerk was required in order to go jacketless, whereas no permission was required to light up a cigarette, which the majority of the office did on a regular basis. It was the time of Luncheon Vouchers, which I always found baffling. I also remember lots of shorthand going on and cupboards full of Tipp-ex, re stocked on a weekly basis. Yes, the combined aroma of cigarette smoke and Tippex will live with me forever.
So many changes in day to day activities over the years and many of you will have lived through something similar, if not the same. However, there are also constants and the two that stand out for me are the relationships with clients and with colleagues. Over the years, I have lost count of the times we have been told that our way of handling such relationships will have to change or we will become dinosaurs. We never believed this and always worked to ensure that we offered good quality service and support to clients and an attractive and stimulating work environment for colleagues. This has been very successful. I am sure that further change will happen, it is inevitable, but I still believe that our relationship with clients and colleagues will be central to what we do.
Five wealth has been a wonderful experience and I really would like to acknowledge and thank the team, especially in the way I was supported by them through my illness. A similar level of thanks must also go to clients who had the patience to stick with us whilst a new member of the team was introduced to replace me. Thank you all .
I wish you all the best in the future, hope that your investments do well and that the politicians stop being so short term in their actions which impact on personal financial planning.
Kind regards
Chris.