"I left school at 16 without much idea of what came next. University was not an option for me, or even something I had considered.

"Prudential was relocating its pensions business to Reading and looking for people; so I applied for a job there on the advice of my mum. Prudential realised I was good at maths so sent me to work with 30 actuaries in its corporate pensions business. I had no idea what an actuary was, but really enjoyed the work and learning. 

"After three years I relocated to Bristol to do a workplace pensions consulting and sales role, which two years later evolved into a specialist executive pensions consulting role in Prudential’s south coast office. During this time I had started to do the Pensions Management Institute exams (PMI), but I was now working with lots of IFAs and decided this was the next step for me. I therefore switched to the IFA exams, which I completed. There was a lot about the IFA industry at the time that I did not respect so I decided, with the benefit of youthful confidence and naivety, to set up my own business and do it ‘the right way’. I was 23.

"I learned a lot over the next eight years and built a successful fee based IFA business in Bristol. But I was getting bored and needed another challenge; ideally one that presented me with more complex problems to solve. So I wrapped up my business and joined KPMG in 2001.

"My initial role was to provide regulated executive pensions advice, but I quickly did more and more around the emerging defined benefit funding crisis and switched to a full time workplace pensions advisory role in 2005. Around the same time I took over leadership of the Bristol pensions team; a role I loved and continued for another 16 years. Along the way I took a short sabbatical in 2016 to mark 30 years of working life and to ride my motorbike through Africa. 

"When I got back I retained most of my corporate advisory responsibilities, but also took on a wider HR consulting role for KPMG. This opened my eyes to the wider people agenda in businesses and gave me a different perspective on employee benefits. So when I transitioned to Isio in March 2020 I was pleased to take responsibility for establishing Isio’s Reward and Benefits business.

"As you can see, my career has taken a few twists and turns. I’ve followed my nose, focused on what I am good at, learned lots and had fun. Regrets? Nope; I work with lots of great people, I love my clients in all their diversity, and I’ve been able to be true to who I am and what matters to me along the way."