Another day, another Staff Spotlight to help you get to know a valued member of the RetireInvest team! Today, we’re speaking with Financial Adviser Ewan Duncan, learning more about his career to date, his favourite part of the job, and what makes RetireInvest such a great place to work.
The journey to RetireInvest
Ewan began his journey in the financial services industry as a specialist mortgage broker for bridging loans and development finance. However, the proudest moment of his career to date was being selected by RetireInvest as an adviser within our financial advisory team.
“ For both my clients and I, it is critical that we work with a firm that aligns with my core values and I truly believe that RetireInvest has a market-leading proposition, a friendly and efficient support framework and a family-orientated culture,” says Ewan. “The firm is happy to support and encourage my appetite for personal and professional growth; I am thrilled to call RetireInvest my new home.”
The best part of the job
Ewan’s enthusiasm for his role is evident in his approach to his work and his desire to deliver the very best outcomes for every client. He says, “I enjoy helping people understand and quantify their aspirations for the future. By taking a goal and framing it in a way that has a specific and measurable plan in place, I can assist people in achieving those goals and making their dreams a reality.”
Most financial advisers will have a success story that they fondly remember as a time where they were able to make a real difference to a client’s life. However, Ewan tells a tale that puts a different spin on the typical adviser success story. “Most people would argue that success is defined by your wins. However, I believe you should be equally judged by your losses. My favourite success story actually involves a purposeful and deliberate loss of business for myself for the benefit of my customer.”
He continues: “At the time, I was an annuity adviser and was working with a vulnerable client in her mid-80s. She had just lost her husband and had come into several large pension funds. Historically, her husband had handled the family’s financial affairs and she was very much out of her comfort zone. Paralysed by the fear of losing the pensions, she had elected to purchase an annuity. However, I knew that this would have ultimately meant that their other beneficiaries would lose out on the potential inheritance. Due to my role at the time, I was unable to advise her on what I thought was best, but felt an obligation to ensure that she was as informed as possible. I therefore referred her to the government’s ‘Pension Wise’ service and encouraged her to speak to a financial adviser. I was very pleased to part ways with her on the best of terms after hearing she was no longer interested in purchasing an annuity.”
Ewan’s biggest challenge
Although being a financial adviser can be extremely rewarding, there is a lot of responsibility attached to helping people manage their money. Ewan says that the biggest challenge he has had to overcome in his career is developing an in-depth understanding of the UK’s convoluted and overtly complex tax system – particularly when it comes to pensions. “Over the years, there have been many attempts to simplify the way pensions work, and to level the playing field,” he explains. “Unfortunately, what this has actually done is make pensions increasingly complex and harder to understand for the general public. One of my main objectives is to shelter my clients from these difficulties and to take an active role in deciphering information to make my clients’ journey as seamless and pain-free as possible.”
Describing RetireInvest
At RetireInvest, we always think that the best way to promote our firm is through the words of the advisers who work day in, day out with our client base and proposition. Here is how Ewan describes RetireInvest:
“Like all good advice firms, RetireInvest can offer low-cost and flexible solutions, and deliver customers a wide-reaching and well-considered planning service to ensure they are on track to meet their objectives. Beyond this, however, RetireInvest puts its clients at the heart of everything we do and operate with full transparency at every stage. Nowadays, it is very easy to find a highly skilled advice firm, as it would also be to find a cheap advice firm. But I firmly believe it would be hard to find a financial advisory firm that is both better and more cost-effective than RetireInvest, and I support them and their tenacious, customer-centric attitude all the way.
A bit more about Ewan
So, we now know all about Ewan’s journey as a Financial Adviser – but we always like to ask our interviewees some questions to get a better idea of their personality outside of work, too!
Before Ewan became an adviser, his childhood dream was to become a property developer – “probably inspired by a combination of Bob the Builder and Homes Under the Hammer!” Nowadays, he is happy advising property developers on their finances, instead.
If Ewan had a superpower, it would be the ability to see into the future – “more specifically tomorrow’s lottery results!” – and if he were a Mr Men character, he thinks he’d be Mr Cheerful, who is never without a smile even when it rains.