We’re delighted to announce that our new Chartered Financial Planner, Russell Haworth, has joined us from Albert Goodman, an accountancy firm in the South West, where he worked as one of their senior consultants.

Russ almost fell into financial planning by accident when he was told by his parents in no uncertain terms that he must go and get a ‘proper job’, having returned from helping a mountain biking outfit in Lanzarote one summer.

So in 1999 off he went to join the training academy of administrators down in the basement at Friends Provident. Russ was there for five years and it turned out to be invaluable training as he was one of only four who set up their stakeholder offering. Given the subsequent changes in the marketplace this obviously proved most fortuitous!

It was this experience that made him realise he wanted to become a financial planner – and he had a nice briefcase from college which he wanted to make use of!

Russ began as an administrator before moving into a paraplanning role and quickly transitioned to be a financial planner within 18 months. He has since worked with national & regional accountancy firms in their financial planning teams.

He qualified in 2006 and achieved Chartered Financial Planner status in 2013. Russ and Huw actually met at their Chartered graduation ceremony, although as both are huge fans of the power of social media, they had ‘chatted’ on Twitter before that.

What Russ enjoys most about being a financial planner is that as he sees it, we’re only here once, so it is a great privilege to be able to make a real difference to people’s lives and help them achieve their dreams. His main specialisms are working with business owners, in particular making sure they are adequately protected, and working with those planning for retirement, at this incredibly life-changing stage.

On the move to Proposito, Russ has said he has been impressed to find a financial planning firm which really lives out the standards of BS 8577 and implements evidence-based investing. And the best bit so far? (now this may surprise you) – the weekly Monday morning team meeting! Russ finds it an excellent to way to keep track of everything that’s going on and keep up with colleagues.

Russ has a partner and two young daughters and lives in Taunton. He is known to do a bit of running and has already clocked the farm track and fields at the office for a bit of lunchtime exercise. He is also a member of the Table so gets involved in lots of charity events, such as the annual carol float, where he has often been found in an elf costume. He is evidently hoping for a promotion to Santa this year!