Simon and Cathal

Hi, I am Cathal, and this is my husband Simon, and we’ve been clients of Astute since 2014, so approaching 11 years.

How did you discover Astute?

What first brought me to Richard was the fact that I’d benefited from a significant inheritance. Between the two of us, we were searching for a financial adviser to give us some ideas about how we should invest the money. We searched the market and we spoke to a few other firms and individuals, and then we met Richard. That’s where the relationship started, the chemistry was good, and we thought, yeah, this is for us.

What do you do in your professional lives?

I spent 35 years in the corporate world, retail, most latterly as a Group Director of Communications. That required quite a bit of travelling, and for the latter 10 years, commuting from Liverpool all the way down to London. A fairly hefty commute, but a job I loved, and a job that I was able to retire early from at age 55.

I have a portfolio career now where I chair a couple of companies, one up in Scotland, one across in Manchester. I’m an independent trustee on another company out in Cheshire, and I run a small beekeeping company as well, which keeps bees on top of the Liver Building of all places, which keeps me and a neighbour of mine very busy during the downtime that we have. But it’s enjoyable and it’s exciting, and it provides a completely different level of activity and intensity to the work that I used to do. It’s a perfect next chapter.

I was in the legal industry for 25 years until last April, I decided that I needed a change of direction. I have now retrained as a solution focused hypnotherapist and psychotherapist, a bit of a difference in career!

How did Astute support your decision to change career paths?

The confidence I had in making that decision was the planning that had gone into the previous years with Astute. I’m not a planner per se, but that’s where Astute comes in to take that worry and pressure off, they do all the planning, and I knew I had the confidence and trust in them, and trust in myself to go ahead and make this jump.

How would you describe Astute?

I describe Astute as being very trustworthy, very reliable, and very consistent. There’s a human touch to Astute, which I think is a really important part of having a relationship with a financial firm. It’s not all about numbers, it’s about the people behind the numbers.

Would you recommend Astute to someone looking to change careers?

I would highly recommend Astute to anyone who’s deciding to change career or direction. Again, the advice that has been provided throughout, not just at the time of the change, but leading up to that and since has been nothing short of fantastic. So I would highly recommend.

Do Astute keep you well informed?

There’s regular contact from Astute via email through the quarterly newsletters, which are helpful. They’re not just pieces of black and white email, they’re also videos and very interactive pieces of communication that come out of Astute. All of that keeps us very well briefed on what’s happening in the financial world, and the areas that we might want to take particular note of when we have those discussions about what’s coming for the next 12 to 24 months.

How has working with Astute enabled you to change your lifestyle?

Because of the work that has been done before, since, and right up to this point, I’m now venturing into a career that I’m really looking forward to, which is purpose, but also I have control over. I’m not set by hours, I’m set by how many clients I can book in, and that’s a freedom which I’ve been thankfully allowed to have through great planning.

We now are able to use our time in a very different way to the way in which we used it when we were working full-full-time. Being able to spend time in Ireland and in the Cotswolds, and opportunity to spend time with family and friends around the UK, has been a huge opportunity for us that we’ve enjoyed. That freedom has been partly down to the planning that we’ve done with Astute.

Who would you recommend Astute to?

The sort of person that might benefit from Astute’s advice, I would say, is someone who is searching for a firm which is not huge, not big-big. One of the things that we found with Astute is that it’s very accessible. It’s very approachable, and the individuals are all very personable. Your questions get answered in everyday language, your planning is set out in a way which is very understandable. All of those things seem to work really well for what we are now experiencing from the service that we get from Astute. That means that we feel very secure with the decision we’ve made to stick with Astute.