Putting the compassion back into finance
“You can genuinely change someone’s life by listening to what they need and creating a solution for them.
What more could you want from a job?”
Interview: Sue Wilcock | Martine Silkstone
Pictures: Warren Page
Colin Low talks to Suffolk Director
When you think about financial services, you probably picture a business that is all about the numbers – and for many it is. But when Colin Low founded Kingsfleet in 2010, he wanted to do things differently. He wanted to build an independent financial planning consultancy that put people at the heart of its strategy.
He says: “Before setting up Kingsfleet, I worked in other financial firms and noticed too much focus was on profit, rather than offering value to their clients. So, I started with the vision of providing financial advice on an ethical basis.”
What does that mean?
“It means we want to make a difference, not just money. Yes, we recommend and advise on complex, regulated products, but our primary role is to understand people. We want to take the things they are looking to achieve, put those together with their finances and form a plan to help them get there.
“You can genuinely change someone’s life by listening to what they need and creating a solution for them. What more could you want from a job?”
Fifteen years later, this deceptively simple strategy has seen Kingsfleet grow to employ a team of 12 and work with a wide range of people across Suffolk – from business owners looking to retire, to individuals going through a major life event.
Now based in Claydon, Colin has reinforced the principles that led to that success, by implementing the Entrepreneurial Operating System and formally establishing core values for the company (more on that later).
All of which is clearly working.
Together, he and the team have received several prestigious accolades and accreditations over the years, including both national honours and recent wins for Best Small Business and Customer Excellence at the Suffolk Business Awards.
Reflecting on these achievements, Colin is reluctant to say he is proud – in his eyes that comes before a fall – but instead says he gains genuine satisfaction from the positive impact they have on the wellbeing of each client.
“For me, it’s all about community,” he explains.
“Since our inception, we’ve always pushed ourselves to do business in the right way, and the awards reinforce our commitment to integrity and quality.
“Yes, it’s great to see the business grow, but it’s the difference you make in people’s lives that really matters. It’s people and their finances being changed one family at a time.”
Where it all began
Colin was born in Bangor, Northern Ireland, in 1968.
His dad worked for a fertiliser firm in Belfast, and he describes his mum as the classic homemaker.
At the age of two, Colin gained a younger brother, but soon ‘The Troubles’ made life difficult across the region and, though the family had been in Ireland for generations, they started to think about moving away. When his father was offered a job at Fisons in Felixstowe, it seemed like perfect timing, so they loaded everything into their small Singer Chamois and drove down the middle of England to a new coastal home in Suffolk.
There, Colin enjoyed a happy childhood – having fun on the beach, climbing trees and playing football.
“Home was always busy with lots of people around and my dad was brilliant at making conversation with anyone,” he recalls, fondly. “Coming from Northern Ireland, my parents brought a real sense of hospitality with them; I think that’s baked into me in a way.”
When it came time for school, he was enrolled at the nearby Kingsfleet Primary (after which the business is named). A good student, he says that academic subjects always came rather easily to him within the classroom, and as a result he would occasionally get into trouble for chatting, because he had finished his work early. Of course, maths was his favourite lesson as he enjoyed the challenge of working through a problem to find the right answer – something that has stayed with him, it seems. Perhaps unsurprisingly, by the time he took his O levels at Deben High School, Colin was already considering a career in finance, so he secured work experience at the Halifax Building Society to find out if it was truly for him. He enjoyed it so much, it made the decision clear.
“It was incredibly varied,” he remembers, “and I spent a lot of time with the manager, the late Barry Curtis. He was brilliant – a proper, old-fashioned, engaged-in-the-community type of manager. He knew every family in the town and for him, it was all about looking after the people who were providing his business income.
“That’s where it all started for me, really. What I learned there still shapes what we do today.”
Colin went on to study economics, maths and general studies at A level and, during that time, he became manager of the official ‘school bank’, running savings accounts for fellow pupils – and he loved it. Alongside school, he started a part-time job at Tesco where he learned how to engage with people of different ages and backgrounds. He says that his time there was an important education in how to deal with the public, although, given his social Irish heritage, interacting with people was something he was clearly quite good at already.
So, what’s the secret?
“Listening,” says Colin. “When you talk to someone, don’t make it about you, always focus on the other person and ask them questions. After all, one of the most amazing things about meeting new people is hearing their life stories.”
New beginnings
In 1986, Colin turned 18 years old and, having ruled out university, he was finally ready to start his full-time career in finance.
After applying to all the high street banks, he secured his first role at NatWest in Ipswich. Unfortunately, the work was computer-based and, finding himself bored, he was soon looking for a new job.
Meanwhile, the family moved to Elmswell, near Bury St Edmunds, when his father was offered the position of pastor at a nearby church. Having been raised in a Baptist household, Colin is, to this day, a man of faith and he says the example set by his parents through their hospitality, showed him the importance of living the principles of that faith every day.
“Faith can’t be a theory, it has to be lived out in everything we do,” he states with passion.
Now living in Elmswell, Colin began a new role at Barclays Bank in Stowmarket where he was finally dealing directly with customers – going back to his happy place – and where his conscientious attitude quickly saw him promoted to Personal Banker at the branch.
Then one day a customer walked in and changed his life forever.
The young lady wanted to withdraw some money to buy a car and, as Colin was also looking for a new car having recently written his off in a crash, they enjoyed some flirty chat around the various merits of buying a Ford Escort. The rest, as they say, is history.
The customer was Melonie and seven months later, on Boxing Day 1989, she and Colin became engaged. They married at Battisford Free Church in March 1991, before moving into their first home in Stowmarket, where Colin discovered that DIY was not one of his many talents! Nevertheless, they were happy.
“We have virtually nothing in common,” Colin smiles, “but we get on brilliantly. She makes me laugh more than anybody on the planet.”
Settling into married life, the next few years saw the couple move to Little Blakenham and Colin move jobs to the Woolwich Building Society, where he was now working in a regulated environment for the first time.
In December 1996, they welcomed their first son, Euan, and less than two years and a move to Bramford later, they also welcomed a daughter, Kezia. Their son, Niall, arrived in 2006 to complete their family unit.
During that time, as things were evolving at work and home, Colin continued to study and pass important exams. In fact, having found a subject he was truly interested in, he carried on learning throughout his career, even though with a young family it took discipline.
So, how did he manage it?
“As with anything, you have to have a plan and set clear goals,” he explains. “I found that I could put the kids to bed then get the books out, so I did quite a lot of studying when they were really young. It was a case of going step by step and I recorded everything to show I was making progress.
“We’re often deterred by the gap from where we are now to where we want to be, and we forget that it doesn’t have to all be done in one go,” he adds.
Moving on
In 2000, Colin became an independent financial adviser at the Halifax – going back to the place where his love of the sector had truly begun all those years before.
Working in this new specialist role, he was out visiting clients and offering advice on areas like estate planning and inheritance tax, this time with a wider range of products in his portfolio. It was the job he had always wanted, and he was working for an organisation that valued customer service, putting the focus on doing what’s best for the client and checking in each year to ensure they still had the right strategy for their circumstances.
For Colin, it was a perfect fit – but it wasn’t to last.
By the end of 2000 he had been made redundant.
Then, Colin took a job as a broker consultant for Royal and Sun Alliance, but within two years he was made redundant again. He went to Skandia/Old Mutual for six years before briefly moving to a business in Ipswich, where he soon found himself frustrated by his work environment and looking for alternatives.
By this time, he was on the verge of becoming Chartered – the gold standard of financial planning – and was a seasoned professional in his field.
So, why not go it alone?
Starting Kingsfleet
Comfortable with the experience he had built so far, but with no idea how to start a business, Colin decided it was time to design a financial planning consultancy that put people first; one that was grounded in the community and prioritised education. So, with help from an old colleague, Colin set up an office in Dedham and in 2010, Kingsfleet was born – named after both his primary school and a geographical feature of Suffolk in a fitting nod to his vision for the company.
From the start, Colin wanted to ensure they were always working with integrity – putting people before profit – and as a business strategy it worked surprisingly well.
The business quickly took off and Colin says they were “privileged” to be self-sustaining within the first few months. By 2014, that success led to a need for more space and Kingsfleet moved to new offices in Claydon, where the next few years were spent building the portfolio of clients and growing the team.
An additional core value from the outset was a focus on professional learning and development, and throughout this time, Colin was still studying. He completed a master’s degree in financial planning and business management in 2013, which was a major achievement but something he describes as the most stressful thing he has ever done.
It was a period of growth all round and life was good.
He had just begun the application to become a B-Corp (part of a global community of organisations determined to use business as a force for good), when the Covid 19 pandemic put everything on hold.
But lockdown was to prove an important time for Kingsfleet.
The benefits of downtime
In early 2020, Colin was in America at a conference for Christian financial professionals. While there, he met an adviser from Florida called Don, who introduced him to the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) and the work of Gino Wickman, its creator. Don explained that EOS provides a framework of simple concepts and practical tools that help organisations clarify their vision and achieve their goals.
For Colin, it was a lightbulb moment on his business journey.
“Don told me that the system was great for someone who has started a business but is finding it hard to let go of everything,” he explains. “I was nearly 10 years into Kingsfleet and thought: that’s absolutely me!”
Returning from America that February, Colin experienced his worst month of business to date due to Covid. It was clear something had to change. It was time to implement the strategies outlined in Gino Wickman’s system.
First, he had to set out the basic objective and values for Kingsfleet moving forward. The objective was to provide a financial service that wasn’t just about making people richer, but which also made a difference in the community, and the company’s five core values were formally recognised – to be virtuous, knowledgeable, dependable, compassionate and meritocratic.
Five years later, Colin says they are still only scratching the surface with EOS, but that it has already fundamentally changed how the business functions. Indeed, he is also a fan of Wickman’s book, ‘Rocket Fuel’, which outlines the principle that each business should have two key leaders – a visionary and an integrator. The visionary has all the big ideas for growth and expansion, and the integrator provides a sanity check and ensures that any new proposals can be successfully implemented.
So, which is Colin?
“I’m probably more of a visionary, though that sounds a little bit grand,” he says modestly. “Fortunately, my team act as the integrators and will challenge me where needed.
“I think that’s the key to success – to have different people adding different strengths. That’s how you get a really powerful business.”
Grief and growth
By 2022, things were looking up.
The business now had solid foundations and a clear direction thanks to the implementation of the EOS, and the world was starting to recover from the pandemic. Within the team, administrator Lou and newly qualified IFA Gary, had recently got married and were looking forward to a bright future together.
Then tragedy struck.
In April, Gary died suddenly from an undiagnosed heart condition and the whole team was devastated. Colin, as director, had to step up to guide them through it.
How do you deal with something like that?
“We sat with the staff and talked about what had happened and asked what help they needed to process the situation,” Colin remembers. “There were some things that we did well, and other things we need to work on. But it’s all part of looking after people. We want to make life easier for our employees and ensure that their time at work is an enjoyable one.”
That ethos has led to numerous awards and accreditations over the years, and Kingsfleet finally became a Certified B Corp in 2022 (after a short delay caused by Covid).
So, what’s next?
“I want to see our values deeply embedded in our culture so that when I eventually step back, they remain at the heart of Kingsfleet. And more personally, I’m looking after my bee hives and we’ve just got a dog, Orla, who is lovely, but still needs training!
“Apart from that, I’m content and I’m blessed with a healthy family, lovely clients and fulfilling work. Yes, it’s okay to have ideas for the future, but I think it’s important to be happy where you are right now – and I am.”
