In this series, Professional Adviser speaks with graduates of The Verve Foundation’s Adviser Incubator education programme. Today, it’s IFA Toby Barklem speaking with Isabel Baxter…
What was your career history before you took part in the incubator programme?
Barklem started off in the British Army as his first career. He went to Sandhurst in 2006 and then was an officer in the Royal Artillery and latterly did six years in the military.
After that, he moved into financial services as an account manager at Standard Life.
"On that job I worked on workplace pensions and then some investment focus later on."
Barklem then went off on shared parental leave for his first daughter.
"I have three children. This was my first and I was thinking, ‘do I want to go back to Standard Life, or do I want a bigger challenge?'"
After that, Barklem became a business development director at Ruffer and set up a distribution team for it to approach the IFA market, which turned into the IFA and wholesale market. He worked there for six years.
After leaving Ruffer he set up his own financial planning firm, calling it Minos Wealth Planning.
"I had spoken and worked with about 400 senior people or founders of advice firms over the years; I thought I'd like to give it a go myself."
What initially attracted you to the incubator programme?
Barklem heard of The Verve Foundation's programme through a friend who is an adviser.
"I'd done my exams a long time previously to get to Chartered status but hadn't practiced and he said that Verve were doing great things, so I got in touch with Hayley."
In terms of what attracted him, Barklem knew he wanted to start a business.
"I've seen a lot of great financial planning firms over the years and knew what made for good advice," he explained. "I've worked in highly regulated firms. I've seen how you operate in a regulated environment and understand what that means."
"But I felt like there were lots of unknowns having not actually worked in an advice firm myself, so I went and worked in one for a bit and did the Adviser Incubator course. I felt like that was great preparation.
"I also really love the vision behind the incubator program. It's run by great people, full of ideas and energy and positivity. That's how I want to run my business and what the sector needs."
Why are small IFAs important in today's advice landscape?
"There are some great big firms and there are some great single person practices, but I think the ones that really inspired me were smaller," Barklem said.
"You can have processes and rigor, a nice culture, be very focused on your clients and what you do for them, and I think that's what people in the UK need. They need lots of beautiful local boutiques.
"I also think The Verve Foundation is helping to make sure that new people and new ideas have a chance to bring those to reality."
When considering the amount of consolidation that has taken place in the industry over the last few years, Barklem said that presents an opportunity for fresh thinking.
"I think more people will be attracted to smaller firms, especially the more you see issues around scale and consolidation start to crop up and become more widely known."
What was the biggest lesson you learnt from the incubator programme?
Barklem said that the "future is bright" for the financial advice sector.
"There's a lot of really impressive, enthusiastic, entrepreneurial people who want to start a business in the sector and they're doing it."
Where are you hoping a career in financial advice will take you in the future?
Barklem shared his ambitions for his firm going forward.
"In time, we'll be looking to train up advisers and expand," he explained. "I think we're doing something special, and we want to share that with more people."
"I want to provide an environment with high standards, full of nice people, that spends most of its time thinking about its clients and how to make them better off."
