Hoxton Life

Becoming a Trainee Wealth Manager at Hoxton Wealth - From the UK to Dubai

• Hoxton Wealth • Season 1

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Becoming a Trainee Wealth Manager at Hoxton Wealth

Host: Sam Oakes, Head of Creative at Hoxton Wealth
Guest: Joe Cookney, Trainee Wealth Manager at Hoxton Wealth, Dubai

In this episode of Hoxton Life, Sam Oakes sits down with Joe Cookney, a trainee wealth manager, who shares his journey from Hoxton’s UK office to Dubai. Joe offers insights into Hoxton’s structured pathway for trainee financial planners, highlighting hands-on experience, mentorship, and Hoxton’s innovative app that simplifies retirement planning for clients.

Key Highlights:

  • Early Career Path: Joe discusses how his interest in financial planning shaped his educational and career choices, leading him to Hoxton.
  • Learning by Doing: Hoxton prioritises real-world training, where trainees engage directly with clients to build relationship skills and industry expertise.
  • Tech-Driven Financial Planning: Hoxton’s app enables clients and advisers to monitor financial goals and understand retirement needs.
  • International Experience: Joe discusses the opportunities of working in multi-jurisdictional financial planning, serving clients across the UK, US, and beyond.
  • Supportive Culture and Career Growth: A blend of mentorship, performance-related pay, and a collaborative team environment at Hoxton fosters growth and success.

Tune in to this episode to learn more about starting a career with Hoxton Wealth! Ready to begin your journey? Apply now for the Trainee Wealth Manager role and join a team dedicated to your professional growth.

Ready to start your international financial planning career?

Hoxton Wealth is looking for ambitious individuals ready to take their careers to the next level. Whether you're interested in international financial planning, compliance, client servicing, or marketing roles within the financial sector, we offer unparalleled opportunities for growth and success.

Don’t miss a beat! Subscribe to our YouTube channel to watch full podcast episodes featuring insights from those that work for Hoxton and some of our special guests and partners. Stay connected by following us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and X for more exclusive content.

Curious about our career opportunities? Visit our website to explore open positions and learn more about joining the Hoxton Wealth team. Your journey in international financial planning starts here!

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Speaker 1:

I think it's the ability to genuinely help people.

Speaker 2:

What is this career? Maybe I want to do it as well.

Speaker 1:

This is how it's going to last. This is how it's going to work. It just takes away the pressure and then from there we're with them every step of the way until they become a client. Everyone wants to help each other. You can go and talk to anyone about anything and they will always want to help you.

Speaker 2:

So there are some hurdles to go through. There's some learning to be done.

Speaker 1:

What are they saying? How are they so successful? What are they doing that I'm not doing? To then improve myself?

Speaker 2:

I love it. I love what you picked out there is this.

Speaker 1:

You have the opportunity to go anywhere in this job. We all work hard to develop each other, but also have fun at the same time.

Speaker 2:

And the more you do it, the more you learn on the job.

Speaker 1:

Once I've done the qualifications, we'll see if I'm ready.

Speaker 2:

I think that's really really important.

Speaker 1:

Study and work as well is good.

Speaker 2:

Because nothing teaches you quicker than failure. Joseph, thanks so much for joining us today on Hoxton Life, the podcast dedicated to international financial planning, specifically Hoxton Wealth. This is our in-house podcast and today it's all about educating our listeners on what it takes to be an international financial planner or somebody that works within an international financial planning company. So thank you so much for joining us today. Well, first off, what do you think of the sofa Comfy, yeah, nice yeah.

Speaker 1:

Nice view as well.

Speaker 2:

Do you reckon, someone lives up here?

Speaker 1:

Well, there is a kitchen over there, so maybe don't say that it's making like some high-end studio that we're in here.

Speaker 2:

I know it's like a. It's a podcast studio. So you've got all these different settings so you can set up all different scenes and everything, which I think is kind of quite cool. Um, funny enough, you've actually got a potential podcast studio for hoxton in development as well, so that would be quite exciting and a creative space where I could grab you at any time and say, come in here, I'm going to take some videos give me a quick break from work.

Speaker 2:

Give you a quick break from work because obviously you're working very hard at hoxton, always, always, head down. So today let's talk about your hoxton life. Let's talk about your journey, right um, you're over in dubai, that's why we're here. You're working here. Did your career at hoxton start in dubai?

Speaker 1:

no, no, I started off in the uk office, um, I was there for six months, um, during my sort of probation period. Once I got through that sort of first six months where I proved myself, they've brought me out here oh, fantastic.

Speaker 2:

So tell us a little bit about the journey leading up to working for Hoxton in the UK in their St Albans office. Okay, so did you have dreams and aspirations when you were in school to become working in a financial planning company? What was your journey?

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So after GCSEs I went into A-level and I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to study banking and finance, which is a little bit different compared to most A-levels anyway. So, that being said, it was one of my better subjects and it's something I sort of understood. So from there I had an idea that this is the space I wanted to go into. I then spoke to my grandparents who had financial planners, and from there I had sort of interviewed to get some careers advice and sort of see you know how I can get into this space, and from there I decided to end up going to university to sort of explore and expand my where I could potentially lead to in the future, and from there it brought me back towards the financial planning sector and this is the area I decided to go into.

Speaker 2:

Great. So quite early on in your journey, even influenced your educational path, that you went down on financial planning was something that was key. It's amazing how one conversation with somebody who does a job can actually inspire you, and that was the whole point of my podcast. The Financial Plan of Life was having careers-based conversations, because no one was really talking about the financial planning career and we had a distinct lack of young people coming in, an average age of an advisor being 55 years old and obviously an advice gap. So for me, it's all about getting those conversations going and I think it's brilliant that financial planners do take time out to talk to youngsters. Bobby came in, didn't he? Into our jack's brother and at 16 years old, doing some work experience in dubai. I thought that was amazing. I put a post out on linkedin.

Speaker 1:

It pretty much went viral he's on the news as well, wasn't he?

Speaker 2:

yeah, well, the ft reached out to me and said can we get him in the ft? I was like that's brilliant. So we got him in the ft. Nice bit of publicity for hogston wealth as well. He went to london, sat down at an interview and for him, at 16 years old, to have that exposure on linkedin, to have all the financial planners saying go for it, it's a great career, and to then be interviewed by the ft, surely that's given him some huge confidence that he's probably on the right pathway and it also gives confidence to other young individuals that, oh, at 16 years old he's showing an interest in it. What is this career? Maybe I want to do it as well. Can I just ask you a question? What is it about financial planning? What is it about the financial planning profession that interests you the most?

Speaker 1:

I think it's the ability to genuinely help people. So, from someone that is in a situation they don't know what to do, they could be much worse off. If they just have one conversation, they understand what they can do. The path of their retirement could be completely different. So the ability to help people and just sort of problem solving, I think that's what I like to do. So that's the sort of reason why I wanted to go into this space.

Speaker 2:

Do you feel also that there is a connection to overall well-being when we have our financial affairs in place?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think it takes the pressure off, especially if you understand, if you can clearly, visibly see that you're able to fund your retirement, like using our app. You can clearly see that it says this is how it's going to last, this is how it's going to work. It just takes away the pressure. You can visibly see what what you're doing you've got it in your pocket it's brilliant you just talked about the app then.

Speaker 2:

So, coming into a business you're a you know, you're of a younger generation when it comes to trainee financial planner and we'll get on your little pathway in a minute but coming into a business that's actually invested in developing an app, how do you feel about that?

Speaker 1:

I think it's, um, I mean, it's the future, isn't it? That's what it is, um. I've sent it to all my friends. They seem to like it. So I mean it's not as maybe relevant for us now with the wealth flow paying for retirement, but even then they can see and they're able to potentially budget better and for their future it will always help.

Speaker 2:

What I like about the app, though, and you say it may not be relevant, but it is teaching individuals about how much money do I need to retire, how much compound interest can I get off the things that I have to achieve a date of retirement. So it gets people thinking about retirement being like not a point in time that you could get to where you could be financially secure. I think the term retirement is a bit old school. I think it's like when can I reach financial freedom? Yeah, I think often like okay, but what's associated to financial freedom? It might be that you travel the world, it might be that you go and become a golf expert. You know it could be anything, couldn't it?

Speaker 2:

And retirement isn't, you know, being gray-haired in your slippers, sitting there watching richard and judy. Uh, every day it's doing the things that you love and doing the things that you want to do and having that connection to it. So if we can kind of bring that in through the app to people of your age and your friends who are using it and saying it's interesting, I think we're in the we're on the right pathway here. Yeah, we're on the right pathway. Talking about the pathway, yeah, hoxton has a pathway for trainee financial planners, and that's what you're on right yes, correct, trainee wealth manager pathway trainee wealth manager pathway.

Speaker 2:

Just explain what that is for anybody that's thinking about becoming a trainee wealth manager yeah.

Speaker 1:

So it's a clear progression um from a business development manager to become a pathway advisor, um learn the ropes and then fully step up as an advisor. That's fantastic.

Speaker 2:

So tell us a little bit, break it down your journey. We want to hear about what you've been doing in these roles and how long have you now been working for Hoxton Wealth? Coming up to a year now. Coming up to a year. So it'd be really interesting for somebody who, like you, hasn't had any experience within financial planning and is actually getting stuck in to becoming hopefully, in the long run, is your goal a financial planner. That's correct, fantastic. So there are some hurdles to go through. There's some learning to be done. Just because you've got the qualifications doesn't make you a financial planner. We hear that all the time. There's a lot of experience required, a lot of skills gained, the knowledge built. There's a lot of experience required, a lot of skills gained, the knowledge built. Let's start first of all, with your time in St Albans. Ok, because you spent six months in St Albans. Talk us through the first couple of months, though. What did they get you doing?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so first of all, there's a lot of training involved with the company and what we do, so the different types of structures that are available in different jurisdictions, understanding the difference between who they're associated with and what situations that they may be helpful for. So we're just understanding people's situations and what could potentially be the solution in the future and again, it's just really understanding how we can help people. And again, it's just really understanding you know how we can help people. So listening to other people's calls, understanding you know how they're speaking to people, understanding how they're developing relationships, how they're really speaking to them, understanding their situation, which is key because we can't help everyone but to know that which situations we can help with and then knowing which advisor maybe is best suited to their situation.

Speaker 1:

So maybe, thinking oscar, or luke or declan, maybe just thinking you know who would this person suit and just sort of understanding the with the company, what we do um, what's available and how we can help people I love it.

Speaker 2:

I love what you picked out. There is listen. We've got two of these. I mean one of these, use these. I think listening is one of the most powerful things you can do when you enter into any new job Okay, I think in any walks of life, listening is the most powerful thing you can do. I think shutting up and just listening to what's going on, you pick up so much information and you can retain that information and use it again in the future. So when you're saying like listening, were you listening to calls that were recorded? Were you listening in to, say, other business developers within the business? Tell us a little bit about that experience of learning on the job and listening and understanding the processes that people are going through.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so a little bit of both. Um, listening to people around you is always helpful, um, and different business development managers focus on different areas, so they maybe understand the australia side of things more. So I might understand the us side of things more, and it's just sort of gauging what they're speaking about, how they're discussing it with them, what are they saying, how are they so successful? What are they doing that that I'm not doing to then improve myself fantastic.

Speaker 2:

So you did a lot of listening, a lot of observation, a lot of side by side, and it sounds like you've got some really great mentors in there as well that you can bank ideas off of and all that typical type of thing.

Speaker 2:

But there comes a time in every financial planner's life where you've got to do a bit of prospecting. So you've got to pick up that telephone, maybe you've got to book an appointment with somebody and you've got to have that conversation with them to unearth an opportunity to see whether or not there is something that we can do for them that's going to give them financial well-being and hopefully put them in a great place for their financial future. So that's your motivator. Yeah, now we have an amazing marketing team. I've just interviewed alan and we talked about the fantastic leads that we're bringing into the business to ensure that none of our business developers are doing anything silly like cold calling.

Speaker 1:

So tell us a little bit about what you do as a business developer to generate opportunities for financial planners so when we first reach out, it's first of all introducing ourselves, you know, establishing a relationship, um, you know explaining what I do, what the purpose of the call is, and just sort of asking questions and just sort of seeing you know what inspired their interest in the campaign, what is their current situation, you know, have you looked into this before? And it's just sort of starting to build off that relationship, that first sort of stage, and understand, you know, really understand their situation and to be able to then potentially organise a call with the person that's best suited to that situation. And then from there we're with them every step of the way until they become a client, if it leads to that, and we're just a first point of contact.

Speaker 1:

So, if they ever need to speak to anyone at Hoxton, they can always just reach out to us.

Speaker 2:

Brilliant. So within that business development manager role, not only are you turning stones over and creating opportunities for a financial planning conversation and need, you're also building out your client relationship management skills as well.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, exactly so constantly having conversations, liaising with the advisors, asking them what sort of process you're going to go through, what do you think is best suited for this situation, so I can learn as well? Um, and just address, you know, any concerns. Just be there for the client if they, if they, need to have a conversation great stuff.

Speaker 2:

So let's just kind of talk about we're an international financial planning business. For those that don't know, you know if you come into hoxton, we are international. Therefore we have um, we're multi-jurisdiction. So whether it's the uk, whether it's the usa, australia, south africa, uh, europe, yeah, yeah, I've met some of the girls that are over in india as well. I think we have a an ability to offer advice internationally for expats, of course. You know that's one of our bread and butter. So when you came in and you looked at financial planning obviously you've spoken to your grandparents financial advisor. That was uk. What was your first take on international? You kind of like a little like wow, like what drew you into it?

Speaker 1:

well, I always thought, uh, whilst I was at university, but why would you just limit yourself to one place? You have the opportunity to go anywhere in this job. You can give advice US, australia, the world's your oyster but you can still help with the UK market. The UK market can still help people in that space, but you can also have the opportunity to then help people with assets in different places and fully service them.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, I think it's a great explanation, explanation. I think there was becoming a very small place and I think, like me, you saw the opportunity within hoxton wealth. I wish I when I was your age, I was working for hoxton wealth honestly like such a huge opportunity here for somebody to get into the financial planning profession. What I love is that it's not about right, you're an administrator and now you're a power planner and then one day you become a financial planner. What Hoxton do is that you turn it on its head, which I think is the right way to do it. It's putting somebody in a situation where you're going to be talking to clients because this is a relationship building game.

Speaker 2:

No one gives you a book right on how to be a relationship manager. The only way you learn how to be a relationship manager is by picking up the telephone, getting on with it right, getting onto a video call, getting yourself out, maybe to networking events as the confidence starts to build. Face-to-face contact's powerful telephone's, you know, powerful sending a message on linkedin's powerful. We have so many multiple ways to communicate, don't we? Yeah, and I love the way that, early on in the process, hoxton value the prospecting, the relationship building and the intercommunication within the business. So you're learning by doing and then you're learning from mentors. So so important to accelerate your growth as quickly as you possibly can and let's look at the qualification side of things.

Speaker 2:

Are you now studying towards any qualifications? When did you start looking at qualifications?

Speaker 1:

tell us a little bit about that yeah, so um my next exam, my first exam, is next week, so yeah, good luck that's scary.

Speaker 1:

But um, yeah, I've started my level four uk qualification. Um, my plan is to get that done, then focus on my us series 65 qualification and then see where I am once that's done. You know I'm still young, you know I'm not in a rush to step up straight away as soon as possible. But once I've done the qualifications we'll see if I'm ready. If not, I'll carry on in this role and step up when, when I feel I'm ready to do so.

Speaker 2:

I see it's a good. It's a good outlook, right, you know there's no rush. Is there to? You know? Do you feel under pressure at all to become a financial planner and anything like that?

Speaker 1:

no, I wouldn't say so. No, um, the ability to to study and work as well is is good. You know, you're not just when you're. University is full studies, yeah, um, but being able to work and study, I quite like the to balance. It's um, it's a challenge, it's good let me ask you a question.

Speaker 2:

If there was an apprenticeship at hoxton, yeah right, and you were 18, so what's that? A levels? Uh, just finished. Just finished a levels before you went to university and they turned around and said like you can come and join hoxton, help doing the role that you're doing right now, which is business development, and we put you for your financial planning qualifications. Would you have said yes or would you have said no?

Speaker 1:

I think I would have said no at the time because I wanted to use university to explore other options. So I studied banking and finance. I used. I knew I had an idea that this was the area I wanted to go in, but I wanted to know for sure. So by by doing the courses and looking at all the other options, I then knew 100 percent for certain this is the area I would have wanted to go into. And then by the time I finished the course I probably would have gone back and thought why don't I just take it then?

Speaker 2:

Sometimes you have to, you have to find your pathway, don't you? Yeah, exactly, you know you have to find it. You have to, you have to find it. You have to. You have to go and explore some, some areas, because one day you might look and go I wish, I wish I went to uni. Yeah, so at least you've had the experience of university as well. Did the university? I never went to university. Did university give you the life skills and did it teach you much? Obviously the banking, finance side of it? You saw a plethora of different yeah areas of finance.

Speaker 2:

So it gave you an idea of pretty much where you wanted to to base your skills, but anything else from university that added a real value to you yeah, I'd say moving out living on my own sort of growing up.

Speaker 1:

So that's the main sort of things, um. But yeah, it's also that experience gave me a lot of confidence to also just move country as well. Yeah, because I've moved cities but I haven't moved countries, so I'd sort of done it on a smaller scale, but now this moving out here is a bit bigger.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, gotcha. Well, you're very brave to move out to Dubai. How old are you now? I'm 23. 23,. Very brave to move out to Dubai at 23 years old. I certainly didn't do that at 23, although I was travelling quite a bit at 23. I was travelling around Southeast Asia, australia and stuff like that, having a good time, but very inspired by your journey in that respect now let's talk about leadership.

Speaker 1:

What do you think of the leadership at hoxton? Yeah, it's good. Um, everyone wants to help each other. You can go and talk to anyone about anything and they will always want to help you, and that's what. That's what's really nice about the company. You can just go and go and speak to anyone.

Speaker 2:

Everyone's friendly, everyone wants to learn, everyone wants to grow and it's quite a nice way we all motivate each other to work hard and progress tell us a little bit about the day-to-day uh camaraderie in the team and the structure of the team, and who are you working with, etc yeah, so kane is my boss, he's the head of business development.

Speaker 1:

Um, we have a big team of us now, um all working together, um just like I say, just motivating each other, um just pushing us, um like as we can learn from one another. If one person is particularly good in one area, whether that's australia, go and speak to them, understand what they know. Why are they being, why are they so successful in that, that area? Or if someone's better in the us, you know, vice versa. So we all work hard to develop each other but also have fun at the same time.

Speaker 2:

Brilliant, so there is elements of performance-related pay here as well, and I think if you're a business developer and your job is to qualify individuals on Earth opportunities, then performance-related pay should be part of it. Historically right, I did 16 years of recruitment in financial planning. All you ever heard if someone went out to someone like to buy or the middle east or wherever, to be an international financial planner, it was pure commission. That was what it was right. Um, tell us a little bit about one, the salary and b. We'll talk about things that motivate you from a performance related pay perspective. But do you get a basic salary?

Speaker 1:

yeah, yeah. So it's pretty similar to most um sort of graduate roles, um we get the basic salary, but then we also get rewarded for working hard, which is which is always nice fantastic.

Speaker 2:

So there's some element of performance related pay if you turn over a stone, find the right type of client, any major success stories? What sort of clients have you unearthed then during your business development phase? Um, what's a typical type of client you're talking to you?

Speaker 1:

is it average investable assets and things like that so it depends because everyone's situation is different so you can. Probably the best are when you really want a long-term client, because you want a relationship over the long term. You want to be able to help them from from one stage, whether it's late accumulation, going in towards the maintenance stage of retirement planning. You want a relationship over the long term. You want to be able to help them from from one stage, whether it's late accumulation, going in towards the maintenance stage of retirement planning. You want to help them long term and constantly develop the plan and constantly assist them. So I I prefer the longer term type of clients where you know we're with them for a long time.

Speaker 1:

That's, that's what I see anyway.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so you're unearthing those types of individuals and the need for that ongoing financial planning in the long term.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, the holistic planning, the holistic?

Speaker 2:

yeah, that's the word that gets banded around quite a lot. Okay, cool, we're an international firm. Have you sort of started to see specific countries or jurisdictions that you feel like you might hang your hat on?

Speaker 1:

jurisdictions that you feel like you might hang your hat on. Yeah, so my um main sort of area of focus is between the uk and the us. Okay, I just seem to understand the situations very well and I just feel like I get on with those types of people, so it's easy to have a conversation with them and talk to them about their situation. So that's where I've had the most success with speaking to those people what sort of opportunities are you coming across?

Speaker 2:

what would you say was the biggest opportunity right now in the US UK market?

Speaker 1:

and say um, so it goes both ways. So people with UK pensions in the US, um, or people that have lived in the US, moved to the UK for a little bit, then gone back to the US. They have the sort of UK pension, but they're not really too sure what to do. It's the same with Brits moving to the US building up a 401k, been there five, 10 years. They then go back and they're not really too sure what they can or can't do.

Speaker 2:

So that's the sort of area I've been in what I found really interesting from the conference recently was the amount of expats from the us living across the globe is the equivalent to half the population, yeah, of the uk. I was like, oh my god, and that's a huge opportunity, isn't it? And we're perfectly positioned as a international financial planning company to um service those clients and to to give to give them advice around some of the things like the 401k IRA rollovers. They're a really interesting area that we can get stuck into, and we know a thing or two about that, and that's what I quite like about Hoxton as well. They're always looking for those little areas where we can add value, and internationally there are so many of them. Tell us a little bit about your life in Dubai, though. So you've moved the uk. Where were you in the uk?

Speaker 1:

oh, I was near watford near watford. Okay, there's a load of people from watford in there. Everyone's from yeah, tommy mo yeah, watford represented.

Speaker 2:

So you've moved from watford over to dubai. Tell us a little bit about your lifestyle, what you get up to. Has it been a baptism of fire? Are you enjoying yourself?

Speaker 1:

well, it's very hot at the moment, yeah, so not venturing out too much. But my main focus over the last few weeks has just been revision, focusing on the exam, so settling in, getting used to the, to the new environment, and now fully focused on passing my first exam fantastic.

Speaker 2:

So head down doing your exams. When do you think you'll pass those? Have you got a goal in mind?

Speaker 1:

um. So the level four, uk one, will be hopefully around may next year, I believe fantastic.

Speaker 2:

Are you getting any extra training on that?

Speaker 1:

does anyone come in and train you or coach you around the qualifications, how to pass them, etc yes, we have someone come in and we do weekly sessions, which is good, but I also take time out of my day to go into one of the pods and just take an hour, just read through and then back to work oh, fantastic.

Speaker 2:

So you get given that time to study um obviously really important. You can't exhaust yourself, can you? All the time through in the day you do need to spend that time doing um, your qualifications and the study that's associated to it. So it's good to see that the culture here allows you to do that as well. Fantastic, and listen, thank you so much for sharing your journey.

Speaker 2:

It is very much in the early stages and when we look at Hoxton, we've got like a couple of phases at the beginning Phase one, phase two. Phase one being in the UK trainee wealth manager, you're starting to learn the ropes. You're getting that training and development, understanding what you're doing, and you start moving into business development management. You start proving yourself. You're starting to see that I can do this. So you start thinking right, okay, now do I want to move internationally? You don't have to if you don't want to. Phase two is now you're international. You're sitting with kane over here, obviously in uh dubai, and then with the rest of the business developers that are over here and you're working your way through your qualifications. You're getting better and better at the business development there is. Is no pressure on you is there to progress forward quicker than you should do. You do have the security of a basic salary and the performance related pay when it comes to generating new clients for the business. So you are focused on growth. You're focused on prospecting, and the more you do it, the more you learn on the job, and I think that's really, really important.

Speaker 2:

And one of the things that really drew me to Hoxton was I'm a big fan of companies that put newbies into a situation where you're forced to learn, because nothing teaches you quicker than failure, that you've had that environment to be able to fail forward and it's only going to make you a better advisor. So, long-term career development-wise, there's so many different phases that you can go through here at Hoxton and we're going to go through each one on the Hoxton life. But you've got such a lovely journey ahead of you. You're in the right place International financial planning tech innovative company investing in you, investing in your training and your development and I think you're going to be an absolute success here at hoxton. So thank you so much for sharing your hoxton life today. There's plenty of people out there probably lots of people at university thinking what can I do? I've heard about financial planning, and so they listen to this episode and you'll inspire them. So thank you so much, thank you very much.