A 25 minute listen.

The Money Plan author on loyalty, rogues and building a better profession

Lexington Wealth director Warren Shute is a certified financial planner, Chartered wealth manager, money coach, podcast host, published author, newspaper columnist and financial education advocate… among other things.

An early disciple of Paul Etheridge, founder of Prestwood Truth, under whom he trained for 10 years before eventually setting up Lexington, Warren said: “We can learn everything we want from scratch or we can stand on the shoulders of giants and emulate what they do…”

That early introduction to cashflow forecasting software was where he started to realise this was where the true joy of financial planning lay.

“Pensions aren’t particularly fun, learning quirks and new ways of doing things with a SSAS can get a little bit exciting but in general when you’ve done one lifetime allowance calculation, you’ve done them.”

“Helping a client really live life – by design and not default – that makes me feel good… That’s what true financial planning is really about. Taking a client from today to where they want to be, to build a roadmap and go on that journey together. And realise you might need some regulated products to help achieve your outcomes. But sometimes you don’t.”

He sees the advances of technology as the UK’s biggest relative shortcoming vs the US.

“I would really love to see all the tools talking to one another.”

Explaining the rationale for his online investment platform for newer, younger clients, Lexo and the dearth of good talent not being exclusively a financial services issue, Warren also talks about the naivety of many consumers when it comes to regulation and what it actually means, with unregulated investment schemes his current “bugbear”.  Campaign, anyone?