A 26 minute watch.

Daintree Wealth Management opened its arms to MMU graduate Chris Black last year, just before Manchester moved into local lockdown.

He talks to Sam Shaw about when the moment “clicked” for him – taking his interest away from corporate finance, which he thought was his preferred career path – towards wealth management.

Amid a few disheartening rejections purely down to Covid-induced recruitment freezes, a speculative note sent directly to Daintree’s MD saw his fate sealed as Mark Parello offered him a role just two months after graduating.

Nine months on, Chris shares how he was drawn to the firm’s strong moral code, and how he found the ‘softer skills’ easily adaptable from his time caddying at a golf club, where talking to company CEOs and other HNWs was par for the course (*groan* Sorry – couldn’t resist!) compared to being face-down in technical textbooks, having only ever really been taught by a lecturer or teacher.

“Not a lot of people [outside the sector] seem to understand what we do. The whole industry is often ‘frowned upon’ because every news story seems to be negative in relation to fees, underperformance or rogue investors… 

That can sometimes be challenging, because they’ve already got an image in their head of what we’re about.”