Bath-headquartered financial advice firm Unividual has appointed its first director to focus on developing its staff as it plans for its next phase of strategic growth.
Greg Harris, pictured, who has taken on the role of development director, has been involved with the family-owned firm for more than seven years, five of those as a financial adviser.
Unividual co-founder and director John Baxter, who owns the business with daughter Cherie-Anne and son Lewis, said the decision to appoint Greg underlined the fact that a commitment to learning and development was what drove the culture of our business.
“During the pandemic we never veered away from our purpose of growing and nurturing staff, but this put huge pressure on my co-directors Cherie-Anne and Lewis, who have an enormous remit of responsibility within their roles.
“With such a growing business, we felt it was time to appoint someone to focus on learning and development and the operational function of Unicademy, our in-house financial planning training programme.”
At the time Unicademy was launched in 2016 it was one of the first Chartered Financial Planner training schools in the UK.
Cherie-Anne, who is strategy & marketing director, and financial planning director Lewis recently became equal shareholders with their father, who launched it in 2000. The firm now has offices in London and Edinburgh as well as Bath.
Cherie-Anne said: “When I first joined Unividual in 2015, Greg was one of the first members of staff Lewis and I hired. Looking back then, when there were just six of us, it was always our goal to develop other people in our company into leaders.
“Greg has become integral to Unividual in the journey of growth we have taken so far. His passion for training people and helping them learn and prosper has always been his core motivation.
“It is one of the reasons he has become such a successful financial adviser. Appointing Greg as a director is one of our proudest days in Unividual’s history and we are so excited to watch him put his stamp on one of the most important departments in our business.”
Greg joined Unividual straight from university with a Law degree. He went on to became one of the youngest Chartered Financial Planners in the country and, in that same year, a Fellow of the Personal Finance Society.
In 2019 he received the Pension Transfer Gold Standard Award while during the pandemic he supported the local community and even offered fee-free mortgage advice to reduce the cost of moving for people.
Greg said: “It is an honour to be awarded with this huge responsibility to help Cherie-Anne and Lewis take Unividual to the next level.”
Over the past few years Greg has been the custodian of Unicademy, restructuring its programme from staff feedback.
Greg added: “I also worked alongside Cherie-Anne to introduce a well-being and mental health aspect. Unividual is now entering into the next phase of its strategy and I will be working alongside my co-directors to grow our London adviser numbers and launch Unividual in Edinburgh.
“We have four trainee financial advisers who will go live this year that need mentoring and support and we will be recruiting and training more paraplanning and financial administration staff for our financial advisers in Bath.
“Learning and development is at the core of everything we do at Unividual, and I am excited to see where the business can progress to as we continue to grow and invest in our local community.”
