Guests Liz Syms, CEO and founder of Connect Mortgages, and Alan Longhorn, head of sales, distribution and marketing at Bank of Ireland, spoke about joining financial services from a young age as school leavers. 

Syms said her entry into financial services “just happened”. At the time, she was working three jobs and owned her own house at 19 with her partner. 

One day, someone from Abbey Life was talking to her partner about his pension and told him the company was recruiting financial advisers and suggested he would be a fit. 

“I thought, he won’t make a good financial adviser, but I know I would, I could do that, I’ve got that kind of spirit about me,” Syms said. 

She was already job hunting and came across adverts for similar roles, so knew what it entailed. 

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Syms applied and got the job, but as it was a self-employed position, she was encouraged to keep her other jobs to support her finances. 

She later came across a salaried position as an independent financial adviser (IFA) at Prudential but was told the vacancies had been filled. The next day, she was invited for an interview to fill a slot that someone had not shown up for. 

As one of Syms’ jobs at the time was as a party planner at Pippa Dee Parties, she put on her “best Pippa Dee frock and headed down to the interview and I got the job”. 

“It was my first full-time job, £15,000 a year salary – back then, [that] was a lot of money – and full training,” Syms added. 

She later found out one of the reasons she was hired was because of a referral from her Pippa Dee Parties job, as the position encouraged networking and contact-building by making employees book two new parties for every one held. 

Prudential said this was the mindset it was looking for from its IFAs. It was then, aged 19, that Syms became Prudential’s first female and youngest trainee IFA. 

 

Early beginnings

Longhorn, whose parents also did not go to university, left school after his GCSEs and started looking for apprenticeships. While at a family party one weekend, one of his uncles who worked at NatWest and RBS suggested he consider a role at the company. 

Longhorn applied, but was rejected as he was only 16 and did not have retail experience, despite working at a pub. His uncle challenged this, saying Longhorn fit the age limit and the company should reconsider the job description if they were going to reject Longhorn on this basis.

He re-applied and was offered a job on the spot, and around two months after leaving school, started working at the bank. Four years later, aged 20, he moved into the business banking division. 

The pace of this new job was slower, as Longhorn’s daily targets turned into yearly targets and there was a greater focus on long-term relationship-building with a commercial mindset. 

“That gave me a real grounding to look at the bigger picture,” he said. 

Longhorn was in the role for three years, and gained an understanding of the commercial side of banking. 

Later, he was invited to be part of the pilot of a new concept at RBS, which would see the retail, private and business banks merge. 

It was then that Longhorn was introduced to Paul Fox, then managing director of RBS, who became a “really good support and mentor” to him. He encouraged Longhorn to join the pilot under the role of relationship bank manager, which led to further discussion and the opportunity to move into an area director role spanning retail, business and private banking. 

Fox told Longhorn if the bank put the same people back into the same roles, nothing would change. 

 

Being underestimated

Longhorn got the job and was one of the youngest employees. Although he felt nervous about this, he remembered Fox telling him: “If you’re good enough, you’re old enough.” 

However, people’s perception of Longhorn’s age was still a factor, he said, recalling a line manager once telling him that his age was a challenge before asking Longhorn what he was doing about it. 

“The simple answer to that is to try and wake up every morning, it’s not something I can rush. It took me 27 years to grow a beard, so I wasn’t going to get older much quicker,” Longhorn said. 

Although he was working alongside people who had been with the company for decades, Longhorn believed his personality, willingness to ask questions and determination to do things differently helped him. 

There would always be people who wanted to stick to the way things were usually done, Longhorn said, so he took it upon himself to “say the same but in different words or try and stand out instead of giving the same version of delivery, try and do things in a slightly different way”. 

 

Pushing yourself forward

Syms said she knew it was time to leave her role at Prudential and work for herself when she started to question the way things operated. 

She went into business with her former partner, working at a lettings agent he set up. 

“I jumped into self-employment at the same time; when he went out on appointments, I would answer his calls. When I had someone come in to see me, he would answer my calls, and that worked well for a little while.” 

While still an IFA, Syms got more experience in the buy-to-let (BTL) sector and started advising on mortgages. 

It was through this that she built up a network of customers and started to get busier, but soon fell pregnant for the third time. 

She considered taking on another adviser, adding: “It was not like working for corporate. When you work for yourself, you work right up to the last minute. 

“In fact, I was having a conversation with one of my portfolio customers when I went into labour. I had been training my new adviser for about two weeks. I remember being on the phone saying: ‘Could you just hold on a minute? Right, I’m going to have to go, I’m going to pass you to my new adviser because I’m actually going to go and have a baby’.” 

She gave birth to her son Jake six or seven hours later. 

Syms returned to work two weeks later, saying it was fine raising three children and running a business as there was more flexibility as a business owner. 

As the business grew, she decided to get her own premises, and that was how Connect Mortgages was established. 

 

Listen to the full episode [36:15] hosted by Bharat Sagar, chair of DIFF, featuring guests Liz Syms, CEO and founder of Connect Mortgages, and Alan Longhorn, head of sales, distribution and marketing at Bank of Ireland.