Head of Advice Standards

About the Business

Working alongside our sister company, Quilter Cheviot, Quilter Cheviot Financial Planning provides highly personalised and comprehensive financial advice for individuals and families with needs such as significant investments, estate planning and preparing for retirement. We are part of Quilter plc, a leading provider of advice, investment platforms, multi-asset investment solutions and discretionary fund management which is listed on the London and Johannesburg stock exchanges and manages over £111.6 billion of client investments (as at March 2024).

Quilter Cheviot has been trusted by individuals and families for over 250 years, ensuring their investments are managed with precision and foresight. Today we are one of the UK’s largest wealth management firms offering expert discretionary investment management and financial planning through our sister company, Quilter Cheviot Financial Planning. We are truly client centric; providing a highly personalised service to private clients, charities, trustees, and professional partners to help them navigate their financial future with confidence. We have presence throughout the UK, Ireland and Channel Islands as well as Dubai.

If you want to play a part in shaping the future of our business, bringing new ideas and challenge then now is a great time to join us.
• The role is key to ensuring QC and QCFP have clear ownership of suitable advice standards for their financial planning team. This is a new competency being introduced to QC and QCFP given the regulatory changes currently being delivered through the Variation of Permissions project to establish advice permissions within QC. This means in the short term, key activity is focused on managing actions to ensure smooth transition and ownership of regulatory responsibilities to ensure continued delivery of good client outcomes. The medium to longer term will then naturally facilitate more strategic, development-based thinking and delivery.

About the Role

Level: 5

Department: Commercial & Proposition

Location: Birmingham | Carlisle l Chester l Exeter l Leeds l London. The role will be linked to one or more of the regional offices with remote working for part of the week.

Contract type: Permanent (non-regulated)

You will be responsible for the development and maintenance of Quilter Cheviot’s Financial Planning Advice Standards.  Ensuring our advice standards align to our strategy, service offering, target market, and external influences (incl. regulatory). Helping ensure good client outcomes remain at the centre of our business and culture. The role requires a deep understanding of Financial Planning practices and how they are influenced by internal and external drivers. 

This depth of knowledge needs to be balanced with a collaborative approach to stakeholder engagement, with a focus on (1) maintaining current standards (2) supporting regional teams with adoption and queries and (3) evolving and executing relevant development roadmaps. 

Responsibilities:

• Proactively own Quilter Cheviot Financial Planning’s advice standards, enabling Financial Planners to deliver compliant and consistent advice and recommendations to HNW clients, helping deliver good client outcomes. 

• Own the evolution of advice standards by designing and maintaining a development roadmap.  Work with internal and external stakeholders to establish and deliver this roadmap. Specifically working with internal financial planning, compliance, and oversight teams to identify development opportunities, whilst also reviewing external practises and actively scanning regulatory (and other) horizons to ensure (1) exceptional client outcomes (2) compliance with internal and external expectations (3) and competitiveness vs peers. 

• In addition to the above, you will provide thought and design guidance, processes and controls to ensure consistency and practicality, whilst considering, quantifying and managing the risks involved. 

• You will also be responsible for the submission standards that the assurance team check against and the suitability reports and letter templates issued by advisers/paraplanners. These are intrinsically linked to the advice standards and form part of the overall team’s responsibilities.

• You will need to be comfortable working with front office teams, central teams including risk and compliance, and senior leadership across QFP, QCFP and QC. 

• You will need to be comfortable managing multiple challenging priorities at once, balancing ‘business as usual’ responsibilities with input to/ownership of short or long-term projects. 

• Have a clear understanding of not just what change is required, but also how to prioritise and deliver it with discipline.  This requires deep technical knowledge, strong stakeholder engagement and relationship management skills, understanding of the impacts and value of any changes, and the ability to identify requirements to deliver developments. 

About You

• Deep understanding of financial planning practices and models, including how they align with and enable company strategy. 

• Clear understanding of typical client needs and objectives.  Ideally having practised in a client facing role and/or having suitable qualifications (i.e. Level 4 or equivalent). 

• Competent relationship management and stakeholder engagement across a variety the organisation, group, and profession.

• Clear and confident communicator, able to engage individuals, teams, leadership, and formal governance structures. 

• You will be organised and analytical, as the role will involve the production of impact assessments and the presentation of this information to various stakeholders with varying degrees of knowledge.

• You will lead by example creating and maintaining a culture that promotes exceptional performance, empowerment, accountability and professionalism at all levels, and work to make all your individual reports feel part of a cohesive team.

• You will provide strong professional leadership, be a role model to support a high performing culture in a customer centric environment.

• You will be comfortable in creating and implementing change.

• You will have a can-do attitude, having the strength of personality to influence and guide with personal motivation and confidence.

• You will show strong communication skills – ability to navigate complex and political environments and manage multiple senior stakeholders.

• You will be flexible and adaptable to an ever-changing environment with the ability to work under pressure whilst remaining focused and calm.

• Have attention to detail.

Qualifications

• Diploma qualified level 4 in Financial Advice

• CF6 (or equivalent)

• ER1 (or equivalent)

• CF8 (or equivalent)

• AF7 (desireable)

• Advanced Diploma / Chartered level 6 in Financial Advice (desirable)

#LI-VS1 #QC

Inclusion & Diversity

We value diversity and strive to promote inclusivity in all aspects of our culture. We believe in equal opportunities for all, ensuring that no applicant encounters less favourable treatment based on anything but their skills, qualifications, experience, and potential. We celebrate the unique contributions of a diverse workforce and create a respectful, nurturing environment where every colleague can thrive.

Values

Do the right thing: We act with integrity and are proudly committed to going above and beyond in service of our clients and the support we provide our communities.
Always curious: We continuously seek new ideas and knowledge so we’re one step ahead of our clients’ needs. We look for inspiration everywhere and encourage experimentation, recognising that this is how we create brilliant solutions for brighter futures.
Embrace challenge: We aim high to transform our potential into meaningful outcomes. With ambition as our driving force and a steadfast commitment to growth, we succeed for the good of every generation.
Stronger together: Combining our diverse talents, we accomplish more collectively than we ever could do alone. We speak openly, actively listen, and support each other, and constructively challenge and embrace new ideas. We seek empowerment and demonstrate ownership and trust, with the confidence to make impactful decisions.

Core Benefits

Holiday: 182 hours (26 days)

Quilter Incentive Scheme: All employees are eligible to participate in incentive scheme, to incentivise business performance and their contribution.

Pension Scheme: A non-contributory company pension scheme that can be boosted through personal contributions.

Private Medical Insurance: Single cover as standard with options to increase cover to include your partner or children.

Life Assurance: 4x your salary.

Income Protection: 75% of salary, less state benefits, payable after 26 weeks of absence.

Healthcare Cash Plan: Jersey employees only

In addition to our core benefits, we offer a range of flexible benefits to UK employees that you can choose from and pay for conveniently via a salary deduction.