My Journey to Phoenix Group

Since leaving university, I've always worked in financial services. Just over two years ago, I joined Phoenix Group, diving into Life & Pensions. I studied BA Economics & Accounting and MA International Business Management at Newcastle University. These degrees led me to a Retail Bank graduate scheme in Newcastle.

I spent over nine years in banking, rotating through various functions and often in customer-facing roles. From week one, I was speaking directly to customers and soon took on managerial responsibilities. During this time, I got married, had two kids, and bought two houses!

After a decade working in Speciality Insurance, I joined Phoenix Group to get closer to customers and share my experiences in Cloud and Agile transformation.

Why I value Phoenix Group’s purpose

At the heart of Phoenix Group is its purpose – to help everyone live a life of possibilities. I kept this in mind throughout the whole interview process and the idea of working to help make big changes in society felt good, after all who doesn’t want to have a happy retirement!

My parents have been fortunate in that they have been able to retire comfortably and early.  Seeing them enjoy retirement and their later years has meant this has been a focus for me and my wife, our decision to have children in our early 20’s was influenced by this.

As well as within my role at Phoenix Group, I find myself talking to people outside work about their long-term retirement plans. Hopefully I’m doing my bit to help educate those around me, as well as making sure we have fun along the way.

Leveraging technology to drive innovation

I see opportunities to leverage technology at Phoenix Group. The Life & Pensions sector has seen limited disruption from new technology, but AI offers incredible potential. Embracing this challenge is more about people and change management than it is the technology itself.  Success requires collaboration between technologists and business leaders, using a collaborative and Agile approach. I truly believe we need our technologists and business leaders to be working hand in hand to solve problems together.

My personal interests

On a personal level, I aim to get fitter and stronger, hoping to run a marathon within 18 months and a sub-20 minute 5km this year. And the next few years will be focussed on helping my children begin their adult lives as they start university in 2026. Although this is a bit of a scary thought, it’s also very exciting and very much part of our long-term life plan and I’m looking forward to this next chapter in my life.