Adam Parker

Adam Parker is the investment manager and head of Midlands region at Tilney - one of the leading financial planning and investment management firms in the UK. They have 30 offices across the country and deliver a wide range of services to private individuals, families, charities and professionals.

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN IN YOUR CURRENT JOB? I joined Tilney when it was part of the Deutsche Bank Group in 2008 – I have been responsible for the company’s Midlands region for the last 4 years.

EXPLAIN A TYPICAL WEEK IN YOUR WORKING LIFE: First and foremost I am client facing and so I start each day ensuring that I am up to speed with all client-related matters – this includes being prepared for upcoming meetings, delivering on actions and responding to queries. Aside from this I am involved in various projects aimed at ensuring growth or improving our service offering.

WHAT IS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE FACING YOUR INDUSTRY RIGHT NOW? Clearly the coronavirus pandemic has created challenges for all industries. For us not only has this involved a rapid adjustment to working remotely, but also reassuring clients and continuing to manage client investment portfolios through the sharpest market decline and economic recession in living memory.

AND WHAT ARE THE BIG OPPORTUNITIES? The current situation also presents the opportunity to exceed client expectations, whether that be in terms of the provision of proactive contact and reassurance, the ongoing delivery of a full service offering to the usual standards or in terms of investment performance. We have worked extremely hard during this period to ensure we compare favourably in all of these areas.

HOW DO YOU GET THE BEST OUT OF YOUR STAFF? I am part of a very strong team with individual strengths in different areas. Most importantly, we will all “dig in” for each other to make sure that the team as a whole can achieve success.

WHAT WAS YOUR LAST MEETING ABOUT, HOW LONG DID IT LAST, AND WAS IT PRODUCTIVE? During lockdown, most days now turn into a “Zoom marathon”, with multiple calls to clients, professional contacts and colleagues. Most recently, we hosted a 45 minutes webinar for around 200 clients providing an update on our investment thinking and answering their questions – it was really productive as it provided a structured way to interact with a relatively large number of clients on a key topic and then follow up with them individually to ensure they had all of their questions answered.

HOW MANY EMAILS DO YOU GET IN A DAY, AND HOW MUCH TIME DO YOU HAVE TO READ THEM? Probably 200-300 per day – I would say one of the primary skills in my role is to identify those which need action, those which can be delegated, those which can be reviewed then filed and those which can simply be deleted.

DO YOU ANSWER WORK CALLS OR EMAILS AT HOME? WHAT’S THE RIGHT WORK-LIFE BALANCE? This depends – I think part of delivering a first class service to clients is that they know you will be responsive if something important crops up but equally I value time with my family very highly. I scan emails periodically while at home to ensure nothing major has arisen as I find this actually helps me to relax. It is necessary to work from home at times and when this is the case I prefer to be fully focused on work so that when that is done I can then be fully focused on other things.

HOW DO YOU HOPE YOUR COLLEAGUES WOULD DESCRIBE YOU? As someone with integrity who wouldn’t ask others to do something I wouldn’t do myself. 

BREXIT – WHAT’S YOUR VIEW OF WHAT IT’S ALL GOING TO MEAN? Not sure I can do this question justice in a “Five Minutes with” article! It might be difficult to identify exactly which economic and market developments are down to Brexit and which are due to the covid-19 pandemic – and the cynic in me thinks that certain policy makers may be quite happy about this…

HIGHLIGHTS OF YOUR CAREER SO FAR? I am lucky to be part of a strong team of individuals that genuinely get on and support and trust each other. For me this is really important and it makes going to work that much more enjoyable.

PET HATES? A lack of accountability, honesty or integrity. Or constantly highlighting problems without attempting to come up with solutions.

IF YOU COULD GO BACK AND GIVE YOUR YOUNGER SELF SOME WISE ADVICE, WHAT WOULD IT BE? Don’t worry about the things you can’t control.

HOW DO YOU RELAX AWAY FROM WORK? Not sure relax is the right word (…!) but spending time with my wife and two boys, aged 5 and 7. I also love all sport and enjoy both watching and playing (albeit at an ever more pedestrian pace).

WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IS SPECIAL ABOUT THE BIRMINGHAM BUSINESS COMMUNITY? We have a wide range of very high quality people covering all of the key sectors and areas of advice – but the community is still small enough for people to know and actively support each other.

TELL US SOMETHING ABOUT YOU THAT MOST PEOPLE PROBABLY WOULDN’T KNOW. My guilty pleasure is trash TV!!

YOU CAN TAKE ONE BOOK, ONE FILM AND ONE CD ONTO A DESERT ISLAND – WHAT WOULD THEY BE? Wolf of Wall Street and Donnie Brasco are both great books and fantastic films (I can assure you that real life working in the stock market is nothing like Wolf of Wall Street!). As for an album – it would have to be Oasis, either Definitely Maybe or What’s the Story Morning Glory; both were played millions of times during my teens.

YOUR FIVE DREAM DINNER PARTY GUESTS, DEAD OR ALIVE? I think Nelson Mandela, Steve Jobs, Alex Ferguson and Margaret Thatcher would all certainly be interesting and I’d love to hear from each of them their perspective on what it takes to be an effective leader. It would probably be necessary to keep Ferguson and Thatcher apart, and I would give this job to Micky Flanagan, who could make me laugh at the same time.

WHAT WOULD YOU COOK FOR THEM…? It would have to be a curry – would be interesting to see how Maggie got on with that!