Steven Rowe’s approach to running his Solihull-based advice firm is unconventional, but at the core of it is a desire to contribute to the local community.
Rowe, a chartered financial planner, set up Lucent Financial Planning in 2009 having previously worked at a large financial services company as an adviser.
Initially, the first few months were difficult, but Rowe explained that slowly the business started to grow.
By 2015, things really took off for the firm after pension freedoms came into law and as the firm’s client number grew, Rowe was able to hire advisers to join his team.
Move forward to 2019 and Rowe’s health took a turn for the worst after an operation to remove his spleen.
“I wasn’t really with it for six months,” Rowe recalled.
“I was turning up to work but I would fall asleep."
Reflecting back on that period he joked: “I fell asleep in a meeting once. They didn’t notice, that’s how boring I am.”
In the years that followed, Rowe continued to grow the business and left his network in 2021 to become directly authorised.
Today Lucent Financial Planning employs 11 staff in addition to Rowe.
All the extras
“We’re aiming to be a super social company,” Rowe explained.
“We don’t want to be a company where people turn up, get their money advice and then that’s it. We want them to get involved with us and what we do. We want to help them in other ways.
“We have a walking club for example. It sounds a bit twee and boring, but once a month 30 people get together and hike the countryside around Birmingham,” Rowe said.
A lot of Lucent’s clients are retired, but Rowe was conscious that for a lot of them their friends might not be.
“That’s what it is about, helping our clients have fun,” he said.
“So with the walking club, they can get out in the middle of the week, meet similar people, go for a constitutional and have a pint or a cake afterwards. Whatever you prefer,” Rowe explained.
Back in January, Rowe also set up an online community for Lucent clients, where they can post about their lives and chat to new people.
The firm also organises online yoga classes for its clients on a Friday.
As well as this, the firm organises the occasional pub night and has a partnership with a psychologist to support clients who might be going through a difficult time.
Managing staff
Despite Rowe's focus on building a community with his clients, he described himself to FTAdviser as “the world’s worst manager” and said simply that “it’s not in my key skills”.
