Interview

Meet the people transforming Centurion

Join us as we meet the people transforming client and employee experiences and growth at Centurion Chartered Financial Planners, with the introduction of two directors who have been promoted to roles that enhance our service delivery, ambitions and professional development.

Steve Smith is our new Managing Director, while director Chris Hill has stepped into a new role as our Head of Advisory.

These announcements, coupled with the upcoming announcement of our specialist advisory service areas, marks a new dawn for Centurion.

To explain what we’ve been up to in the last 12 months and what Centurion is working on in 2025, we sat down with Steve and Chris to hear more about our evolution.

Meet Steve Smith, Managing Director

Steve joined Centurion Chartered Financial Planners in February 2019 to direct the firm’s operational function and put in place a strategic and scalable infrastructure, to not only allow the firm to grow but also to free up the other fee earning directors to focus on business development and client work.

He previously spent 16 years with the same firm, progressing from back-office support through various roles up to National Operations Director and executive board level.

After qualifying to give advice at 20, Steve decided instead to specialise in IT and gained MCSE, PRINCE and LEAN qualifications whilst project managing large scale platform and CRM system migrations for a national firm. He has two young daughters. (Click here for Steve’s full profile).

Q: Tell us a little about your leadership vision and the change to the structure and position of Centurion Chartered Financial Planners (CCFP) in recent months, and why.

CCFP is unique in the way that we offer access to high quality, specialist advice from a highly qualified team of advisers, regardless of the clients’ net worth.

Our fixed fee structure, based on time recorded by all staff members, gives us a fee model that compliments the core values of consumer duty and gives clients a transparent view of exactly what they are getting in terms of advice and service, as well how much they are being charged for it.

With a truly collaborative approach to helping clients achieve their objectives, CCFP advisers are able to focus on being a specialist in their particular field of expertise instead of working under the typical industry pressure to amass client banks and therefore spreading their knowledge too thinly across too broader number of subjects.

We’re firm believers of avoiding square pegs in round holes which means aligning staff and advisors to the roles that they are best at and therefore achieving maximum efficiency for the firm and maximum value for clients.

I have always been driven to evolve every role I’ve had to implement positive change for the firm, its staff and its clients, with the aim of achieving more positive outcomes for all, which marries well with our overall vision for progress – to the clients’ overall benefit and best interest.

For example, regardless of which role within the firm is being utilised at any point in a clients’ journey with us, our aim is for them to be getting the best of what we have to offer. In having a non-fee earner in the Managing Director role, we’re able to make lighter work of any adviser involvement in the operational running of the business, which leaves them to focus on what they do best, advising clients and utilising their specialist knowledge. It’s my role to look at enabling our advisers to do more and add real value – even on the most complex or matters, and to keep themselves skilled and qualified in their specialist areas.

Q: How will the new specialist advisory teams help clients and the professionals you work with?

CCFP have always aligned our staff and advisors to the roles they suit best to support our clients, who often have highly complex financial planning needs.

Our new specialist adviser teams allow our advisers to focus on their area of expertise, underpinned by our excellent support team and IT platforms. Combined, our significant expertise, independence and efficient processes will offer maximum value and care for all clients.

Q: Where will your core focus lie in the coming months and why?

Our main focus for the next few months is to realise the capacity in our existing team now that we have automated and refined much of our internal workflow and data management over the course of the past year.

Once we can see that capacity, we will look to accelerate our growth as a business through recruitment and possibly even strategic acquisition. The limit to what our team can achieve is always increasing thanks to our continued review and development of our tech stack and its integration, which with the help of AI will continue to improve over the coming months, bringing us close to a single keying of data across all our systems.

Q: You mentioned the importance of separating the leadership of the business out from advisory roles. How is it beneficial for clients as well as the business to have a non-fee earner dedicated to the role of Managing Director?

It’s important to have someone who can focus on the business from a higher viewpoint, across its many departments and channels so that staff and initiatives are all working in conjunction and not against each other to drive the business forwards.

Too often, fee earners are dragged into non-fee earning work but with a bias towards what they know and deliver, which not only impacts on their ability to do their job to the best of their ability but also reduces the amount of time they get spend with clients - who are the most important part of our business.

It also takes time to research and understand the ever-changing regulatory landscape of financial services and so being able to focus on that and then have regular and structured dialogue with advisers at the coal face, means that we’re able to better understand the impact of any regulatory change at a company level and ensure we are able to deliver services that adhere to that regulation across our entire client base.

Q: What are you most proud of in terms of Centurion’s achievements over the past 12 months, and what you’re looking forward to developing in 2025?

I’m especially proud of our ability to successfully complete a Management Buy-Out (MBO) in the early part of 2024, alongside a backdrop of launching our own investment platform. We consolidated and migrated our numerous platform assets where possible, which is a cultural achievement as well as transformative for our processes. We needed to guide everyone along with us through the MBO and through the systems change management which, thankfully was a smooth journey as we could all see the benefits.

We also achieved our best year for new business generation in 2024 and we’ve always adopted the core elements of consumer duty into our day-to-day business practices, even before consumer duty came to fruition.

We relish the challenge ahead to constantly review and improve our services and our processes to ensure that clients continue to receive the positive outcomes they are used to.

We can quickly see and understand the data we create thanks to our tech investments, and this has benefits for our clients. We’re able to maximise the full potential of our specialist advisers and keep fees fair and transparent as a result.

We pride ourselves in our independent status and having a clear and proven succession and growth plan will enable Centurion to retain this – an important offering in financial services to ensure our clients’ best interests come first.

Meet Chris Hill, Head of Advisory

Chris has worked in financial services since 2007 and joined Centurion Chartered Financial Planners (CCFP) in 2019 – the year he was named ‘Certified Financial Planner of the Year’.

He trained as a financial planner with Hargreaves Lansdown and has worked in the personal injury and court of protection space since 2012, training with Towry (now Evelyn Partners). Chris will lead our Court of Protection team at Centurion – with a full announcement in February 2025.

Q: Why has CCFP decided to create specialist advisory teams?

CCFP has always had highly qualified and experienced advisers offering specialist advice to clients. Following the growth of the firm, we decided to create the specialist teams to focus the experience and expertise of our specialist advisers.

Whether it’s creating specialist teams or fixed charging, CCFP has always put clients at the heart of what we offer. All professional firms (but lawyers and accountants especially) know that to do a good job in a complex case you must specialise, whether individually or as a firm.

The Financial Advice market is only just starting to realise this and CCFP is once again leading the way.

Q: Where will your core focus lie in the coming months and why?

My core focus in the coming months will be to embed the specialist teams within the business and enhance the range of services that we can offer as a result of launching the specialist teams.

Financial advice is about more than just investments. Our specialists are able to help in a number of ways and it is important for us and for our clients that we achieve consistency in our service across teams and offices.

That’s why we’re grateful to the leadership of Steve Smith, and our fantastic support team to enable us as Advisors to do more.

Q: As a specialist in supporting clients in the Court of Protection and individuals with damages awarded as a result of complex injury matters, what advice would you give to litigators, deputies and trustees as we go into 2025?

The PW case, which examined conflict of interest in detail, has made a number of headlines in 2024.

We feel that we are well positioned to help with cases affected by the PW ruling because we are one of very few independent advisers with significant personal injury and / or Court of Protection experience in the country.

The change in the Discount Rate will also mean that new claims being settled will receive smaller compensation payments because the capital will be expected to do more at a time when volatility has increased significantly, and markets are likely to remain volatile for some time.

Q: What are you most proud of in terms of Centurion’s achievements in the past 12 months, and what are you looking forward to in the year ahead?

I am particularly proud of being one of the few companies within the financial services market to achieve succession planning through a Management Buy-Out as one of the founding directors, Dave Robinson, retired from the firm early in 2024. His retirement was a long time in the planning, but the transaction successfully completed - and we continue to be successful and buoyant.

So many financial advisory firms struggle with succession planning but ours was mapped out from the start. We want to encourage the next generation of directors to come forwards and have a strong pathway for them to do so – which helps us to retain our independence and benefit clients.

I’m looking forward to the launch of the specialist teams in February as it cements the specialist work that our advisers do. It’s yet another sign of the way that CCFP operates as a professional, independent practice and I’m incredibly proud to be a part of it.

Get in touch

Contact us for more information on our services and our team, and for career opportunities.

Our Directors

Centurion are a General Practice firm of Chartered Financial Planners providing top quality, technically competent financial and investment advice.

Meet our Directors. You can view the members of our Advisory and Support teams using the button below.

Chris Hill

Director, Chartered Financial Planner & Head of Advisory
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Daniel Gornall

Chartered Financial Planner & Director
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Jon Stevens

Chartered Financial Planner & Director
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Steve Smith

Managing Director
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What our clients say

We have been clients since November 2019. Our personal advisor is Mr Ian Avery, who we have dealt with in this capacity for a number of years, and is someone we hold in the highest regard. He always takes time to listen properly to us, and has an excellent understanding of our situation and requirements. We have always been given an in depth insight into our situation and options and the investment solutions he has recommended have always been explained and presented in a way we find easy to understand and follow. We have no hesitation in recommending both Ian Avery and the firm as providers of excellent service in all respects.

A Client

As a client of Centurion Chartered Financial Planners for over 9 years, I have always found them to be helpful, innovative and security conscious. James, my investments administrator, clearly has a good understanding of my plans and the schedule of associated actions, alerting me whenever I have a task to complete.

Nic

Client

As a client Of Centurion for a number of years we are more than satisfied that our financial future is in a safe pair of hands with the advice we have been given. In particular Dave Robinson is a very experienced financial advisor and his great knowledge makes him one of the leaders in all aspects of financial planning.

Mr & Mrs PG

Clients

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