Square Mile and Me: Jim Wood-Smith on all-day breakfasts, birthday redundancies and why the City needs to watch Monty Python
Every week we ask the financial services industry’s great and good to delve into memory lane. This week, it’s Hawksmoor Investment Management’s Market Commentator and Head of Climate Transition Jim Wood-Smith who gives us an insight into a City left behind in more ways than one…
What was your first job?
I never did the Saturday paper round or the gap year saving-the-sloth thing. I was classically middle class and went to work for Barclays Trust Company after graduating. In the mid 80s those with a Desmond in Politics from Hull couldn’t afford to be to too choosy.
How was your first role?
Despite my derogatory remarks above, it was tremendous fun, gave unbelievably good training and was a very fortunate place to start my career. I then worked out how difficult actual clients are and transferred into the head office research department in Farringdon Street to escape about five years later.
When did you know The City was the place for you?
Very quickly after moving to the City. The atmosphere, aura and history were intoxicating (in a different way to my next answer). To balance that, I guess that like a lot of people I have long had imposter syndrome and am not sure it ever was the right place: I am in awe of people who do what I consider to be real work and are paid a pittance for so doing.
What was your most memorable lunch?
The thing with memorable lunches is that one’s memories of them tend to be rather fuzzy. I would say that the worst was actually a black-tie Christmas breakfast in a Smithfield pub, which turned into a Leo Sayer and a cry of ‘dead ant’ on the zebra crossing at the top of Northumberland Avenue in the evening rush hour. One participant, and subsequent eminent fund manager, didn’t realise the rest of us had got up and gone, staying alone in the middle of the road waving his/her arms and legs in the air.
Any early-career faux pas?
Fortunately I never vomited in the chief executive’s top drawer or peed in the bin in the Datastream room. Most of my career-threatening fat-fingeredness has come courtesy of email; I went through a terrible phase of apparently being unable to distinguish between ‘forward’ and ‘reply’. Sorry Mark.
What’s one thing you love about financial services?
The City is genuinely at the forefront of our response to decarbonization and climate change, and miles ahead of both the government and regulation. This is something that we should be very proud of and should champion. I do hope though that we are not in the early stages of following America’s lead in politicizing the climate, but I suspect I am wrong.
And one thing you would change?
Bring back all-day breakfasts.
The thing about memorable lunches is they tend not to be memorable
Who do you most admire?
I probably have three lifetime heroes, with a little licence. Seve Ballesteros. Second is Robert Fisk, whose writing and ceaseless exposure of the truth I miss terribly. And third is the Monty Python team, whose scripts should be compulsory reading for everyone in financial services. I have no investment heroes.
Are you optimistic about the UK’s financial services future?
I am really not sure. Our greatest challenge in broader financial services is attracting joiners out of schools and universities, and I don’t see this changing for the better until financial planning is taken seriously in education. With regard to the City, we have to concentrate on climate, not crypto, leaders.
What’s our world’s biggest challenge?
Other than recruitment, the retail financial services industry’s greatest challenge is the same now as it was 37 years, which is that we have never dealt with the dynamic between independent and restricted advice. We have spent 4 decades staring up our own posteriors and have made zero progress.
When did you move out of London?
My big bank employer at the time apparently believed the ‘life begins at…’ truism and duly made me redundant on my 40th birthday in 2005. It took all of a fortnight to work out that this was the best thing could have possibly happened, and I found a role in Christows (before this became Wiliams de Broe) that split my time between the City and Devon. And I’ve never looked east since.
What’s the one thing you love most about your job right now?
There’s three things. One, I live in Cornwall and work from home. Two, I still write what I feel to be right and am not crowbarred into regurgitating corporate platitudes. Three, I am steering Hawksmoor’s ESG and climate policies, which is genuinely rewarding work.
It’s a Saturday afternoon – where do we find you?
Usually fighting to keep the garden from being engulfed by the triffids of Bodmin Moor.
You’ve got a well-deserved two weeks off – where are you going, and with who?
We have a place in Thailand, so it is away for some sunshine, cold beer and panang gai with steamed rice.
And your favourite….
Band/Artist: Steely Dan
Film: Any of the Pythons, but probably The Holy Grail
Book: Any of Mark Forsyth’s books about English language, or Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees
Coffee or tea? Tea (preferably Cornish). Coffee gives me insomnia and incontinence.