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Get to know the 50 Most Influential: Alexandra Loydon of St James's Place

News Team, 13/04/2021

We continue our series getting to know the constituents of 2021 PAM 50 Most Influential, an annual list of those at the forefront of shaping private client wealth management in the UK and Crown Dependencies.

Today we hear from Alexandra Loydon, director for private clients, partner engagement and consultancy at St James's Place.

Ms Loydon oversees St James’s Place’s (SJP’s) higher-net worth client business, which brings together financial planners, investment and pension planning specialists, banking advisers, and experts in tax planning and legal matters.

Ms Loydon, a private client lawyer, is highly experienced in advising upon the structures to hold, protect and pass on wealth. She has particular experience in integrating personal and business succession issues for business owners. She was promoted to her present position in January 2020, having worked for SJP since 2010.

Ms Loydon’s interests within the sector include sustainable investing, philanthropy, and financial literacy, and she acts as a spokesperson for the firm on such issues. She is the senior sponsor for START, a programme focused on educating young people around big financial decisions.


What team or personal achievement over the past year are you most proud of?

As wealth managers, we play a pivotal role in ensuring our clients’ financial wellbeing and I’m passionate about what we, as an industry, can do to meet the increasing need for financial education and advice more generally.

I have an exciting role as senior sponsor of our START initiative, an under-30s financial education platform, that sees me work with talented young colleagues from every area of our business. All our contributors are under 30s who work at St James’s Place. They are just starting on their financial journeys and enthusiastically commit their time to help support and empower other young people. 

One of my proudest moments was when the START team hosted SJP’s largest virtual event in 2020 – engagement was brilliant and the energy the team injected into it made the event a memorable success.


What do you find most rewarding about your role?

The strength of our client relationships and the amount of positive feedback my team receive from our partners and their clients is the best reward.

The Private Client Division represents and supports the largest community of Chartered Financial Planners in the UK and receiving feedback that is triggered by clients and their families understanding the benefit of, and personally experiencing, the value of face to face financial advice. It is really powerful.


What most excites or interests you about the wealth management industry right now?

At SJP we are committed to helping our clients achieve financial well-being in a world worth living in. What excites me right now is the impact the industry can have on sustaining a world worth living in; being responsible investors ourselves and educating and helping our clients understand the impact they can have through responsible investing. 

Our industry has the power and ability to significantly change behaviour, mindset and bring about much needed change and we need to collectively adopt a decades, not days, mindset.

A colleague of mine shared this quote from William Wordsworth and it I think it’s so relevant: "Let us learn from the past to profit by the present, and from the present, to live better in the future".   


What challenges do you see your firm/clients facing in 2021?

We all need to adapt to the ever-changing way of living and working, in a manner that meets people’s different needs.

As a firm, we will continue to ensure effective collaboration across teams that may be split between working remotely and working in the office. Our partners will be focussed on meeting individual clients’ needs through differing blends of face-to-face and virtual contact. 


If you couldn’t work in wealth management/private banking, what other career appeals?

My friends would say a formula one racing driver (the first female one if I could have been!). I grew up around racing cars.

Colleagues will tell you it’s often an analogy I use at work, because in my view, drivers win races and teams win championships, and I firmly believe that’s how we need to work with clients – they need the best teams around them. 

At SJP the ‘pit crew’ are the Private Client subject matter experts, each representing a different element of our broad proposition to clients. This really highlights the unique structure of SJP. Client relationships sit with our individual Partner practices, with the support of an entire Private Client ‘pit crew’ around them.


What was your student job?

I worked in a wine bar whilst at university but that didn’t work out quite so well for me during my third year abroad in Chile. I had been warned that bar jobs didn’t command quite the same pay in Santiago and while I was still getting to grips with the many ‘Chilenismos’ (Chilean slangs words), I misinterpreted the pay for my 12 hour shift.

Instead of a respectable £3.30 per hour, it was £3.30 per shift, cash in hand, at the end of the night! Since then, I’ve made sure my finances don’t get lost in translation!


What’s a valued hobby or interest outside work and how did you get into it?

I was a competitive swimmer in my teens but had never ventured into open water, aside from scuba diving on foreign holidays. Now I really enjoy outdoor and open water swimming.

I eagerly signed up for a long-distance ‘Swim the Channel’ open water charity event organised by the SJP Foundation. This couldn’t take place last year as planned but once we’re allowed, you’ll regularly see me back in training in Whitstable or Brockwell lido…the cold water sharpens the mind and reinvigorates me – always good ahead of some strategic thinking I have planned!


Do you have a pet? What’s he like?

We have a lockdown pet as my mother has been staying with us throughout and naturally, this included her 29-year-old cockatiel, Henry.

Henry originally belonged to my late grandmother; she inherited him from a home that said he was too noisy, but, has been with mum since 2007. 

We don’t think he’s noisy, but much to my husband’s annoyance, he’s learnt a great impression of a mobile phone ringing, which has bought much amusement to our home during lockdown. He’s a reminder that we can all flourish in the right environment.