Meet Lisa: AAB Wealth’s newest Financial Planner

Lisa Tait joined the AAB Wealth team last month, but Lisa is not new to AAB Wealth and has been working with the team for over 10 years. As a specialist in Private Client tax, trusts and estates, Lisa makes a fantastic addition to the team, bringing her technical knowledge, personal skills and fresh perspective to help provide piece of mind and the best possible service to our clients. Being a people person, we had no doubt Lisa would melt seamlessly into her new role to build long lasting, trusting relationships with clients and help guide them through the financial planning process.

Lisa shares some of her experiences and what she’s looking forward to most about joining the wealth team below.

I mentioned in my previous blog that I studied Law & German at university. I chose to study law because I watched far too many episodes of Ally McBeal (a late ‘90s American legal comedy drama for those too young to remember!). I spent my 3^rd year studying German law in Freiburg in the Black Forest which was scary to start with being on my own in a new foreign city, but it was the best experience. I made lifelong friends and gained a huge appreciation for a country which I now love and have been back to several times since.

I really enjoyed aspects of my studies, but I soon realised that I could not see myself being a lawyer. The degree itself was a good stepping stone so I focused on graduating and sending off CVs to see what came back, and that turned out to be a role in the tax team of a small accountancy firm. Numerous years later, an ex-colleague who had been with AAB for a few months reached out about an upcoming vacancy in their Private Client tax team, and just like my first role in a tax team, I knew I had nothing to lose by sending in my CV.

Since joining, my career at AAB has continuously developed, from starting out doing general tax return preparation to specialising in Trusts & Inheritance Tax Planning and leading a small IHT & Trusts team within Private Client. Although I had never moved department in AAB, until now.

I found lockdowns during Covid quite tough as I’m someone who needs to be around other people, so I think this period of time got me thinking about my career generally and the fact that I was ready for a new challenge. I have worked really closely with the Wealth team over the last 10 years and have always had a huge respect for them and what they offer clients, so this just instinctively felt like the right move. It’s not a decision I took lightly and definitely takes me out of my comfort zone, but I think we all need to push ourselves every now and again.

Being part of a wider group where these kinds of internal moves are not only possible but encouraged for career and personal growth really is brilliant. I have lots to learn and more exams to get through but there is a lot of crossover between my previous role and my new one. Ultimately, I will still be able to fulfil the aspects of my private client tax role which I loved the most – meeting people, finding out about their families and their aims for the future and helping them to achieve their goals – just with a Financial Planning hat on rather than a Tax one.

I hope my technical knowledge will be an asset to the Wealth team, but I think it’s the softer skills which I’ve learned in Private Client that will be most useful, really listening to what’s important to clients and working with them to achieve their goals. For me, the best compliment a client can give is to simply say “I trust you”, obviously you need to be sure that they understand the advice and are not just blindly following suggestions but once you are confident that’s the case, there is nothing more satisfying than knowing they value your guidance.

Every single person in the Wealth team has been so welcoming and supportive and I am just really looking forward to playing a part in the future growth of the business. As I said, I still have lots to learn but I hope along the way that my experience and knowledge will also help others in the team to learn things from a slightly different perspective.