Citywealth Leaders List, 60 seconds interview – James Reiss, David James Wealth
This week’s 60 seconds Citywealth Leaders List interview features James Reiss, CEO and Co-Founder, David James Wealth. He is responsible for setting the strategic direction of the business, ensuring the team delivers on its promises through purposeful financial planning that helps clients navigate life’s planned and unexpected transitions and achieve their long-term goals.
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Tell Citywealth readers a bit about your role.
My role is varied and has evolved considerably over the last ten years. Increasingly, it’s about making good decisions – getting more right than you get wrong – and backing, supporting and developing our team, giving them a platform to deliver for our clients.
I learned this playing college golf. I wasn’t a key player by any stretch, but was part of a team that went from a very low ranking to about eighth in the nation. Our coach told us his job was to do everything that enabled us to focus on playing well. At the time, we wondered what he did all day. But when things are working well, they should feel relatively straightforward – and a lot goes on behind the scenes to make that happen.
What does a typical day look like for you?
We run the business on a bespoke version of Gino Wickman’s Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS), adapted to our business, clients and team, and it works really well.
On Mondays, I hold management meetings with a set agenda, and I run bi-weekly OKR (objectives and key results) meetings with everyone on our senior team. A large proportion of my time goes on managing and developing talent, as well as dealing with the daily challenges that come with a growing business. We’re a people business and always recruiting, so you need to have your radar on to make sure we can keep delivering for clients.
I also chair a few of our committees and sit on all of them – tech, events, management, the DJW USA investment committee, and now performance, which incorporates HR but is really about enabling our team to perform at their best.
Tell us about some recent, interesting client instructions/requests you have received.
We look after a wide variety of clients. One minute you’re talking to an entrepreneur; the next, to a golfer who has just got their tour card in the US and is working through all the challenges that brings.
We’re incredibly fortunate to work with really nice people. I do think your vibe attracts your tribe. Whether it’s luck or judgement – probably a combination of the two – we’re introduced to really good, interesting people who decide to trust us. Most of our clients are creative, entrepreneurial people who have done, or are doing, something really interesting, whether in music, sport or business.
What challenges do your clients face and how are you helping your clients to overcome them?
In the UK, there is still an incredible amount of jargon and complexity, and the constant Budgets and rule changes of recent years have made it increasingly difficult for people to plan with confidence. As a result, many people don’t make any decisions at all. That is also damaging, as it exposes them to inflation and reinvestment risk, an issue compounded by higher interest rates in recent years.
For our US business, clients face two tax systems, different regulators and different rules, all of which interact.
People lead busy lives, and while their finances matter, dealing with them can be easy to park and put off. That inertia can be very costly.
Ultimately, we’re here to simplify that and make clients’ money work for them, so they can live life.
What is your proudest professional achievement?
Without question, our team. We have some incredibly diligent, talented, hard-working and caring people who, like me, have really grown up and developed alongside the business. That has been a real privilege – one I don’t take lightly – and it’s also very, very fulfilling.
What do you consider to be the most important attributes for a leader?
Leading from the front and living your values. Values are grounding: when you’re making tough decisions, you can refer back to them to make sure you’re aligned. And if your team see you consistently living them, it’s much easier for them to know what is expected of them.
We codified our values in 2021 and writing them down has been far more impactful than I expected. It reminds me of college golf at the University of Iowa: in our first, unsuccessful year, we all wrote down and signed what was important to us about being part of the team, and it sat in our team room. You have to live your values for them to be meaningful, but you need to know what they are first.
Who do you most admire and why?
My mum. My dad died of a heart attack when I was six. It was very sudden – he was with us in the morning and gone by the afternoon.
My mum was left with four children: my sisters were teenagers and I was six. It’s something I think about now that I have children of my own – it’s unthinkable for a whole host of reasons. She dealt with it in the best way she could. She loved us and gave us all the opportunity to have a great life. She’s a tough woman, but she hasn’t been hardened by it. I admire her greatly.
Where was the last place you travelled to for work or pleasure?
Stockholm, where I met some of the leading people in the Nordic region’s financial services industry. It was really interesting – a great trip.
If you weren’t in this industry, what else might you be doing?
I’d be an entrepreneur in a different sector. I love creating and building things.
How do you relax after a long day?
I have two young children who are great fun and provide the perfect escape from work. I try to be incredibly present and there for them.
Key Takeaways
- James Reiss is the CEO and Co-Founder of David James Wealth, focusing on strategic direction and client financial planning.
- His role evolved over ten years to include talent development and decision-making, similar to his college golf experience.
- Reiss manages a bespoke version of Gino Wickman’s EOS, conducting regular meetings and overseeing various committees.
- He helps clients navigate complex financial systems and jargon, aiming to simplify their financial decisions.
- Reiss values leadership that embodies principles, and admires his mother for her resilience after losing her husband.
David James Wealth‘s Citywealth Leaders List profile
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