Leaders List interview: 60 seconds with Paula Steele, JLHO

Date: 13 Sep 2023

Citywealth

This week’s 60-second piece is dedicated to Paula Steele, Director at John Lamb Hill Oldridge.

Written by Barbara Brudenell-Bruce

Tell Citywealth readers a bit about your role.

I am head of our estates desk, we look after the life insurance programmes for 175 families, covering 1100 lives insured and over £3bn of life insurances.  This is a very service heavy role dealing with the clients and acting as part of the trusted adviser team. As a team we are required to be on top of the technical side not only of the policies and insurers but of the trusts holding the contracts.

What does a typical day look like for you?

There is no typical day in my role which provides a continuously interesting and challenging environment.

At least a part of every day is devoted to dealing with ongoing queries from clients and their advisers.  We have a great team that run our renewal and valuation service but there is always a steady flow of questions that come in from other advisers and sometimes clients. In addition to this I work on structuring and the technical work around new covers with clients’ advisers.

Most weeks I am also involved in training sessions for other professional advisers around the benefits of using insurances and how they can use them as part of the planning process for their clients. Lastly and probably most significantly I am involved in training and working alongside our more junior team members, at John Lamb Hill Oldridge we work as a collaborative team and I see it is an essential part of my role to mentor and foster the apprentice culture.

Tell us about some recent, interesting client instructions.

We have recently enjoyed placing over £50m of cover for some Bermuda trustees, dealing with their administrators in Zurich and the client here in the UK.  A challenging case owing to the level of cover and the cross-jurisdiction advice issues.

What challenges do your clients face and how are you helping your clients to overcome them?

Our clients have really significant IHT liabilities on their wealth and we are part of the solution particularly with regard to the IHT on property which is a very illiquid asset and while the tax can be paid over 10 years it still has to be funded and if clients don’t want to sell assets, then they have to provide for the cash needed.

What is your proudest professional achievement?

To have survived through a very long stint with the same firm. 

What do you consider to be the most important attributes for a leader?

That you have the right ethics; this encompasses care for the clients and the outcomes you aim to provide for them and concern for your staff; you are only as good as the team you work with, you have to lead from the front.

Who do you most admire and why?

Bill Gates, as someone who is so steadfast to the charitable work that he does and his commitment to focusing on the difference that this work makes.

Where was the last place you travelled to for work or pleasure?

I went to Amalfi, in southern Italy at the end of June to stay in a hotel that my parents had been staying at for over 50 years, it always feels like coming home.

If you weren’t in this industry, what else might you be doing?

I started off thinking about being an accountant or an actuary and I might have been either – or maybe a gardener.

How do you relax after a long day?

I spend time in my garden.

You can view Paula’s profile on the Leaders List here.