Winner Alan Steel was awarded our Lifetime Achievement Award at our Annual Conference, which took place on the 17th of May at Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh.  The Award was presented by Gaynor Turner, Ambassador in our Edinburgh Executive Team.  This WeDO Award is voted for by our entire Executive Team, and, unlike our other Awards, cannot be applied for.  Our Lifetime Achievement Award is in recognition of a Scottish entrepreneur who has made a considerable and lasting contribution to the entrepreneurial community in Scotland over a period of at least 15 years.

Identifying the winner of this Award is always challenging, there are many potentially worthy winners.  This year, our winner, Alan Steel is widely recognised as one of Scotland’s most highly respected & influential leaders in the financial services sector.  Alan has been through more economic downturns and stock market crashes than most and has truly helped countless clients who hold him in the greatest esteem.

Since January 1973, Alan has been practising and studying the secrets of how real wealth is created.  He’s built a highly qualified team, written countless articles, appeared on radio, television, in national media, and is widely known as a leader in his field.

Alan graduated with an MA Honours in Geography & Maths from Edinburgh University in 1969 and went on to work for Scottish Widows as an actuarial student.  He became an IFA in 1973 and started his entrepreneurial journey when he formed Alan Steel Asset Management just 2 years later in 1975, 43 years ago.  He’s survived 5 stock market crashes over that time which is somewhat miraculous!  A sought after speaker, Alan loves what he does and uses his vast experience and knowledge to create better ways of increasing people’s wealth.

Unlike most, Alan has avoided the herd instinct of locating in a big city.  Alan Steel Asset Management is based in Linlithgow and from here they serve clients throughout the UK, and Channel Islands.

Their DNA is knowledge, integrity, innovation, fairness and fun and Alan and his team deliver a unique brand of common sense, fairness and value for money to all their clients.  Others think so too … the firm has been recognised in UK awards ten times over twelve years including the Best Investment IFA a record three times since 2005, and as runner-up in 2015.

Never afraid to speak his mind and as an early critic of With Profit Plans, Alan was one of the first to accuse Equitable Life of incompetence back in 1997.  He has penned hundreds of articles criticising the Government and an industry, which encourages financial ignorance and rewards poor sales techniques with high commission.

His many articles and quotes in the media demonstrate his commitment to continuously ‘lift the lid’ on the financial services industry and bring education to the doorsteps of people like us.

Commenting on his Award win, Alan said

I always believed that life is a journey not a destination.  But having been on this journey for 43 years now, it’s brilliant to have all the trials and tribulations of that long journey recognised by WeDO in the 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award!

It means so much as well to my wonderful colleagues, many of whom have shared the journey with me over the last 20 to 25 years.  My grannies would be flabbergasted and pleased as punch.  My Auntie Irene in Canada is over the moon!  So thank you so much Belinda and your team for this.  Just magic!

Outwith work, Alan is a big fan of red wine, music he can jam to on his mouth organ, Ibiza and last but not least, Twitter where he regularly puts the cat amongst the pigeons with some of his tweets!   Alan was a member of our Executive Team for 3 years and we are immensely grateful to him for his support during this time.  Congratulations to him from us all on having been crowned our 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award winner, a very well deserved accolade.