Profile: Jillian Thomas

It was 9.27am on December 26 2004 when Jillian Thomas’s life changed forever.

She had taken her mother on a luxury Christmas holiday to Thailand following the death of her father but during their stay they got caught up in a Tsunami which claimed the lives of more than 150,000 people and left millions more homeless in 11 countries.

Thomas, 52, still finds it difficult to talk about what happened but says with hindsight: “It was the best and worst thing that has ever happened to me. It suddenly made me challenge every facet of my life and for that I am extremely thankful because it has made me the person I am today.”

The person she is today is the managing director of her own financial planning business Future Life Wealth Management, which she launched in 2010, and vice president of Sheffield Chamber of Commerce.

One of Jillian Thomas’s clients describes her as “the pilot of my plane while I sit in the back with a gin and tonic”.

Only it’s not just one plane she flies. She flies hundreds. And she decided to start flying those planes in the middle of the biggest global financial storm since the Great Depression.

“I wanted to help very busy people look after their financial affairs. I wanted to see how good I was and to set myself a challenge,” she says.

“The wealth management market was dreadful and people told me it was an idiotic time to do it. But if you believe in yourself and create the right offering and the right infrastructure I believe any kind of business can succeed.”

Starting life at Thomas’s home in Sheffield, the business has since grown to employ six staff and has more than 300 clients.

Most of the people she works with are business owners who are looking to accumulate wealth and create an exit strategy for their retirement.

She uses cash flow forecasting, “a posh excel spreadsheet”, to work out how much they would need to sell their business for to maintain their current lifestyle once they retire.

The majority of clients are middle-aged and above but she says the industry is on the brink of a “seismic” change.

“There are a lot of entrepreneurs in their late 20s and early 30s selling businesses to big companies for significant amounts of money which, if used correctly, could set them up for the rest of their lives.

“People think younger wealth is football territory but these budding entrepreneurs are the new kids on the block.”

This new type of business owner brings huge changes for financial planners.

“If you are 30 with wealth, you are potentially looking at a 60-year income stream. We need to work with them to decide what they are going to do for the rest of their life – do they want to sit on a beach? I actually find the vast majority want to create a new business. They are fascinating people to work with.”

The company also carries out personal injury work with solicitors.

In addition, it recently set up a joint venture with Sheffield law firm Banner Jones to form Banner Jones Wealth Management and it has just started a relationship with accountancy firm GVT.

The changes to the rules around workplace pensions have also brought massive implications for financial planners.

But as well as providing financial advice, Thomas has also found herself advising businesses on how to build up a brand. “Social media has become increasingly important,” she says. “I have picked up six or seven clients just through Twitter. That is something I have shared with other people setting up businesses.”

Future Life also does a weekly Bizcast, which focuses on a news story in the industry and simplifies it to help clients understand certain issues.

In recent years, Thomas has built up her profile through public speaking and winning a number of awards but it still came as a shock when she received the call from Sheffield Chamber of Commerce asking her to take on the role of deputy vice president. “I said, ‘have you got the right person? You’re speaking to Jill Thomas’.”

But after the initial surprise, Thomas says she is “exceptionally proud”.

“I think these are going to be significant years in respect of the Sheffield region and UK economy and to be part of that from the inside is tremendous,” she says. “The people who put me forward said they wanted someone who had created a new business and was very focused on bringing new business into the region.”

The main issue for Sheffield, according to Thomas, is job creation. “We need to focus on creating the jobs for school leavers to go into and making sure they have the ability to take those jobs. A lot of manufacturing is starting to come back from Eastern Europe and China and now, rather than price, it’s about quality.”

A proud moment for Thomas came in May this year when she was having dinner with her mother at the top of the Shard in London and she heard a German businessman on the next table praising the Advanced Manufacturing Park in Rotherham to his companion.

“It’s rewarding to hear someone from Germany speaking so favourably about something on my doorstep,” she says.

Thomas will become the second woman president of Sheffield Chamber of Commerce and Industry in its 150-year history.

She was appointed junior vice president at the Chamber’s annual general meeting, meaning she will take the top post from 2015 to 2016.

The first female president was lawyer Suzanne Liversidge, who was president from 2011 to 2012.

“I got the role on merit, not because I was female,” Thomas says. “But it’s interesting that in my business I am being chosen by high profile men who want a woman rather than a man to look after their money. Personally, I think there are lots of very good male financial planners out there but I suppose being a woman brings a different viewpoint.”

Born in Newton-Aycliffe in County Durham, Thomas says she had a nomadic early life, living in a number of different places until the family settled in Sheffield when she was 13. She admits to having “struggled” at school because of her then undiagnosed dyslexia and a year off school due to glandular fever.

When she left school, she worked as an admin assistant at the insurance giant Guardian Royal Exchange Assurance in Sheffield and moved around offices in Harrogate and Leeds before returning to Sheffield.

Prior to setting up her own business, she worked at a financial planning practice in Mansfield.

In her spare time, Thomas, who is single, enjoys musical theatre and gardening but still maintains that travelling the world is her great passion.

Jillian Thomas Factfile

Title: Managing director of Future Life Wealth Management

Date of birth: October 24, 1961

Education: Tapton Comprehensive School, Sheffield

First job: Administration assistant at the Guardian Royal Exchange in Sheffield

Favourite holiday destination: Mauritius

Favourite film: The Shawshank Redemption

Favourite song: Angels, by Robbie Williams

Last book read: Power Trip: A Decade of Policy, Plots and Spin by Damian McBride

Car driven: Mercedes

Most proud of: My team