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Meet Chartered Financial Planner Andy Lei, APFS

Find out more about Andy Lei, a Chartered Financial Planner, raised in Glasgow, living in Edinburgh and working with people and businesses not just throughout Scotland but the rest of Great Britain too.
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My credentials

Role: Chartered Financial Planner

Qualifications: Diploma in Regulated Financial Planning, Advanced Diploma in Financial Planning, Certificate in Mortgage Advice.

Awards: Chartered Financial Planner, Associate of the Personal Finance Society,

Location of Clients: Scotland but because of our offices in London, Bristol and Bath I have clients throughout England too.

Office Address: Scott House, 10 South St. Andrew’s Street, Edinburgh, EH2 2AZ

Contact Details: 0131 202 8045 | 07478 583 083

Links: Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook

Ask Andy a question

A little bit about Andy Lei, Unividual Chartered Financial Planner

I was born in Macau, China and at the age of three my family moved to the UK. I have lived in Scotland for 18 years and I am proud to now call Edinburgh my home. I have worked in financial services for over five years, beginning my journey as a financial crime associate. A move to the prestigious financial planning firm, Unividual, has given me the platform to have a career where I can really help people. Unividual is one of the only small businesses in the UK to have an in-house Chartered Financial Planning School. I spent three of my years at Unividual training alongside some of the best financial advisers in the UK to advise people and businesses on how to grow, manage and structure their own finances.

My focus will always be on building financial wellbeing for people. I am a caring and extremely empathetic individual and enjoy helping people make long-lasting change in their lives for good. I also don’t enjoy telling people what to do and so my style is centred around giving clients tools and ideas so they are empowered to make their own decisions in life. When you ask most people what their goal is in life it is to have financial security and independence, and this is what I can give you and your family or business for years to come.

What inspires me to help others?

Relocating to the UK in the 90s was very difficult for me and my family. My parents needed financial advice and support because everything was so different to China. Finding good quality financial advice was, and still is to this day, challenging. It is even harder for people that are moving to the UK or for people who don’t fit the stereotypical mould of what a client looks like in financial services marketing…a Caucasian, middle-aged man. My family couldn’t find a financial adviser they could relate to or who understood the dynamics of our culture.

Even today, there is still a real lack of diversity when it comes to the financial services industry. This is what inspired me to get in to financial advice and this drive is what motivated me to join Unividual. Businesses like Unividual, are making financial advice accessible to a wide variety of people and care about being an inclusive and approachable business. This is changing the face of financial services and I am proud to be a part of that change.

As a result of a real lack of support and guidance for my family, it eventually led my parents to financial hardship and they lost the majority of their assets. As children we moved around from city to city, five in total, before eventually settling down in Glasgow where my parents worked hard to make ends meet. Every morning I jump out of bed excited for work, knowing that I can make a difference to families like ours.

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Breaking the stereotypes of financial services

There has always been a need for more diversity and inclusion to be demonstrated in workplaces, across societies and a change to the way businesses market themselves. In this podcast Andy Lei was invited to discuss how much progress has been made and it covers racial diversity, gender and sexual orientation and how having a diverse workforce benefits businesses and clients in financial services. The podcast also features Darren Miller, Co-Founder of the Black Business Institute, Annabel Lumsden & Tarnia Elsworth, Directors at TP Financial Solutions, and Andy Lei, Financial Adviser at Unividual.

A testimonial from Development Director Greg Harris

“Andy is extremely magnanimous with his time for others, which is testament to his character. He embodies everything that we as a business look for in our financial advisers and he is actually a credit to the industry, which at times is very much living in the past. Andy’s journey has not been an easy one. Andy joined Unividual in 2019, relocating to work in our Bath office. In August 2021 Andy had to move back to Edinburgh for family reasons. Unividual fully supported this move and we can all proudly say that we have an office in Edinburgh now.”

“Unividual’s passion lies in helping the local communities we are part of and Andy fully embodies those values. He is a regular member at Connected Edinburgh and the Federation of Small Business Ethnic Minority Group. Andy’s drive to ensure that there is better representation of people from diverse backgrounds is extremely important to us as a business whether it be ethic background, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, neurological diversification, to name only a few.  Andy and Unividual are also extremely proud to be able to say that he is one of the few native Chinese speaking chartered financial planners in the UK.”

Who I work with - people like my mum!

My mum has always been a strong role model in my life. Her influence and my upbringing have fuelled my passion to help women gain a lot more financial independence than society offers. Whether you are buying your first home, planning for your children’s education or worrying about retirement, EVERYONE, including women need to feel in charge of their money and have the peace of mind that everything is in one place and looked after.

So yes I do have a lot of female clients but I also enjoy working with people from different cultural backgrounds, business owners, people nearing retirement who haven’t yet started planning for their next steps and young professionals or start-ups who are just about to start on their financial journey. Some of my clients are just down the road from me and others are in London or the South West.

 

 

 

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