Getting Bigger Should Mean Looking After People Better
An open letter to our clients, colleagues and partners about the people building Skybound, and the responsibility that comes with growth.
Trusted by 6,000+ clients over 20+ years
I haven’t stopped being a financial adviser because I became a CEO.
I began my financial services career in 1997. Nearly 30 years later, I still sit with clients and use our own systems. I enjoy that part of the job, and it keeps me close to what we are asking people to trust us with.
Someone asking whether they can afford to retire may also be asking how much longer they need to stay in a job that is wearing them down. A family considering a move needs to understand whether the life they have imagined is financially possible, and what they might be putting at risk.
Those conversations matter to me. They bring everything back to the person sitting in front of you: what they hope for, what worries them and what they need to understand before making a decision.
As Skybound grows, I want us to protect that connection. The business around the adviser should become stronger without making the relationship with the client more distant.
So far in 2026, 72 new colleagues have joined Skybound.
I’m proud of that progress. Welcoming people with experience, ideas and ambition is an important part of building the firm we want to become.
But a client who has trusted us for years is entitled to ask a simpler question: what does this improve for me?
It should mean the right expertise is easier to access. It should mean your adviser has stronger support behind them, your questions reach the right person and you spend less time chasing something that should already be moving.
An existing client must not become less important because a new one has joined.
The same responsibility applies to our colleagues. A growing business should create opportunities to develop and take on responsibility, with the resources and support to do that work properly.
None of this happens automatically. It requires decisions about where we invest, how we organise the work and what we are prepared to accept when the experience falls short.
Before we talk about who is joining next, I want to recognise the people whose work made those opportunities possible.
That includes our advisers and associates, and colleagues across paraplanning, administration, compliance, tax, finance, technology, marketing, corporate affairs and People and Talent. There is a great deal of responsibility in work that never becomes a public announcement.
I value the colleague who spots what could go wrong, asks the uncomfortable question and makes a recommendation better before it reaches a client. I value the person who follows something through properly rather than assuming someone else will deal with it.
When careful work prevents a problem, there may be nothing dramatic to celebrate. That does not make the contribution any less important.
Good people also deserve more than our thanks. They deserve the chance to progress.
All seven Graduate Associates in our 2025 Academy cohort completed their Level 4 qualification ahead of schedule. Our 2026 cohort is now underway, gaining experience through rotations across the business. That is a real achievement for the graduates and the colleagues investing time in their development.
Our responsibility now is to help that knowledge develop into sound judgement: knowing which questions to ask, recognising when another perspective is needed and being able to explain a recommendation clearly.
Watching people grow in confidence and capability is one of the most satisfying parts of leading a business. It matters that someone can look ahead and see a future here, rather than only the next target.
"Good people also deserve more than our thanks. They deserve the chance to progress."
Consider a family earning in the UAE or Saudi Arabia, with pensions and property in the UK and plans to retire somewhere else.
I would not regard a review of their investments as complete without understanding how those investments fit with their other assets, future income needs and intended move.
That is the thinking behind the specialist depth we are building. The starting point has to be the person’s life, not whichever service they happened to ask about first.
Women Like Us gives focused attention to women’s financial independence, including the planning questions that arise around career breaks, family responsibilities and life abroad. A woman’s own security deserves direct attention, rather than an assumption that somebody else’s plan takes care of it.
Athletes & Creators addresses careers where income can be unpredictable or concentrated into a relatively short period. The planning needs to reflect that reality and consider how today’s earnings can support the decades beyond them.
Skybound Property & Finance brings borrowing and property decisions into the wider conversation about cashflow, retirement, tax and protection. Arranging a mortgage is part of the work. Understanding whether that commitment supports the client’s wider plans is just as important.
Our professional relationships through Global Partners matter for the same reason. The right expertise may sit within Skybound or with another professional working with the client. What matters is that the advice is considered together and responsibilities are clear.
Having specialists available is only useful when they become involved at the right time. I expect an adviser to recognise when help is needed, bring the right people into the discussion and make sure the client understands how the recommendations fit together.
A client should not have to become the project manager for their own financial advice.
I enjoy the variety of a week that can take me from portfolios with our investment team to an idea with marketing, then into a discussion about how our technology could work better.
The satisfying part is seeing something useful come out of those conversations. A task becomes easier. Information becomes clearer. A frustration people had learned to tolerate is properly addressed.
That is the standard I apply to our investment in Plume Wealth Tech and the systems supporting our advisers. Connecting the advice process should reduce unnecessary administration and make it easier to prepare, explain recommendations and keep plans under review.
MoneyMap is a good example of where technology can improve the conversation. It brings income, spending, savings, assets and investments into a visual picture, allowing clients and advisers to explore how different decisions could affect the years ahead.
That creates room for more useful questions. What would retiring earlier require? How much flexibility would remain after a property purchase? What changes when we test a less comfortable set of assumptions?
A projection is not a promise. Its value lies in helping us understand the choices, challenge the assumptions and recognise where a plan needs attention.
I apply the same expectation to our work with AI and automation: the purpose must be better work, with appropriate human oversight. Saving time is useful, but responsibility for the advice must remain with the people giving it.
When we save time on administration, I want that time reinvested in preparation, judgement and conversations that do not feel rushed.
My continued involvement with clients helps me see where we need to improve. It must not mean that everything depends on me being in the room.
My responsibility as CEO is to help build a business where good people have the information, authority and support to make good decisions, and where someone clearly owns what happens next.
For clients, that should mean feeling comfortable asking the question they think they should already know the answer to. It should mean understanding the recommendation, the costs and the risks well enough to challenge us.
For colleagues, it should mean knowing that careful work is respected and that raising a concern is more useful than quietly working around it.
There will be things we need to improve. When an experience falls below the standard we expect, we must acknowledge it, take responsibility for addressing it and learn from it.
There is little value in writing about standards we are unwilling to be measured against.
To our colleagues, thank you for the care and effort you put into this business, including the work that rarely receives public attention. To those who have recently joined, I hope you find both the opportunity and the support to do work you are proud of.
To our clients and professional partners, thank you for trusting us. That trust gives us the opportunity to build, and the obligation to keep improving.
I’m proud to lead Skybound. I still enjoy the work, I care about the people doing it and I am ambitious about what we can become.
But when a longstanding client looks at the business a few years from now, I want them to be able to say more than “Skybound has grown.”
I want them to say, “The support around me is better.”
Getting bigger should mean looking after people better. That's the job.
Mike Coady
Chief Executive Officer
Skybound Wealth Management
"I’m proud to lead Skybound. I still enjoy the work, I care about the people doing it and I am ambitious about what we can become."
If you've ever wondered whether a growing firm can still know your name, ask us. We built Skybound on the belief that scale and closeness aren't opposites - they're the same commitment, repeated for every client, in every country we operate.
Growth only counts if it brings you closer to your adviser, not further away. That's the standard we hold ourselves to, and the one we'd like the chance to prove to you.
Get in touch to start a conversation about your financial future, wherever in the world you are.
