Andrew+Fisher

=Andrew Fisher=

Honesty and integrity are just two qualities that Towry Law's chief executive most values and they have no doubt helped him map a successful career path. But his outspokenness doesn't come without its critics, as can be seen by his company's departure from Aifa. However, he says these "differences" of opinion should not stop him from achieving his ultimate goal - for Towry Law to be the biggest wealth adviser in the UK in five years.

Towry Law chief executive Andrew Fisher has earned a reputation as an outspoken critic of some aspects of the industry. But his opinions can be set against a wide ranging and successful career in financial services. At the age of 36, he was the youngest chief executive of private investment bank Coutts in its 300-year history and he has served as chief executive for many other companies. Twenty-five years ago, graduating from Birmingham university with a degree in economics, he turned down a job working at a scrap-metal dealers in Wolverhampton to join dairy giant Unilever. As a brand manager for Flora, he was tasked with marketing margarine to the masses. "Butter was our enemy," he quips. By the age of 24, he was the youngest senior manager in the company. Fisher attributes the secret of his success to a deceptively older appearance. "People think I look older than I am. I looked about 44 then."

The son of an airport manager with Pan-Am who travelled the world setting up airports in far-flung destinations such as Guadalupe and Nigeria, Fisher benefited from an international upbringing. He recalls: "When you have to go to a well to get water at the age of nine because the electricity is off for three weeks, you realise that hardship is not a pleasant thing. If you have the choice between having luxury and not having luxury, you choose it. But you can't always just turn it on. "Living abroad helped me understand how business works too. The best way of managing people is to understand where they are coming from. To do that, you have to understand their culture."

Prior to working at Towry Law, Fisher says he is most proud of his work at Coutts. There, he says, he turned round the bank's management culture. Three hundred of the firm's front-office staff were told to re-apply for their positions and each of them was interviewed by Fisher. It was a seismic change, he says, helping the company go from £20m in the red to £220m in the black in his last year.

Lecture: " Financial Services, Past, Present and Future "

LVS Larby Lecture Programme Autumn 2010 LVS Larby Lecture Programme Spring 2011 LVS Larby Lecture Programme Summer 2011

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