Nov. 27, 2020

113: Find Ya' Wealth | Elisabeth Dana and Infinity Circle

Elisabeth Dana from Infinity Circle joins the show to talk about how a career in wealth management inspired her to start all over again to build a business centered on client needs, how to be be both digital and transformational, first reflections on Infinity Circle’s crowdfunding campaign and the social side of wealth management.

Show Notes
Guest Profile

This episode of MoneyNeverSleeps is sponsored by PAT Fintech, the training partner that demystifies fintech and digital finance for financial services professionals.

EPISODE OVERVIEW:

We’ve got Elisabeth Dana on the show this week, who is the founder and CEO of Infinity Circle, launching in 2021 as a global digital and real-world platform that brings together like-minded entrepreneurs, investors and game changers, to improve your relationship with money and make investing a fun feature of your life.

Although Pete Townsend was in the investment funds industry for a long time, he only began looking at the wealth management sector a few years ago as a market segment ripe for a re-thinking of how they do things. So, when Elisabeth’s colleague Venu reached out to Pete last month, he sparked an interest in learning more about Elisabeth and Infinity Circle.

HIGHLIGHTS:

On her inspiration: “The banking landscape changed a lot following the 2008-09 financial crisis, and I decided that I wanted to contribute to my industry and shape the practice, and in a big bank, that was never going to happen. I knew 16 years on, that I had to take everything that I had been exposed to and use it to shape my industry.”

On the mission: “What was very important for me beyond creating a business from the ground up was to build a wealth management capability based on client needs and strike the right balance between old and new.”

On going back to first principles: “It’s not about short term profits, it’s not about how many financial products you’re selling, it’s not about how many people you can talk to about a specific private equity deal the bank has on its books – this is not wealth management. Wealth management is about getting to know your clients so you can guide them through the pitfalls and find the path appropriate for them; each client is truly different.”

On starting over: “In my mind to be truly digital and truly transformational, you need to start from scratch. You need to redefine the framework, and it is very difficult to do that. Being transformational is all about the mindset and how you model your proposition. If you model your proposition on your target clients and you have the right mindset, you can be truly transformational”

On measuring results: “Science is behind modern day marketing, observing consumer behavior, and building a business based on data, not just a hunch or what we think we know about the industry."

On the bigger benefit of crowdfunding: “It’s about a lot more than money – as infinity Circle’s vision is to democratize wealth management, the best place to start is to let the crowd into your capital structure.”

On what’s unique about Infinity Circle: “The way we’ve designed Infinity Circle is to be a hybrid model, meaning you digitalise your proposition as much as you can, but you don’t remove the human element.”

On why the human element is important: “We want to have a social component to the platform. Over my career, my clients would call me as much about their returns, specific investments and metrics as they would call me looking for introductions to other clients in specific industries or markets they’re looking to enter with their own business.”

On getting moving: “At the start, if you get a sense that those closest to you are supportive and get what you’re trying to do, there’s no bigger help than that.”

Have a look at Infinity Circle's crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs.

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