In this episode, Rachael Smith reflects on purpose-driven leadership and her vision for a more inclusive wealth management industry. She unpacks the inequalities women face in building and managing wealth, the frameworks that guide her personal and professional purpose, and the leadership playbook needed to navigate crises and change. With energy and clarity, Rachael shows how aligning purpose with growth creates lasting impact for both organisations and society.

Welcome back to the Growth Workshop Podcast part three with Rachael Smith.

So let's roll forward. Like, how do you want the industry to be left when you might move to your next adventure? What'll be the thing?

Yeah, so I'll bring that to life with like today, if you Jonny were given a million pounds and I was given a million pounds, statistically, I am less likely to seek advice than you. I am less likely to invest it than you. So that inequality is going to be like, we've been given something really fairly but then you're going to double that number. You're going to seek better returns, you're going to get better advice on on that investment, and I'm not going to do anything with it. And it's like that for me, is like, the great call to action is like with women that have worked hard to accrue that wealth success looks like. More women seeking advice, more women building confidence in investing and actually, let's just look at the numbers and just make sure that the outcomes are the same as well.

I just think you're a breath of fresh air. Honestly, it's like what you've just shared. There is information that a lot of people don't know about their inequality, but the way that you bring energy to it, I think it's excellent.

So I think with any challenge, it's it starts with a firing fire in my belly that those stats annoy me, and it makes me want to do something about it. But being able to do it with like joy, excitement, it's like anything. What's the point in doing it, if we like work is hard. Delivering growth is hard, delivering Organizational Change is hard. But if we can't do it with like joy and energy and positivity, there is literally no point doing it. I would much rather be sat on a beach or, you know, spending that time with my family. So I think there is something about how you show up and and how you tackle problems, tackle challenges, just with a good energy.

Can I ask one quick question, how do you land on that? Because you didn't do it by design, so does? Does this mean that your purpose not changes, but evolves? Is it snowballing? Like how does that shape up for you?

Yeah, I would articulate it as I'm a really purpose driven person. And it was actually in a speech that my best man gave at my wedding that was like a light bulb moment for me. And I think sometimes it takes other people to see you, doesn't it, to help you articulate that is who I am. And he said, Rachael has this unwavering sense of justice, and I'm like, I do, and he's like, she doesn't care whether it's gay rights, trans rights, ethnic social mobility. She doesn't care if it's unfair. She wants to do something about it. And I think that then sort of like translates into me just being a purpose driven person, wherever I see injustice, I want to do something about it. But then finding me having, being able to find that in the roles that I play at work is really important. And I think, yeah, looking at wealth management, it's great that I found that at EasyJet, it was, how do we make like we are making travel an amazing experience that I've

talked about, how much I love travel, that we're making accessible to people that wouldn't otherwise be able to do it. Mm, able to do it. We're giving people amazing experiences of other cultures that just opens your eyes and broadens experiences. And I found great purpose in that, and in my roles, you know, I worked as a sustainability consultant. I was literally helping businesses use the power of good to, yes, impact society and have a positive impact on society, but actually, because we believe that it delivers bottom line growth, and I've kind of come full circle now, because I really think that as we continue to champion women's wealth and build a business that is a society that's inclusive of driving women's wealth outcomes, that is going to be inherently good for our business.

Do you have to work hard to find the purpose? I think it's really curious, right? As a lot of people I speak to outside of a professional context, and when I speak to myself in the mirror, I have the same outcome. Like, really try. It's really hard, I think. And lots of people go through their entire life probably not having felt like they have a purpose. They might have done some things that have been really meaningful and what have you, but haven't felt that they've got that, that purpose. Do you have to constantly remind yourself of that? Or is this something that's sort of tattooed on your forehead?

Purpose has always been important to me. There's a really nice kind of model, I guess, framework, that I like to go through, which I think helps people work out whether having a purpose, some people don't need that. So mind, how's your mind and how important is your mental health, and how your mind is on a day to day basis, and how important is that to you? How is it today? Body? How's your body feel? For me if I haven't exercised, if I haven't stretched, if I haven't done something for my body in a day, my mood and my mind starts like really being impacted. For other people, it's not as important. It's really not important. So mind, body, soul, that's your purpose. How important is that? Like what you're doing at its core? Is it meaningful to you? Does it matter for some people, it matters. Some people it doesn't. For me, it really matters. And the final one is connection, relationships, the people around. You. For some people, if they are not feeling

like they're spending enough time with their family and work is overtaking things, that would be a mega red flag for how well they're coping. For other people, you know, I don't have kids. I'm, you know, I don't have to worry about that, but having the connection with my husband, with my friends, is really important. So I think it's understanding how important those and they might change at different parts of your life. But knowing how important and a day to day basis, are you aware of how you're feeling on mind, body, soul connection is a little tick list, and it's a good way of like rating and regulating yourself to go, God, this month has felt really hard. Oh, it's because I haven't seen my mates or, Oh, it's because I really let that body thing go, or, actually, gosh, yeah, my mental health isn't in a great place. I need to do something about it. So I think it's just a good way of, yeah, checking in and self regulating, but knowing which of those things are

important to you as well.

We love a framework. So I was thinking about Evelyn partners and EasyJet. And I was thinking about, what do they need that it must be a standout thing, like leadership must be hugely important, because there's so much impact. You know, we've worked in some of the largest travel organizations in the world, for example, not in aviation, but just in the ones that provide fantastic holidays to us, and they're impacted probably weekly, on some of the biggest macroeconomic challenges, or the some of the earthquakes that go on that can impact that. But aviation and wealth have a similar element. You know, I imagine in the pandemic, EasyJet was probably staring down the barrel of, are we ever going to get another pain in the sky? Wealth Management might be some of the challenges that are going on in governments and politics. But as a leader, which you are principally focused on in your role, what's been an occasion where you've seen in the last sort of five years

where you've seen yourself and maybe your leaders really grow and stand up to really sort of a leader team forward. Have you got an example that you could share with us where leadership has been crucial?

I think any macro crisis really requires leaders to step up. And I think what on a much smaller scale, the crisis that, you know, we navigated EasyJet three during the pandemic on a real, like, totally different scale. You know, the Trump tariffs, you know, created a lot of market turmoil. And I had the playbook, had the crisis management playbook of what to do when that happens, get the team together. It's hourly stand ups. It's who are the people that you need. You need PR. You need client comms. You need the customer team. You need all of these people to be totally aligned. You need them in a commercial command center, really, really quickly, so you can make rapid decisions quickly. You need the you need the decision makers. You need a direct line into the CEO. You want to understand what he wants to sign off, what he's delegating authority to someone else to sign off. You need, you know, you might need a general counsel there if there's like positive so you

just mobilize a team really quickly. And I think leaders who have navigated businesses through crises and uncertainty will have their own playbook like and it will look exactly like that, that you then lift and shift into the next thing. And you can deploy that on on smaller sprints too. You don't need to wait for a crisis, for something like that to happen. We can go, Ah, there's this bit, you know, the but you know, the autumn statement will come up, and no doubt our Chancellor will say something that will impact the markets and our business and our clients. We don't need to wait for that to happen, to get mobilized and prepared around that. And we can get that same squad of people rapid decision making, mobilized in a room really quickly, and all the levers ready to pull and be responsive and reactive. But I think great leaders are always thinking ahead and and looking at things like, how can I we talked earlier about being able to replicate things growth now is not just

about having your long term enablers and your your initiatives that you're working through constantly. It's about working out what's scalable and repeatable quickly. And I think good leaders are doing that.

Amazing, command and control center. The thing that Matt and I and the SBR team have noodled on, and it's a conundrum that we always face. We believe we've got the answer to it, which proves that revenue growth can occur is in a hierarchy, having outright leaders versus player managers. So the outright leader in a business, if you have that right model, typically, will help you generate revenue far greater than if you had a player manager or a player coach. That would be that someone is doing the job, necessarily, within wealth management, they might have a client book, but also leading a team as well, versus an outright manager that wouldn't have a book, and they're just leading a team or on the business. What's your view on what's the right model?

I think it and like, everything depends, oh, gosh, sorry, depends on the business. Depends on the stage of maturity it's at as well. One of the things, if I reflect specifically on my team and on bringing growth and sales and marketing together and our growth model. I think for my role, my leadership team's role cannot be player manager. That's not scalable. I'm not scalable. I'm on one person, my leadership. Team on each they have a function that they need to look after themselves and their first team. And I talk about this with them a lot. Their first team is each other. Their first team isn't the team that they manage. It's the team that that I have put them in. They're a part of that. They're a part of alignment between my head of digital, my head of marketing, my head of BD is absolutely critical, and them being that, being their first team is really, really important. They also are not scalable. But their teams are what their teams do. And I

think it's, you know, it is a kind of pyramid structure, which means that we can't afford to have player managers at any of that top part of that triangle. One of the things that we've really intentionally done, because, particularly when you're and I said, this is why I mention it depends on what stage the business is at, is that the stage of maturity of your growth model in the early days, it's almost impossible not to have player managers, and what we have tried to do only quite recently, really, is be intentional about what are we transforming and what are we running? And if we're running it, it needs to be no player managers really clear structure. Deliver it like this. This is how I want, how it needs to be done. Work within these frameworks. But here's the framework, if we're transforming it, so we're actually trying to change it, we're going to have to get our sleeves rolled up. Everyone's getting mucked in, because we're going to have to define it. And I

think just being intentional about which bits are you running and giving people really clear parameters to operate within, and which bits are you transforming, which actually might require more intervention, more collaboration, more doing, of some of that kind of leadership team, I think, is really important. But being clear about which bits are which.

But I think what that says is that's the difference between having a mature business, which is the run side, versus having a business that's in in grow mode and in evolution mode and in more drastic because change is everywhere, but you've still got, you know, you've still got that. It's fascinating. I worked with some large banks in a tech capacity, and they have defined functions. They literally have silos in their business. Have a run the bank, change the bank, right? So it's like, totally different, different capabilities, different jobs. Quite frustrating as a vendor, if you're trying to service both sides of those, both sides...

How do you bring it together? Because I always think that's like, when we've got an innovation team, and I'm like, That's great. How are you going to make the innovation actually work?

Well, basically the change team has to operate like a consultant within the business. So you're you're assessing what's happening on the run side, the difference being, is your run the bank motion is you've got people who are very good at following a well defined process in a govern structure and turning up and doing the same thing day after day after day, and the change side is all about actually. How can we stretch that? How can we test that? How can we so you're not asking people to do necessarily the same thing, so you're not looking for the same capabilities either. Like anything, as you said, it depends on your industry. Depends on where you're going, but especially, I guess, in regulated markets, it's helpful to have some sort of separation between that, because you've got to have consistency and a well governed operation, but at the same time, you still need to keep up with what's going on in the market. So Rachael, as it's become customary

on the Growth Workshop Podcast, we'd just love to ask you that one question that sparks a lot of thought in our guests minds, and we're curious to know if you had to select three people for your personal board of advisors, those who would provide advice to you in a business context, in a personal context, whatever that might be, who would those people be and why?

I feel like this is a very mean question, because everyone's board should have more than three people on it, but I really believe in the power of mentorship and relationships and having being surrounded by people that inspire you and challenge you and can help shape you. And I do a lot of my thinking by talking to other people. So all of the poor people that have to listen to me and then give me feedback all the time, I do feel sorry for them, but yeah, I guess there are probably depending on different things. One of my best friends from university, Jason is a consultant dermatologist. He has is one of the smartest people I know. He knows me the best. He has given me so many light bulb moments about myself that I didn't realize about myself, and he's articulated them for me, which have been really helpful. And he has comes from such a different background to me, you know, being a medic, but so much of what he teaches me and our shared passions

for adventure and exploration and etymology and kind of weird things like that, mean that he's always a great person to to have on my board. The second person, I think, would have to be Andrew Middleton. He was my client. When I worked at Omnicom, he poached me and took me to EasyJet. He approached me to come to evil and partners. You know, he's, he's been my boss kind of three times now. And I think the attraction to moving roles each of those times that. Have done it has been to work with Andrew, and I think again, surrounding yourself with people who you aspire to be like, who shape you. We have a really honest and open relationship, which I think really helps at work. But it's in a deep, like deep, grounded mutual respect, very different, which I think works. So I couldn't not have him on my board of advisors, I think. And then the third isn't a person, but it's like a place. So I'm a volunteer school governor at a school in Hackney that is such a different

place for me, and a source of inspiration. It reminds me of who I am in the world. Seeing the children there and a totally different community to the environment that like this is lovely what we're doing here today, but it's also not that dissimilar to my office and to, you know, the other places that we go for work. It takes me, it has become my board of advisors for I've learned so much through that school, through seeing that leadership team grow through seeing a change of head teachers, seeing how they juggle things, see seeing how they manage a team of people, and it has probably given me more than I've given it. And yeah, I know it's weird to have like a school as my board of advisors, but I think, yeah, both children, the children and the management team there actually would be on my board.

Brilliant first time we've had a school, but I think you're absolutely allowed that. So thank you. Great answer and a fantastic answer. And with that, Rachael just leads me just to thank you so much for coming on the Growth Workshop Podcast. We've thoroughly enjoyed the conversation today, the insights you've shared, the snippets, the frameworks we know we love and we know our audience love. It's been fantastic. So on behalf of Jonny and I and the rest of the team here, thanks so much.