For Gary and Tesha, retirement was never really about stopping. It was about having the freedom to pursue the next chapter in their lives the way they imagined it.
Today, that means travelling, spending time in places they love, creating homes in different countries, meeting new people and packing a lot of sport in. For Gary, it has also meant learning another language and taking on a non-executive director role, allowing him to stay involved in business entirely on his own terms.
But getting to this point wasn’t quite as straightforward as it might sound.
Gary had enjoyed a highly successful career, including serving as CFO of London-listed Zotefoams plc, and living and working in Germany, the US and Belgium. He had built significant wealth. Yet when he and Tesha started thinking seriously about the future, they realised their financial arrangements weren’t giving them the clarity they needed.
Part of the challenge was the complexity of their circumstances. Tesha moved from the US to the UK after marrying Gary, more than a decade ago. The investment rules affecting US citizens living overseas, even those with dual citizenship, are very different from those facing most UK investors. And Gary had pensions in the US (401k and a defined benefit scheme), Germany and the UK, plus property in Germany and the UK. Both planned to add a US property into the mix within a year or two post-retirement.
Their previous adviser had taken a more traditional approach, hadn’t fully understood the restrictions that come from being a US citizen, and had only been able to concentrate on Gary’s UK investments. There was no coherent financial plan bringing everything together, leaving Gary and Tesha with the feeling that they weren’t getting the advice they needed.
“Having lived almost half of my life abroad, my situation wasn’t the simplest, and I had no ability to pool all of my assets together and understand whether it was enough to stop. I had clearly outgrown my UK financial adviser of some 30 years, and since a friend put me in touch with the Cooper Parry team, we haven’t looked back”.
They weren’t simply looking for someone to manage investments. They wanted someone who could understand their circumstances, look at the bigger picture and help them understand what was possible. And, just as importantly, give Tesha the confidence they could stop and still live the life they planned.
That’s when another Cooper Parry Wealth client introduced them to James.
Beginning with the bigger picture
The relationship started with a discovery process, designed to understand much more than their finances.
James spent time getting to know Gary and Tesha, their priorities, ambitions and what they wanted life to look like in the years ahead. From there, a financial plan could be built around those goals.
One of the biggest questions was whether Gary could afford to step away from his highly paid executive career at the age of 58, without the need ever to return to the workforce.
“I’d long planned to retire early but Covid got in the way and pushed things back a few years. By the time I made the decision to stop, work was definitely getting in the way of us doing the things we wanted to do. And Tesha was simply waiting for me to pull the trigger before she did the same.”
It was a big decision. Walking away from a successful career isn’t just about whether the numbers add up. Even after building substantial wealth, there can be a psychological shift from earning money to spending it.
“We’re both financially cautious, Tesha more so than me. Cooper Parry made it clear to us we could retire and pursue the life we knew we wanted.”
Rather than simply telling them what they could or couldn’t afford, James helped them understand the implications of different choices and what their financial future could look like.
That gave them something incredibly valuable: confidence. That Gary could step away from work. That they wouldn’t constantly have to worry about whether they were spending too much, even if they lived to 100. And, most importantly, confidence to start enjoying the life they had spent years working towards.
For Gary and Tesha, their wealth isn’t something to preserve for a future inheritance, not having children, or to buy more things – like a fancy car. It’s there to help them make the most of life.
Turning confidence into freedom
Since retiring, Gary and Tesha have embraced that freedom.
Travel is a much bigger part of their lives, giving them the opportunity to spend more time abroad, explore new places and focus on the experiences that matter most to them. And tie these visits into the sports both enjoy. Gary is a long-time keen cyclist and recent convert to swimming, while Tesha has rediscovered her love for running and recently completed her first half marathon in Chicago. Work was getting in the way of these things, and they are now fully focused on enjoying some of the finer things in life, including transatlantic business class travel whenever possible.
Learning is also important. Being fluent in French and German, Gary has embarked headfirst into learning Italian, his grandmother’s mother tongue. Tesha has embraced the opportunity this brings, with both spending all of March this year in Milan, where Gary went to school every day, and Tesha explored the city, frequently in running shoes. They will return for the whole of September and expect to continue these visits next year at least.
For Gary, retirement hasn’t meant stepping away from business entirely, even though he was fully prepared to do so. But what he does have is the freedom to choose how and when he uses his experience.
“I didn’t set out to take on a Non-Executive Director role. I was approached just before I retired and was able to secure a position on the Board of a very exciting, AIM-listed international manufacturing business – CT Automotive. I’m enjoying the business interaction and ability to share my experience with others. The three or so days a month I spend is almost entirely virtual, which fits right alongside the life Tesha and I have chosen. It’s a great string to the bow of retirement, but that said, I feel I have more than enough to keep the brain working without it.”
Rather than working because they feel they have to, Gary and Tesha now have the freedom to decide how they spend their time and energy.
Freedom backed by a plan
For Gary and Tesha, good financial planning is about far more than investment performance. It’s about understanding what matters most, making informed decisions and having confidence in the future. It’s about understanding the current plan – which might change as time passes – to release wealth in the most efficient way, and in line with their lifestyle, so that they live life to the full now while they’re fit and healthy, but also while knowing they’ll have enough to happily make it to the day King William sends them their birthday cards. It’s about knowing their finances are working towards a purpose and having a trusted adviser who understands the complexities of their situation.
Today, that means the freedom to live life on their own terms and make life count.
