Transforming personal finance since 2011
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Meet the team

Plain English Finance has built the team needed to deliver life changing results for our clients and community. They are committed to our stated ambition to improve the financial affairs of as many people as possible.

Hello :) If you would like to contact any of the team, please send an email to hello@plainenglishfinance.com.

Andrew Craig

Founder & Investment Manager
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Andrew studied Economics and International Politics at the University of Birmingham, graduating in 1997. His first job took him to Washington DC to work as an intern for a US Congressman on Capitol Hill. Here he was lucky enough to research various topical policy issues and write a number of speeches for the Congressman.

On returning to the UK, he began his career in finance on the Eurobond desk of SBC Warburg (now UBS) but moved to equities two years later to join the UBS smaller companies team. Andrew subsequently headed smaller company sales and sales trading at UK stockbroker, Williams de Broë, and then held senior equity sales positions with Credit Agricole Cheuvreux and SEB in London and New York. From January 2015 to June 2021 Andrew was a partner at specialist life sciences investment bank, WG Partners LLP.

During his career in finance, he has met with the senior management teams of well over one thousand companies and with several hundred professional investors. Andrew has regularly been involved in high profile stock market transactions.

These have included the Kingdom of Sweden’s sales of Nordea Bank AB in 2013 (totalling $7.6 billion) and the stock market flotation of several dozen companies including the likes of: easyJet, HMV, Burberry, Campari, Carluccio’s, the Carbon Trust, lastminute.com.

Since founding Plain English Finance in 2011, Andrew has appeared in numerous national and specialist financial publications including: The Mail on Sunday, The Mirror, CityAM, The Spectator, Shares and MoneyWeek magazines, YourMoney, This Is Money and Money Observer. He has been a regular commentator on Shares Radio and IG TV, was featured in Russell Brand and Michael Winterbottom’s 2015 film “The Emperor’s New Clothes” and interviewed by Eamonn Holmes for theChannel 5 programme “How the other half live”.

The third edition of Andrew’s book has been No. 1 rated on Amazon in categories such as Pensions, Investments and Personal Finance for a good proportion of the last few years. It was the best-selling new finance book in the UK for much of 2019. The book currently enjoys more than 2,000 reviews across Amazon, Audible and Goodreads, the significant majority of which at five-stars.

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Roderick Collins

Investment Manager

Roderick has a long and distinguished career in financial services and wealth management. He held senior management positions with NM Rothschild and James Capel and was the Chief Executive of the private banking activities of Matheson and Co from 1985 to 2000.

He has particular expertise in absolute return strategies. In addition to his role with Plain English Finance, Roderick has undertaken various non-executive directorships in his career and was previously a board Director of the J.P. Morgan Income & Capital Trust plc, a role he from held since 2003 until recently. Roderick has created Solent Systematic Investment Strategies (Solentsis) with professors Stephen Thomas and Andrew Clare of the Cass Business School and Dr. James Seaton to design formulaic investment strategies. Plain English Finance has leveraged Solent’s expertise to develop the fund strategy and composition.


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Prof. Andrew Clare

Investment Consultant

Andrew is the Professor of Asset Management at Bayes Business School and the Associate Dean for Corporate Engagement, where he is responsible for Cass Exec.

He was a Senior Research Manager in the Monetary Analysis wing of the Bank of England which supported the work of the Monetary Policy Committee. Andrew also spent three years working as the Financial Economist for Legal and General Investment Management (LGIM), where he was responsible for the group's investment process and where he began the development of LGIM's initial Liability Driven Investment offering.

Andrew is co-author of “The Trustee Guide to Investment”, and has published extensively in both academic and practitioner journals on a wide range of economic and financial market issues.

In a survey published in 2007, Andrew was ranked as the world's ninth most prolific finance author of the past fifty years. Andrew serves on the investment committee of the GEC Marconi pension plan, which oversees the investments and investment strategy of this £4.0bn scheme; he is a trustee and Chairman of the Investment Committee of the £2.5bn Magnox Electric Group Pension scheme; and he has recently been appointed as trustee of the £500m Amey Pension Scheme.


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Prof. Steve Thomas

Investment Consultant

Steve Thomas joined Bayes Business School in February 2007, after being Professor of Financial Markets at Southampton University since 1996, and prior to that at the University of Wales, Swansea, from 1992.

He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Business Finance and Accounting and in a recent review was ranked 11th in Europe for finance research. Steve has had director experience at a leading global macro hedge fund and since 1988 has been consulting editor of a range of credit publications for FT Interactive Data.

He is an examiner for the Investment Management Certificate of the Society of Investment Professionals, and author of the accompanying Official Training Manual.


Our Board

Andrew Craig is a director of Plain English Finance. In addition, we draw on the extensive knowledge and experience of the following individuals who constitute the rest of our Executive board.

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Dimitri Goulandris

NON-EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN

Dimitri has an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a MA and BA in Electrical and Information Sciences from Cambridge University. He currently runs The Cycladic Group, an investor in, and creator of businesses. Founded in 2002, the Group has invested in over 40 businesses and founded 5 in the U.S., Europe, India, Africa and Latin America.

Dimitri’s interests also hold significant stakes in a number of small public companies including Volex PLC and Journey Group PLC and he sits on a number of public and private boards.

Previously Dimitri set up and ran the European operations of the private equity firm, Whitney & Company, and spent eight years at Morgan Stanley in its private equity group, structuring derivative products and executing mergers and acquisitions both in New York and in London.

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Tim Peacock

DIRECTOR

Tim studied Computer Science at the University of Birmingham and brings a crucial skill-set to the board of Plain English Finance. He currently works for a FTSE100 mining business, running technology and data for one of its subsiduaries across the UK, Ireland, US, Germany and South Africa.

Prior to this, Tim lead technology and digital transformation for FTSE100 property owner, Landsec.

He previously ran the digital marketing agency, LAYER working with a number of high-profile clients, Virgin (virgin.com) and BT Business. Prior to that, he was a partner at M&M, another leading digital marketing agency in London. Tim also headed up digital strategy for London-based Stylo Design as well as part-funding and founding two web startups.

Tim started his career in technology with Computacenter where he spent eight years building their internet-related services business.

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Alan Back

SENIOR NON-EXEC DIRECTOR

Alan’s engineering studies and qualifications led him into a career in the early days of the personal computer. Since then he has spent his time building and running information technology services businesses, with a focus on exemplary customer service.

Alan started his career in technology with Computacenter, one of Europe’s leading IT services companies where he started in sales and over 20 years progressed to the executive position of Public Sector Director running the largest revenue generating division within the company.

Since leaving Computacenter he has launched a media start-up business, worked for a major US satellite services provider and most recently successfully ran and sold a PE backed IT services company.

Press & PR

Andrew and the team feature in a number of publications and media outlets. Please see our Press & PR section for more details.

Press & PR