Managing Director

Originally from Leeds, Phil’s has spent over 35 years in financial services.

The early part of his career was spent with leading life insurance, pension and investment providers in the South West, North West and Midlands before returning to Yorkshire in the early ’90s.

In 1996 Phil joined Grant Thornton, for whom he ran a specialist division dedicated to delivering complex pensions advice and arranging employee benefits programs for the firm’s corporate clients in Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford and Newcastle.

Whilst enjoying success at Grant Thornton, Phil was approached by national mortgage advisory firm John Charcol and subsequently accepted the role of Business Servicing Director for Leeds and Newcastle.

In August 2000 Phil and his wife Liz, started their own independent financial advisory business in Leeds, which would later re-locate and settle in Ilkley, West Yorkshire.  In the years to follow, Jacobs Financial* became a valued brand with significant regional presence; having embarked upon an ambitious growth strategy, underpinned by carefully selected mergers and acquisitions.

Phil’s main focus was to become strategic development of the Business and client advice.  In pursuit of professional excellence to complement his knowledge and experience, in 2007 he became one of the first financial advisers in the World to qualify as a Chartered Financial Planner.

In October 2015, Phil and Liz accepted an offer to sell their shares in Jacobs Financial. Under its new identity, Cowgill’s Wealth (Yorkshire); Phil stayed on as Managing Director and later as Chairman, before leaving in October 2018.

Phil and Liz then formed Goldsborough Wealth Limited to deal with a select number of wealthy clients and businesses.

Director

Originally from Newcastle, Liz was Office Manager at John Charcol’s Newcastle office having previously worked in client servicing roles for a leading Independent Financial Adviser in Newcastle. She was widowed in 1995 and married Phil in 2001, shortly after they had made the decision to set up their own firm.

Having attained the Financial Planning Certificate and driven the delivery of mortgage solutions to customers in the early days, Liz’s role developed as the shape of the business altered.

She played an integral part in the growth of Jacobs Financial, bringing her experience of advising clients directly on key financial decisions; to office and company management.  Liz took over the development and management of the back-office, administration, systems and people to ensure that the levels and quality of support demanded by a busy practice delivering bespoke solutions were met.

At Goldsborough Wealth, Liz continues to provide invaluable support and knowledge to advisers, clients and the advisory process as a whole.

Operations Director

Damian is a seasoned financial services professional whose career spans over 30 years, across a variety of roles and responsibilities.  Phil and Damian are old friends and former colleagues.

The first 12 years of Damian’s career was spent at insurance companies, moving through the ranks and eventually into management with Scottish Equitable (now Aegon) in Leeds.  It was during this time that he first met and worked with Phil.

The greater part of Damian’s career was spent at Pantheon Financial, joining as a shareholding director in 2001 and becoming part of one of the youngest management teams in the country at the time.  In line with the Firm’s ambitions to build and grow a significant, national IFA presence; Damian specialised in taking Pantheon’s advice proposition out to business leaders and SME owner-managers across a range of activities and projects throughout the United Kingdom.  Over the course of the next 6 years, Pantheon grew from 4 people working out of a serviced office in Leeds, to a combined workforce of 100+ employed across 9 offices; achieved through organic growth and a series of mergers and acquisitions.

In 2007, Pantheon’s shareholders sold their shares to Friends Provident (now Friends Life). In 2008 we all suffered the Global Financial Crisis and in 2010, Pantheon’s management team re-acquired the shares sold three years earlier.

In 2011 Damian became Managing Director, operating in a full-time, dedicated capacity.  There was significant change ahead in the shape of the Financial Conduct Authority’s Retail Distribution Review (‘RDR’) and there was much to do.  Pantheon was reorganised and rescaled to create greater definition and investment into customer service technology and high-quality human resources. At its core, it removed people and processes that were not prepared to put the client at the heart of its proposition and focussed on those that did.  High customer satisfaction rates, efficiency of operations and ultimately, profitability; were cornerstones to its contemporary, Ascot Lloyd showing interest and eventually purchasing Pantheon in December 2017.

Damian left Pantheon in January 2018, following its sale and up until the end of 2019 was offering business management consultancy through his own firm.  In the summer of 2019, Damian met Phil for coffee and in the course of the usual chit-chat, he realised he was missing his ‘old job’.

On 1^st January 2020, Damian joined Goldsborough Wealth. In the not-too-distant future, he, Phil and Liz have plans for him to become a shareholder and business partner.  For now, he is simply enjoying being back helping people with their financial affairs.

Damian lives and is based in Boroughbridge, North Yorkshire.