Charities specialist leaves Standard Life Wealth

JUST weeks after Standard Life Wealth was brought under the wing of the Standard Life Investments division, it is losing one of its key players.

Jim Mather is due to speak at the Join the Dots conference next month. Picture: Neil Hanna

June Jessop, who works with the charities specialists at SLW, is working out her notice. There was no word on where she is going. Charities is a “strategic priority” for SLW and Jessop’s departure will be a setback to its plans to build up that side of the business, which moved under the SLI umbrella on 1 January.

Jessop previously worked at Adam & Company and Cornelian, which also went through strategic upheaval.

There were whispers last week that the integration of private client and institutional clients was not going too smoothly, but SLW insisted the move has been well received by staff of both businesses.

A spokeswoman said that following the recent acquisition of Newton Private Clients SLW has become a substantial asset management business and “it made sense to align the two businesses more closely”.

Mather makes his mark

Former SNP enterprise minister and business consultant Jim Mather should be in his element next month when he addresses delegates at the “Join the Dots” conference in Glasgow.

Pitched at “leaders”, “decision makers” and “dynamic managers”, the event will look at how businesses can tap into Scotland’s big year, what with the Ryder Cup, Commonwealth Games and… that vote.

The forthright Mather is one of the two keynote speakers, alongside VisitScotland’s HR director, David Anderson.

Other speakers at the Beardmore Centre gathering on 25 February include Mike Bell of Simple Improvement, Wendy Chalmers Mill of Positive Performance and Bruce Milroy of Ethos Consulting. The conference host is Clare Moore of Business Jigsaw.

Mather said of the event: “It will give all of us a chance to hear from kindred spirits, debate and refine ideas and help develop the collaborative critical mass we need to help ourselves, our teams, our organisations in Scotland to become more resilient and more successful.”

Quite a challenge. More details can be had by visiting: www.JtheD.co.uk

Quick thinking from Rolet

Xavier Rolet, chief executive of the London Stock Exchange, will be in Edinburgh later this month delivering a speech to the Asia-Scotland Institute.

Should he seek to share a dram with a fellow big-wig from the Square Mile, the Frenchman might be encouraged to join Bank of England governor Mark Carney, who will be in the city on the same day.

Carney is heading north as part of the Bank’s programme of visiting areas of the UK and will be delivering a public speech at a lunch event on 29 January hosted by the Scottish Council for Development and Industry.

Speaking of whisky, Rolet has proved himself a smooth operator with apparently excellent antennae for diplomatic incidents. In an interview with out sister paper Scotland on Sunday, he had just begun singing the praises of Scotland’s biggest export industry when he dropped something of a faux pas. After describing it as the “Scottish whisky industry”, the LSE boss corrected himself: “I mean the Scotch whisky industry, obviously.”