Interview: Peter Schutzer-Weissmann, head of financial services management consultancy Valentia Partners' Scottish office

Aim for supercharged growth alloyed to Scotland’s historic and buoyant financial services sector.

Valentia Island is a scenic, rugged spot located off the west coast of Ireland. But while it might be small in scale, home to about 600 people, it has some internationally significant strings to its bow. One is that, more than 150 years ago, the first successful transatlantic telegraph cable was laid, connecting Valentia with Heart's Content in Newfoundland, Canada, 1,686 nautical miles away. The achievement was branded “the wire that changed the world” – and seen as heralding the birth of global communications.

Furthermore, the location is home to Valentia Island Lighthouse, housing what is said to be the most westerly harbour light on mainland Ireland, guiding in vessels from the Atlantic. And both of these aspects of the isle have inspired the moniker of financial services management consultancy Valentia Partners, which connects with firms on a global level and seeks to help them charter a route “to reach the future faster”.

It is keen to moor itself to what it sees as Scotland’s rapidly growing finance sector, having dropped anchor and set up Valentia Partners offices in Edinburgh’s New Town. “We define Scotland as an exceptionally attractive market,” says Peter Schutzer-Weissmann, who leads its Scottish office.

'We essentially work and have capability across the whole of the financial sector - that's the plan,' says Schutzer-Weissmann. Picture: Lisa Ferguson.

The market requires both support for clients and investment at a local level, he adds, also stating that the financial sector north of the Border has doubled in size in the last ten years. “And it continues to grow exponentially.” Valentia Partners is, like fellow Edinburgh management consultancies Alba Partners and PEN Partnership, a member of Scottish Financial Enterprise. “They're a brilliant entity, and it's great to be part of what they’re doing,” says Schutzer-Weissmann of the trade body that last year outlined plans to turbocharge a sector it said that, along with related professional services, was already the largest contributor to Scotland’s economy. Goals included doubling the industry’s assets under management to £1 trillion by 2030.

Valentia Partners says it aims to drive value across the critical cross-section of the financial services ecosystem, “working from thought to execution”, and offering strategy and advisory; regulation and compliance; digital, tech and data; and transformation delivery. And the sectors it covers comprise banking and payments; capital markets and Treasury; fintech; asset and wealth management; and insurance. “So the idea now is that across those five sectors, we essentially work and have capability across the whole of the financial sector,” says Schutzer-Weissmann. “That's the plan.”

The business says it has expanded by more than 400 per cent in the last three years, while across its current transformation work it is engaged to manage more than £100 million of annual delivery investment for clients. It was founded in Dublin in 2007, just ahead of the financial crisis, establishing an office in London in 2010, with its Edinburgh presence created in 2022, crystallising activity in Scotland going back several years.

The base on Albany Street, which covers Scotland and the north of England, has a team of 11 (complementing about 25 in Dublin, and 45 in London), and is looking to grow this to about 15 to 20 by the end of this year. “We want to be growing our Edinburgh office to serve our Edinburgh clients, rather than build staff up here to serve London or serve Dublin. That's not why we're building this office,” states Schutzer-Weissmann.

From left: senior consultant Stuart Balfour, head of Scottish office Peter Schutzer-Weissmann, and analyst Chantel Liu. Picture: Lisa Ferguson.

He flags heavyweight financial services names in Scotland such as Barclays, NatWest, Lloyds Banking Group, BlackRock, and Morgan Stanley, and sees that some have moved from just having a back office presence locally to now offering front office services to include investment banking and asset-management. Such a trend is harnessing high-calibre graduates from Scottish universities, he adds, with Valentia having teamed up with the University of Strathclyde Business School, for example, to help build up the talent pipeline. Schutzer-Weissmann says the firm has been “seriously impressed” by the level of talent in Scotland, “and we definitely want to tap into that”.

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Going forward, a key priority for Valentia is hosting quarterly roundtables this year in Scotland, plus helping clients boost operational productivity, in sectors such as asset and wealth management where there can be duplication after sector consolidation. Projects it has already worked on from Scotland include a strategic review for a global bank on its footprint in Scotland, the UK, and Europe, and transforming the cloud data platform of a major EU depository bank.

Valentia moved into fintech in 2019, and has been hitching its wagon to FinTech Scotland, which at the start of this month, along with Deloitte, Tesco Bank, Morgan Stanley and Abrdn, launched a “first-of-its-kind” innovation challenge to help companies develop new solutions to key financial regulatory challenges. That came after the independent not-for-profit cluster body in January said Scotland is punching above its weight globally when it comes to developing the next generation of such technology, with the number of people employed in fintech growing by almost a quarter over the past two years.

Returning to Valentia Island, and its internationally key role in reducing the time to send a message across the ocean from weeks to minutes, its namesake consultancy points out that it has over the last five years undertaken work spanning more than 20 countries, across three continents, after undertaking its first international project in 2015. Schutzer-Weissmann notes most businesses are global now, although he clarifies that the firm is “prudently international”, having taken much care when singling out other potential overseas areas of interest. “I think Edinburgh will be our hub for Scotland. But we are actively considering other locations in Europe and the Middle East.”