DB Wood Team
16th December, 2016
DB News
A Review of 2016
It’s hard to believe that there is little over one week left until Christmas. Time has flown by in what has been an incredibly busy year; we moved to our fantastic new office in Newark and welcomed four new colleagues to DB Wood.
During the summer, we continued to develop our university connections by completing our third graduate internship programme. It proved to be as equally successful as previous years, with one of the candidates now preparing to join our investment team in 2017.
We rebranded and launched our new website, featuring 36 blogs in 2016 that have combined to attain over 10,000 views, and we also celebrated our 40th year in business; quite a milestone that has no doubt seen a lot of change and growth. Testament to our strapline of being “centred around you”, it was fantastic to see some of our clients who have been with us through the whole journey. We will be striving to ensure that this type of longevity of service and relationship continues over the years ahead.
Throughout the year, we have regularly featured updates on our “40 events for 40 years” challenge in blogs and social media posts, as the team aimed to raise money for charity in aid of this milestone. To name a few highlights, we’ve had frequent 3pm collaborations for our press-up challenge, a static bike ride which covered 600km, and a bake off that would have made Mary Berry proud! Overall we raised more than £2,000 in 2016, and would like to say a big thank you to anyone who was kind enough to donate. The money will go to help some fantastic causes, and we aim to do more of the same in 2017.
As part of our own desire to achieve excellence in client service (your feedback is always welcome…), we were proud to sponsor the award for Customer Service at the exceptionally well received Newark Business Awards on 5th December. Congratulations to all the finalists in what was an excellent evening supporting the businesses of Newark.
(Left: Ashley Brooks, our CEO, Presenting the Customer Service Award at this year’s Newark Business Awards)
Our fourth recruit of 2016 joined us last week, as we welcomed Daniel Zemontas to the team. Daniel joins us as Client Services Manager in our Risk (business insurance) department. He has over 27 years of finance experience and previously managed the customer service team at Lloyds Bank in Newark (so if you’re local, you may recognise him). Not only does Daniel have a considerable breadth of experience but he can also run 10km in a little over 45 minutes. We understand that his challenge is to be faster than our CEO, who reminds us that he currently has the fastest 10k time (…albeit age adjusted). Now there’s a 2017 challenge for some of our younger brigade!
That brings me nicely on to the annual “Mo Run” event that our energetic team of five completed in November. Unfortunately, there was no Buzz Lightyear this year but the team braved the adverse weather conditions and tackled the 5km and 10km course at Wollaton Park in Nottingham. Extra special mentions go to the two members of our team who undertook the ‘couch to 5k’ challenge, and Oliver Crampton (our resident marathon runner) who completed the 10km in an impressive time of 44 minutes and 51 seconds (still well short of the age adjusted target though!)
On a separate note, we would like to raise a glass to celebrate the life of one of our founding partners, Chris Burden, who retired from our practice in 1993 and sadly passed away in November this year from Motor Neurone disease. We send our heartfelt wishes to his wife Linda and the family.
Finally, all that is left to say is that we are nothing without our clients. It is a huge privilege for us to look after your wealth and other assets, as well as being involved in dealing with matters of immediate concern and planning with you for the future. We very much look forward to the journey into 2017, where we hope to improve what we do and to exceed your expectations wherever possible.
Please note that we have decided to give the team a break and our office will close on Friday 23rd December and will reopen on Tuesday 3rd January.
May we take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy Christmas and a restful New Year.
Your DB Wood team
