If it were not for advances in printing technology, Andy Pomfret, Chartered FCSI(Hon), may never have embarked upon a career in financial services. The year was 1978 and Andy, having recently finished his A-levels, was enjoying a year out working for a printing technology firm, Roneo Vickers. “My first passion was engineering, and in many ways, it still is. I wanted to return to the firm after university.” Sadly, advances in printing techniques meant that the firm’s line of hand-cranked stencil duplicating machines was old-tech, scuppering in the process Pomfret’s plans to rejoin the firm after graduating from Cambridge with an engineering degree.

“Like many people, I wasn’t sure what to do, so I decided on accountancy,” he says in an almost confessional tone. The year was 1982, a time when a chartered accountancy qualification was considered the best way into the financial services sector. Having spent three years qualifying at Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Company (now KMPG), he “left quickly” for a career with investment bankers Kleinwort Benson.

Softly spoken and humorous, Pomfret is perhaps best summed up as eclectic. Lamenting the specialisation associated with the Square Mile nowadays, he says: “In my day, the great thing about investment banking was that you could do one of two things. You could specialise and become the best infrastructure expert, or the best at equities. Or you could do what I did: stick your hand up and say, ‘I’m bored and I want to move somewhere else.’ I like taking the skills I learned in one place and then applying them elsewhere five years later.”

This hankering for rediscovering old skills was part of the reason for Pomfret’s move from Kleinwort Benson in 1995. Joining Rathbones as a finance director, those old core accountancy skills learned at KPMG were to prove invaluable. “After many years with nothing to do with accounts, I suddenly became a finance director of an investment manager that also had a banking licence,” he says. “How would that kind of move go down with the Prudential Regulation Authority these days?”

The value Pomfret places on plural knowledge has been evident throughout his career. When recalling his ventures in Poland while working for Kleinworts, he insists that knowing a lathe from a drill helped in his dealings with clients. “It was a time of mass privatisations in the early 1990s and Poland was a place of opportunity for the manufacturing industry,” he says. “Being able to talk confidently about manufacturing gave me credibility.”

In the boardroom, too, Pomfret is keen to espouse pluralism and his enthusiasm for lively, problem-solving discussions is evident. “I really thrive when you have a team of people working together to genuinely solve problems – rather than just saying things for the sake of it,” he says, underlining his worth to the companies where he has been, or is, a non-executive director, such as Beazley, the specialist insurer, and Graphite Enterprise Trust, the private equity investor. He sees this inclusive approach as part of his duty as CEO, but it is not always that easy. Pomfret explains: “It’s incumbent on any CEO to develop people. I try to miss one executive meeting each year and one board meeting, on the basis that you can show you’re not indispensable and develop people to take over. Sadly, corporate governance standards drive you away from that: you have to report how many meetings you attend and it looks bad if you don’t do them all.”

For a man who once claimed to Citywire that “I spend between one and two days a week on regulation”, Pomfret has a complex relationship with the theme of industry oversight. “Some 80% to 90% of regulation only asks you to do something you should be doing anyway. The sad thing is that regulations force firms to become bigger,” he says. Yet in a world where hoards of science graduates work for City firms and on Wall Street, Pomfret sees a silver lining in the regulatory storm clouds. “It is a shame that so many people are lured into the City by high salaries,” he says. “I do wonder whether these new regulations will force more engineers into being entrepreneurial in industry, rather than going into financial services.” This comment may well be influenced by the fact his son is currently studying engineering at university. Indeed, being entrepreneurial is a theme close to Pomfret’s heart, and he holds up James Dyson – fellow CEO and engineer – as a paragon. “I’d say he’s a pretty major influence. Inspiring, innovative, creative – Dyson’s pretty incredible.”
“I wonder whether new regulations will force more engineers into becoming entrepreneurial"Does Pomfret still explore minor projects? “I’d like to but these days I open the bonnet of my car and I don’t recognise anything!” He will have more time to dabble when he steps down at the end of February. He plans to travel and become a career non-executive director, perhaps applying his passion for engineering. With both of his children now at university, the time seems right to explore new opportunities.

If ‘inspiring’ is a virtue he appreciates in others, it is probably something Rathbones colleagues feel about Pomfret. One clearly distressing period was the death of his finance director, Sue Desborough, a former colleague from Kleinworts he had personally recruited. Apart from the personal upheaval he had to deal with, Pomfret had to step into the breach and assume the role of Fincance Director as well as CEO. “That 18 months was pretty much hell,” he says. “I certainly wouldn’t want to do that again. Ever.”

If this episode marked the lowest point during his time at Rathbones, then the financial stats underscore his notable achievements. The company now boasts more than 40,000 clients with total assets under management of £22bn – figures that have swelled considerably during his time at the top. Not that he has an ego that would accept full credit. “I don’t do personal pride,” he adds. “It’s a team effort.”

CV snapshot

2004 – Becomes CEO of Rathbones

1999 – Joins Rathbones as Finance Director

1986 – Joins Kleinwort Benson and has various roles in a 13-year career, including as a corporate financier and a venture capitalist

1985 – Qualifies as a chartered accountant with Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Company (now KPMG)

1982 – Graduates from Queens’ College Cambridge with a degree in engineering

Education

When he retires from his role as CEO at the end of February, Andy Pomfret will have successfully steered Rathbones through several of the worst market crashes in history. “On 30 December 1999, the FTSE 100 hit 6930, and we have not been back there since,” he says. Understandably, an important part of his company’s resilience has been the long-term attitude of both staff and its client base, who understand the ups and downs of the markets. He says: “Clients tend to be with us for the long term and don’t panic if there is a 10% market fall.”

A crucial part of retaining such clients is education – a theme that Pomfret, and Rathbones more generally, have been keen to engage with in recent years. With the CISI’s support, the company has set up an apprenticeship scheme and has recruited six apprentices in its operational hub in Liverpool in 2013 who will complete two years of on-the-job training across a wide range of back-office duties. More generally, Rathbones has provided some financial training in a number of schools. “Financial education is done pretty appallingly in this country,” says Pomfret. “The level of knowledge in some schools is terrible. But at Rathbones we are doing what we can to try to change this. Our work with the CISI and with schools fits in well with the culture and ethos of Rathbones.”