The Academy would like to announce and celebrate it’s 100th Paraplanner Graduate.

Based in Manchester, Rachel Whittaker, a Paraplanner at Oakmere Wealth Management, has been named as the 100th Graduate of the St. James’s Place Academy Paraplanner Programme.

After 12 months on the training programme, where Rachel had to undertake professional examinations to gain the CII (Chartered Insurance Institute) Diploma in Regulated Financial Planning, together with completing 5 real life assessments, Rachel was delighted to have graduated and to now be working as a Decision-Making Paraplanner.

Rachel Whittaker, the 100th graduate of the St. James’s Place Academy Paraplanner Programme, comments: “I’m absolutely delighted to be the 100th Paraplanner graduate. Before starting this career path, I had taken a break to raise my family, and also moved from a career outside of financial services, so the programme has allowed me to start from the basics and work my way up. It’s been hard work, but I’ve felt supported every step of the way. Now fully qualified, I am working as a Decision-Making Paraplanner.”

Rachel was referred to the Paraplanner Academy by Carla Brown of Oakmere Wealth Management; a Partner practice in the North West. Carla Brown is a Chartered Fellow, has an MSc in Wealth, in 2019 won the SJP Chartered Financial Planner of the Year Award, the AIS Best Financial Planner of the Year Award and has been highly commended as the ‘Best Financial Planner North West’ in the Women in Finance Awards and is Rachel's mentor.

After joining Oakmere Wealth Management, Rachel undertook the role of Financial Planning Administrator where she had responsibility for a wide range of tasks, so training to become professionally qualified as a Paraplanner was her obvious next step.

Rachel had taken a career break prior to joining the Academy to raise her children, a daughter and son, now 9 and 6 years old. Prior to having children and joining Oakmere Wealth Management, Rachel had worked in a variety of Contact Centre Management roles including a position at the British Transport Police where she was responsible for report creation and data analysis in a Crime Recording Centre.

Jason Flood, Academy Director at St. James’s Place, says: “This is an exciting milestone for the paraplanner programme, especially given the current circumstances. The dedication shown by all Academists during these difficult times and their commitment to providing quality advice to clients, continues to give me confidence in the future of the financial planning and paraplanning profession.

“We’re really pleased to see another cohort graduate, and that the Academy has been able to overcome the challenges that lockdown measures have brought and continue to provide learning and development opportunities to new talent in the industry.”

The future is looking bright for all the other individuals studying on the St. James’s Place Paraplanner Programme.

Despite the situation presented due to COVID-19, the St. James’s Place Academy have 100 individuals currently at various stages of the Paraplanner Academy programme. These individuals are continuing to be supported through the access they have to 40 different Learning and Development e-Learning modules. They are also continuing with the Academy’s blended learning approach and complementing the e-Learning modules with webinars and instead of face-to-face group learning, using MS Teams and Zoom.

We caught up with the Head of the St. James’s Place Paraplanner Academy, Keith Riddell, who said he was “really pleased to be able to continue to support people’s career aspirations through the professional development programmes we offer at the Academy”.

If you are interested in hearing more about the Paraplanner Academy then please have a read of our brochure.