At the recent Morningstar Investment conference I had the pleasure of being able to listen to Anthony Bolton’s thoughts on where he felt the stock market was going over the next 12 months and what types of stock he thought would be the ones to watch. More interestingly though he started his short presentation with the key attributes he felt Fund Managers needed if they were to be successful.
The 10 attributes (there are actually 12!) were:
- Seeing Eye
- Right Temperament
- Organised – there’s a lot of information to digest and you need to be organised to sort through this information
- Hunger for analysis – not just what the answer is but also how you arrived at that answer
- Detailed Generalist
- Desire To Win
- Flexible Conviction
- Happy to go against the crowd
- Know themselves – know your strengths and weaknesses and respond to them
- Integrity – being honest with yourself and clients
- Experience
- Common sense
When making a note of these attributes and listening to Mr Bolton it struck me how similar these attributes are to those of a paraplanner. We have to be organised, have to have a hunger for analysis, we have to be detailed generalists, we have to be happy to go against the crowd and have integrity and common sense. The only attribute which is not really that of a paraplanner is a desire to win but this could easily be replaced with a desire to do the very best for the client.
Fund managers are generally held in high regard, particularly those of Mr Bolton’s standing I just hope that as the attributes of a paraplanner and very similar to those of a fund manager over time paraplanners and the skills they have will be valued and appreciated as much.
