When Sarah Soar achieved her long-held ambition to become a chief executive in October 2019, she was stepping into the eye of a series of storms.
Within six months her new employer, Hawksmoor, was plunged into the same chaos as the rest of the economy, with the pandemic afoot, markets falling and the confusion of remote working to be embraced.
But it was also at this time that Hawksmoor was approached by a potential acquirer, Hurst Point, a private-equity-backed consolidator that made a bid approach.
Soar says of this time: “I was trying to get to know the staff, and run the business, and do the transaction all at the same time. Hurst Point actually agreed everything in March 2020, but obviously stepped back from it before completing the transaction in August of that year.”
While that was the first real merger and acquisition transaction with which she was directly involved, 2020 was the culmination of a career that began as a wealth manager but which Soar says long had the aim “of becoming a chief executive”.
Soar’s career began at Brewin Dolphin as an investment manager, she then was headhunted to work at a firm called Seymour Pierce Butterfield.
When a change of ownership loomed at that firm, and Soar did not like the prospects to come, she says she went back to Brewin Dolphin with a proposition.
“I said to them, even though I had left, would they like me to come back and bring a whole office with me, and so with that I became the head of the Marlborough office of Brewin Dolphin.”
From there she rose through the ranks, and became the first female executive director of Brewin Dolphin in its 250 year history, and was also business development director.
She then became head of the investment management business at JM Finn.
It was during this time she gained experience beyond managing money, as she ran regions and divisions for the company. It was at this point Soar says becoming a chief executive became the aim.
She says the learning experience at JM Finn was strong because “it is a much smaller company, so there are many more areas to be involved with”.
Soar was then, she says, headhunted to become chief executive of Hawksmoor Group.
She describes that period in the first months of the pandemic, and the sale of the company, as the greatest achievement at the firm to date.
Hawksmoor manages around £5bn across three business units, with a fund management arm, a bespoke wealth management business and a model portfolio service.
She readily agrees that in the industry of today: “Scale matters. And £5bn is not nearly big enough. We want to get to £10bn to £15bn, growing all three of the business units. We do want acquisitions, but also to hire teams from other firms and organic growth.
