Martin Jennings is not a typical chief executive. His journey to the top has not followed the well-trodden path of most CEOs.
The Parmenion boss had humble beginnings, in a large family with seven brothers. He says being raised in an all-boys household had unique challenges.
“There was a lot of fighting for airtime,” jokes Jennings.
He learned early the art of competing; a skillset that has served him well in both sporting and professional careers.
“There’s a competitive side to me,” he says. “But I’m a big advocate of winning in the right way. I bring that into business life.”
This is probably the most exciting time in the
platform industry since the early 2000s
Jennings is not only competitive; he’s a proven winner with an enviable record of senior positions in the financial services platform market. Roles include managing director of Axa Elevate and CEO of FNZ UK and Europe.
He is a leading figure in the platform and technology industry, with more than two decades of experience — building or supplying investment platform services across the globe.
However, reminiscing about his school days in Bristol, Jennings recalls he didn’t regard himself as an A-student.
“I was more interested in sports day than in exams day,” he says.
Despite this, Jennings ended up going to university to study mathematics. Following his graduation, however, there was no career plan.
“I never really had much of a life plan at that point,” he observes.
Revelation
But then came an epiphany in his early 20s.
“I realised that being a lazy git doesn’t get you anywhere,” he says.
“I started to work hard and I saw the rewards.”
Jennings’ first foray into the world of work was as a self-employed decorator.
There seems to be an awful lot of change; people questioning and challenging quite a lot of industry dynamic
“I started a small painting-and-decorating business in Bristol with my friend. It was doing quite well,” he says, nostalgically. “Everything was cash back then.
“We’re talking of the early 90s. It was kind of good.”
The young Jennings enjoyed both the cashflow and the ability to fend for himself. But it dawned on him he needed “a proper job”.
He joined a small marketing consultancy in Haywards Heath, near Brighton, where he was able to put his maths degree to good use.
“I was building sort of predictive models. All the stuff people think is clever now, people were doing back in the early 90s.
“We were looking at retention rates and building strategic plans off the back of that. I did it for a few years and it was a great grounding.”
Jennings subsequently joined motoring association The AA in Basingstoke, Hampshire, as an analyst. He was passionate about his work and expressed many opinions about The AA’s direction of travel.
We have eight scrum teams just constantly making small, incremental enhancements to the platform
“I just kept pointing out things that we should do,” he says.
The firm’s senior managers took notice and tasked him with implementing his ideas.
“I sort of fell into management. There was no real desire to do it,” he adds.
Having boxed himself into a corner, he had to ‘walk the talk’.
“I started aggregating teams. We were building marketing plans.”
In 2001, Jennings returned to Bristol after being headhunted by Axa Life. This was his first venture into the financial services sector and he was tasked with helping the insurer to better understand its customer base.
Leadership potential
During our chat, it becomes clear Jennings was more of a leader than a follower.
In the early 2000s, the CEO of Axa Life at the time, Paul Evans, introduced him to platforms.
We’ve now moved into more of the post-retirement world, making sure that’s as simple and effective as possible
“He said to me: ‘Look, the world’s changing away from life products. People are building these new investment platforms. We want you to join a project with two other guys to build a strategy and a business case for it.’
“One of those guys, Nick Turner, has gone on to be the CEO of NFU Mutual. Unfortunately, the other guy, Mark Davis, passed away a couple of years ago.
“We put a strategy together and that was how Axa Elevate was spawned. We went through the whole process of: do we build ourselves, do we buy, do we partner with somebody? We ended up partnering with [platform giant] FNZ. We launched the platform out into the market, I think quite successfully.”
Jennings was appointed platform managing director of Axa Elevate following the restructure and sale of the Axa Life business to consolidator Resolution (now Friends Life).
After several years at Axa Elevate, Jennings wanted a new challenge. It came during an encounter with Adrian Durham, the CEO of FNZ.
Durham asked if Jennings was interested in moving to Sydney, Australia, to take up the role of chief operating officer at FNZ.
Post-Consumer Duty, there’s been a big push from our advisers to do tiered charging. That makes perfect sense and we’re building it
His remit would be to deliver product development and implementation, service delivery and infrastructure management in Australia and New Zealand. Jennings accepted the role and successfully delivered the project for FNZ, returning to the UK two years later to run the firm’s UK and Europe division.
“I did that for a couple of years and then it was really time for a change,” he says, adding: “I think FNZ is a great place. It’s high paced and you learn a lot. I probably learned more in five years there than I did in the previous 20 years.
“It was a great place to experience what running a business was like, rather than being a senior manager in a big business.”
Moving on again
But Jennings was keen for pastures new again and in 2016 he became CEO of platform provider Parmenion, which was part of Standard Life Aberdeen.
“It was a big culture shock,” he says. “I went from running FNZ Europe, with hundreds of billions of pounds and hundreds of people, to a business that was 45 people and probably in the region of £1.7bn in assets under management.”
However, he was convinced Parmenion had an opportunity to scale given its proprietary tech business and customer base. Martin Gilbert was at the helm of Aberdeen and their views were aligned on taking Parmenion to greater heights. In 2021, Jennings led the sale of Parmenion from Standard Life Aberdeen to private-equity (PE) firm Preservation Capital in a deal worth £102m.
In the eight years since Jennings joined Parmenion, the firm’s assets have risen to just over £12bn across the group. He attributes this success to providing the best products and services to Parmenion’s adviser client base.
In the past two or three years, we’ve seen a real boom. Let’s call it platforms, but it covers adviser productivity, efficiency and effectiveness
“We own all the components in our business. We get to build things our clients want,” he says.
“We have a very close engagement with our clients. We’ve got a Customer Advisory Board where we roll ideas through them. We do a lot of code collaboration with our clients and we’re not in this feature function war with the market where everyone’s trying to have more features and more functions than everyone else.
“We’re just trying to build a great product — be that technology or discretionary fund management — and give exceptional service. If we do that, we’ll probably get more things right than we get wrong.”
Speculation
Parmenion’s success has led to speculation that its PE-backed owner would sell its stake in the business for a hefty profit. The firm has a valuation of around £400m.
But Jennings has put paid to any predictions of an imminent sale.
FNZ is a great place. It’s high paced and you learn a lot. I probably learned more in five years there than I did in the previous 20 years
“We’re just focused on the business. You can get all consumed by investment rounds. They are quite intensive, having sort of led the buyout from Standard Life Aberdeen. They take a lot of time, so I’m happy to have moved away from doing the buyout to now stabilising the business.
“Now I spend 50% of my time on the road, meeting clients. It’s great, right? So, no plans at the moment.”
Jennings has been expanding the platform business. He acquired Midlands-based discretionary fund manager (DFM) Evidence Based Investing (EBI) in 2022.
EBI, which remains an autonomous entity within the Parmenion business, administers £1.9bn across 19 platforms. Jennings says the deal is part of a larger strategy of growing through acquisitions of third-party DFMs.
He outlines Parmenion’s four-part growth strategy: broadening its investment proposition, getting better at retirement and products in retirement, integrating its data and service for the benefit of advisers, and merger and acquisition.
On the first of these, he says Parmenion recently added third-party DFMs to its platform.
I kept pointing out things that we should do. I sort of fell into management. There was no real desire to do it
“We will provide an environment for you to run your centralised investment proposition or your centralised retirement proposition on a platform built to run centralised investment propositions,” says Jennings.
“Parmenion’s history was as one of the DFM businesses that built a platform that did accumulation very well. We did Isas and GIAs [general investment accounts] well, and then launched our own Sipp, but that was in the accumulation space.
“We’ve now moved into more of the post-retirement world, making sure that’s as simple and effective as possible.”
Proprietary technology
Parmenion has bucked the platform trend by relying on its own proprietary technology. Other leading platforms have opted to use third-party tech providers, such as Bravura, FNZ and Seccl.
Jennings says owning its tech allows Parmenion to be “agile and responsive” to customer needs.
We went through the whole process of: do we build ourselves, do we buy, do we partner with somebody?
“We release software every two weeks on a rotating cycle. We do 26 releases a year. We’ve eight scrum teams just constantly making small, incremental enhancements to the platform.”
He adds that this agility enables Parmenion to provide great service to advisers.
The Bristol-based firm recently announced plans to launch a tiered adviser charging service. The feature will allow advisers to tailor charges to different client segments quickly and easily.
“Post-Consumer Duty, there’s been a big push from our advisers to do tiered adviser charging. That makes perfect sense and we’re building it. It’s taken a couple of sprints longer than we’d hoped for, but it’ll be out there September/October time in the market.”
Jennings is a platform veteran and says the sector has made a lot of progress.
There’s a competitive side to me. But I’m a big advocate of winning in the right way. I bring that into business life
“It’s probably the most exciting time in the platform industry since the early 2000s, when we started. There seems to be an awful lot of change; people questioning and challenging quite a lot of industry dynamic,” he says.
“In the past two or three years, we’ve seen a real boom. Let’s call it platforms, but that covers a broad church. It covers adviser productivity, efficiency and effectiveness.
“You might be seeing more technology boom in the adviser space and the adviser tool space: back-office systems finally integrating with platforms and driving efficiency into adviser businesses. And platforms have been responding, whether through new entrants bringing new tech to the market or opening up data sources. You hear a lot about APIs [application programming interfaces], sharing data and ecosystems.
“I’m not sure, fundamentally, much has changed on the custody platform. You want your custody platform just to work. You want your tax wrappers to adhere to the rules. You want trading and dealing to happen. You don’t want anything to go wrong. Custody is about safeguarding and safekeeping.”
However, he observes that connectivity is still an issue for the platform sector.
“There are many players in the market. But there’s not a lot of connectivity between them.”
Now I spend 50% of my time on the road, meeting clients. It’s great
Jennings is a keen sportsman; the former scrum-half has swapped rugby for golf. But he has no plans to retire soon.
“People always ask: what are your long-term plans? I like working. I like trying to make a difference.
“I did team sports. I thought golf would be an individual sport but you’re there with a team. And there’s nothing better than a team.”
Jennings’ immediate plan is to continue the success story at Parmenion.
“I’d love to stay with it and see us grow to £30bn–£40bn in assets.”
Snapshot
April 2016–present: Chief executive, Parmenion
2013–16: Chief executive, UK and Europe, FNZ
2011–13: Chief executive, Australia and New Zealand, FNZ
2009–10: Platform managing director, Axa Elevate
2006–09: Marketing and product director, Axa Wealth
Family: Married with a 21-year-old son currently at university
Home: Bristol and Cornwall
Sports: Rugby, golf, running
Hobbies: Fine dining and socialising with friends, walking the coastal paths
Music: Oasis, Stone Roses, Public Enemy and Eminem
Film: Action movies
This article featured in the September 2024 edition of Money Marketing.
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With that Oasis reference, I can’t help but wonder if Martin Jennings is channeling his inner Gallagher—plenty of swagger, maybe a touch of that famous narcissism, and of course, always running just a little late to the show!