Can't put a figure on good fortune

Whether becoming a chartered accountant counts as good fortune is open to debate but there is no doubt the chief executive of the Family Assurance Friendly Society has made the best of the cards he has been dealt.

There is also no doubt when it comes to managing people's money he has built his career on good judgement.

He was born and raised in the Medway Towns in Kent but headed to college in Liverpool, where he had a "fantastic time, what with the Beatles and everything else going on".

He studied for a general degree and had certainly not planned for a career in financial services.

He says: "Becoming an accountant was more serendipity than anything else. When I left college in 1970, it was the heyday of Monty Python and I swore blind the last thing I would do was become a chartered accountant. It shows how consistent I am."

He left college with a vague idea of doing a management training course with an Australian meat and poultry importer.

The course would have involved a two-year stint in Australia and two years in London but, unfortunately (or, perhaps, fortunately), while he was away from Liverpool his flat mate forgot to pass on correspondence from the company and, by the time he returned, the opportunity had passed.

"I found myself back in Rochester steel erecting but, come one October morning, the steel was getting a bit cold and I wondered if there was something I could do with my degree."

A group of his college friends had moved to London and John joined them. He quickly realised he would need a job and found himself joining a small firm of chartered accountants in London's West End.

He says: "Becoming a chartered accountant was a practical measure. I certainly wasn't a natural and I took a lot of bedding in. I saw it as a way of earning a little bit of money so I could play rugby at the weekends.

"I remember the principal I was articled to coming up to me after a couple of months saying, 'Reeve, I'm fast coming to the conclusion your talents may lie elsewhere'."

Nevertheless, he knew it would give him a good professional qualification and decided to stick with it. He says he qualified "more by attrition than anything else" after retaking his part-two examination.

"I was in some hall in the East End of London. I looked around and thought 'everyone here is a referral, therefore, I'm among my peers at last'."

He put far more effort into his rugby, although he admits that his ambition was probably higher than his achievements.

"I was thinking of joining Saracens but somebody said there was lots of crumpet at Hampstead on Thursday nights so I joined them instead and played for nine years."

Upon qualification he joined an accountancy recruitment firm, which he thought would be a nice change.

He says: "It was a change but I wasn't particularly good at placing people and one day my boss came along and said 'I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is the guy you've just interviewed is going to work for us but the bad news is he has got your job'.

"He'd also found me an interview, so he not only fired me but also made money on the placement, which was very cunning.

"The interview was with Deloittes and was scheduled for the second Tuesday on December, the day of the varsity match for which I had tickets. It was serendipity again.

"The interview was delayed and when I got in I asked if it would take long because I had tickets for the match. The interviewer said 'thank God for that, so have I - you've got the job' and that was it."

He says joining the firm was just what he needed as he was exposed to top-ranking firms. He stayed for seven years and worked his way up from staff accountant to assistant manager.

"I knew I had no real prospect of becoming a partner and decided to move on."

He saw an advert in the Financial Times for an organisation he'd never heard of, Family Assurance.

"Again, I had a bit of luck because I realised Deloittes was handling the recruitment. I wandered down to speak to the person who was handling it and he said 'I don't know if they'd want you but we'll put your name forward'."

He became Family Assurance's second employee as it had previously relied on an administration company for staff. He quickly became treasurer of the society and rose to chief executive.

He says: "We got a new chairman and he didn't have many people to choose from when he was appointing a chief executive.

He said, 'John, we'd like you to be chief executive, secretary and treasurer'. I asked how much he was paying me. He said the same as I was already getting and I said I'd take it."

He spent a lot of his time working on new ideas and within six months, Family Assurance had done a deal with National Provident and new policies began flooding in.

He says the current climate in the financial service sector is challenging to say the least. "People are a lot more aware about their finances. It's an essentially boring subject for most people and therefore a lot of trust has been involved - a lot of people think that trust has been broken and everything has gone into a complete state of flux."

He says the society has been focusing on savings for children and its main challenge moving forward is to ensure it keeps on top of a market that will be flooded by new players.

Outside of work, which he says he enjoys enormously, he is involved in various community programmes, including mentoring Neil Hunter, the head teacher of Blatchington Mill School.

He also maintains his interest of rugby. He is president of Surrey-based Warlingham RFC and has put aside a large chunk of time to follow the Rugby World Cup in Australia later this summer.

Now that is lucky, I say. He says: "It depends how you view life. I do think I've had good fortune, which is good because everyone needs breaks.

"I also enjoy what I do and, when it comes down to it, how much luckier can you be?"

Monday May 12 2003