For asset managers, banks and sovereign wealth funds
Your research describes what people do. I can tell you why.
I spent more than ten years in the City, latterly at BlackRock, and I am also a trainee coaching psychologist. I know what your compliance team will and will not accept, because I have sat on your side of it. What I do now is explain the human half of what your research is telling you, in language that gets through review.
Sarah Miloudi, trainee coaching psychologist, working towards chartered status with the British Psychological Society
Getting through review
The hard part is rarely finding someone who understands the psychology. It is finding someone who understands it, why it matters to investing and can communicate all of this in a way that adheres to regulatory principles.
I write and speak inside those lines by habit, not as an afterthought. That means what I produce can go in front of clients without multiple rounds of redrafting, and that I can be put on a stage without anyone worrying about what I am going to say.
It also means I stay in my own lane. I will not comment on your products, your allocations or your numbers, even though I understand them. I will leave your expertise to you. I am there to add something next to what you do, not to be the person who knew more about it than the last speaker.
What I am usually asked about
Why investors behave as they do.
Why people leave pots untouched, act against their own stated interests, and what that means for how you write to them.
Longer lives, and working longer.
Longevity means investing for longer, which in practice means staying in work longer or thinking about retirement far sooner. Both are psychological problems before they are financial ones.
Reading your own research.
You hold the data on what your clients do. I can tell you what it says about why, and what to do with that.
Shifting how people act.
Why people know what they should do and still do not, and what actually changes that.
How I work
Thought leadership, contributed analysis and commentary. Conference and event speaking. And consulting, most often interpreting a firm's own research and client observations through a psychological lens.
This is commissioned work, and it is priced individually. If you have a research cycle or a campaign coming up, the earlier the conversation the better.
Background
More than ten years in the City, latterly at BlackRock. Award-winning financial journalist. Trained as an auditor. LLM in Financial Regulation and Compliance. MSc Research Methods in Psychology, and an M.A (hons) in Psychology from Glasgow. Trainee coaching psychologist, working towards chartered status with the British Psychological Society, anticipated ~2028/09.
For speaking, thought leadership, or a piece of research you would like interpreted, get in touch.