After 35 years building Mondial, one of the UAE’s oldest financial planning and wealth management firms, Sean Kelleher said today (8 May) he had decided to leave as chairman of its board. 

The firm "has been established as one of the leading advisory firms in the UAE, having won multiple industry awards over three decades, secured some of the biggest Employer Workplace Savings schemes in The Gulf, and having worked at an advisory level for elements of UAE government", he told International Adviser.

"Social change in the UAE and Gulf in my three decades has been faster and more obvious than other areas I have experienced at the same time across UK, Europe and Asia). Whilst the financial advisory world is better than it was, it remains adrift of what society needs and wants. A complex challenge because UAE society is the only country in the world with a population over 5 million which creates jobs for a majority non-nationals."

He resigned yesterday (7 May) and further told IA that he will shortly be taking up a "post with "more far-reaching financial services issues".

"My future work is about the areas in which I can gather support for fixing the gap between what society needs and wants, and what the financial advisory firms can provide. This seems to revolve around two pillars: firstly, the digital pillar- getting client information assembled in an aggregated and “hyper-personalised” format.

"In short- holistic advice. This means drifting further away from product sales and focusing client needs around aggregated data- if you like- a “scoreboard” of how a financial plan is going. Whilst technology will drive the assembly and layout of the data; there needs to be humans skilled at relationship management to help digest current data and discuss options on next steps. Within that challenge, the lower end of the financial advisory “quality spectrum” will get eaten up, more and more, by technology, and the upper end of the “quality spectrum” will thrive because the tools and data at their disposal will definitely improve."

He continued: "That leads to a second pillar. Society needs a stronger focus on education and financial literacy. This, of course, is not just a UAE/Middle East issue. Indeed, according to students of financial literacy- it’s a global problem. The Scandinavians led the way in the last S&P Literacy Analysis – largely because they start on teaching components of financial literacy before the age of ten. I recently met a Norwegian asset manager (now living in London) who said she was aware of compound interest before she was 10, whilst complaining that her daughter, aged 12 in London was not getting access to such subjects.

"Our second pillar is about building an “Education Escalator” from primary schools into retirement. What the CISI call “lifelong learning”. The rubber hits the road for The Escalator with “Professional Exams”- which should be more clearly defined as a “must have” before any form of financial advice is given to any third party.

"The idea that “advisers” selling products which are not attached to any ongoing plan (or maintenance) in an environment which requires “lifelong learning” is very clearly a “bad idea”.

"In short, the teams I am working with seek to align the advisory world into building an eco-system in which on the one hand data is aggregated and analysed; and on the other hand an environment is evolving in which financial literacy is improving and advisers are increasingly showing off professional credentials."

Almost exactly a year ago, sister brand Investment International reported that Kelleher was in the process of selling his shareholding and that a change of shareholder ownership was at a late stage of completion with its regulator the UAE Securities and Commodities Authority.

In July 2019 Cyprus-based Woodbrook Group announced it was to acquire Mondial with Kelleher retaining a significant stake.