Company: IBOSS Asset Management
Personal AUM: £2.2bn
Company AUM: £2.2bn (IBOSS Asset Management)
Career history
Chris is chief investment officer and managing director at IBOSS Asset Management, which he co-founded in 2008.
He leads the investment team and is responsible for investment strategy, fund selection, asset allocation and portfolio construction across all its ranges.
Chris began his career in financial services at 17, gaining experience across life assurance and advisory firms before running his own financial advice business. That adviser background continues to shape his approach to investing, with a strong emphasis on diversification, risk management and aligning portfolios with real client needs.
In his current role, Chris heads the investment and risk decision-making process, ensuring a consistent and repeatable framework across portfolios, and is closely involved in adviser education through market commentary, webinars and open discussion.
Key areas of focus
Over the past 12 months, my focus has been on helping advisers and clients navigate an investment environment shaped by higher interest rates, persistent inflation, geopolitical uncertainty and increasingly concentrated equity markets.
A key priority has been reframing the active versus passive debate away from ideology and towards practical portfolio construction, diversification and risk management in a changing market regime.
I have led the continued evolution of our portfolio design, including the launch of a blended active and passive model portfolio range, developed in response to market conditions and adviser demand for flexibility, transparency and cost awareness.
Alongside this, we have continued to refine our approach to decumulation, with particular emphasis on sequencing risk, sustainability of income and ensuring portfolios behave as expected during periods of market stress, rather than being driven by short-term performance.
Education and transparency have remained central throughout. I have been closely involved in delivering regular market insights, webinars and open Q&A sessions, with the aim of helping advisers contextualise volatility and address client questions with clarity and confidence.
Beyond investment leadership, we have also supported wider industry initiatives, including supporting the Women's Wealth Alliance research paper ‘Women, Wealth and the Workplace'.
The research highlights both the under-representation of women in financial planning and the strong advocacy among those working in the profession, at a time when a significant shift in UK private wealth towards women is already underway.
Supporting initiatives like this is an important step in raising awareness, breaking down barriers and encouraging long-term progress across the industry.
