Navigating your Journey

Steve is Kingsgate’s founder and the driving force of the business. Having spent eight years as a senior consultant with Abbey Life and 16 years in the aviation industry in various operational, marketing and management positions, his wealth of experience underpins more than 30 years of financial advice provision. His acumen and planning vision benefits clients and staff alike.

In addition to very strong analytical and interpersonal skills, Steve is a great believer in personal service, high standards of excellence, technical competence and client-centric systems. Outside of work he loves nature, cricket and travel.

Poenie is Steve’s designated successor. A fully qualified adviser and Pension Transfer Analysis Specialist (PTAS) for final salary pensions, he is also a writer of Wills and Powers of Attorney.

Raised in Stellenbosch, South Africa, Poenie moved to the UK in 2008 and became a naturalised British citizen in 2016.

Before his financial services career he was a consultant winemaker for many English and South African vineyards, so is well-versed in looking after the investments of others. Today he continues to deliver the highest professional standards in the field of financial planning.

Perhaps the world’s worst angler, in his spare time he enjoys travel, cricket, golf and socialising.

Heidi is responsible for all aspects of Kingsgate’s day to day operations and brings more than 30 years financial services experience into play from a background of management, supervisory, administrative and sales support roles.

A firm believer in precision and excellent customer service, when away from work Heidi likes to socialise, cruise, dance, run marathons and walk her dog (although not at the same time).

Laura is an outstanding financial administrator with 18 years associated experience.

Born in Zimbabwe, Laura has an Irish passport and has lived in the UK since 2000.

A conscientious analytic with great attention to detail, her role at Kingsgate covers all aspects of day to day client works and systems administration.

Away from work, Laura likes to read and watch movies.

Linda is our chief project administrator and with more than 23 years’ experience in PA and HR roles is a highly valued member of the Kingsgate team.

A graduate of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development, she oversees our internal HR, office management and development projects.

In her spare time, Linda likes to bake and travel, and has been known to tread the boards with local amateur dramatic societies.

Suzanne has over 20 years' experience as an administrator after starting her finance career with Kingsgate in 1998 and re-joining our team in 2017 (working for a handful of IFAs during this period made her realise we are the best!). She took time out over the years to have a family and most recently took 12 months to travel around Europe in a motorhome. She enjoys hiking, skiing and family time and love animals, especially dogs.

Sandra joined us in 2020 from Durban, South Africa to add over 30 years Banking experience in Branch Management, Foreign Exchange and Customer Services administration to our client services team. A true pro - in office she is thorough and precise and outside of work she loves animals, history and travel. Rumour has it her days of surfing, hockey and playing ladies cricket are now behind her.

Tim is passionate about the social utility that good investing delivers. Key aims are to simplify investing and build belief. Can’t think of anything better than a good piece of investment research!

Wrote Smarter Investing after seeing the mistakes made by investors, both institutional and private clients, when working for what is now JP Morgan Asset Management.

Lives in Devon. Loves his three girls, and rugby (obviously in that order).

Having made the move from studying physics at University to work in the investment industry, it is no surprise that Ben enjoys getting stuck into the numbers. He is a firm believer that there are few things that a nice coffee and a spreadsheet are unable to accomplish!

Outside of the office, Ben is a keen snowboarder, footballer and tennis player and enjoys travelling the world.