Gavin Francis
Founder and Director
Gavin began his career at HMRC before moving into the financial services sector. Following a career with a wide range of institutions, he has conducted business with private wealth advisers across various financial centres in Europe and became increasingly interested in the possibilities of mobilising wealth in investments that deliberately target positive social outcomes.
Gavin founded and launched Worthstone with the express purpose of helping bring the social impact investment market to maturity amongst financial planners and wealth managers. He has co-authored ground-breaking reports in this area which have contributed to the process of policy reform to help develop the social investment sector in the UK and helped export the UK’s expertise globally via the Government’s Britain is GREAT campaign. Gavin was one of the authors of the report commissioned by Big Society Capital and the City of London Corporation and published in 2013: “The role of Tax Incentives in Encouraging Social Investment”. The proposals in this report were taken up by Government and became what is now Social Investment Tax Relief (SITR); Gavin also sat on HM Treasury’s working group during the consultation on the shape and design of the draft legislation on SITR.
The Worthstone Investment Committee (WIC)
An independent, best in class investment committee oversees our process and independent product reviews, which aggregate vast and specialist experience across fund management, legal, tax and venture capital, owning and managing financial adviser/planning firms, delivering client advice and regulation.
Ian Gethin
Non-Executive Chairman
Ian has over 25 years’ experience in the financial sector. Originally working in wholesale and investment banks, Ian then become one of the founding partners of a secondary market infrastructure fund in the UK. The fund was eventually acquired by Land Securities Trillium, where Ian was subsequently appointed as Head of Treasury & Corporate Finance.
Over the last 10 years, Ian has remained as non-executive director on number of infrastructure investment boards whilst also being a founding partner of the Warwick Road Financial Services group and becoming more heavily involved in the social and charitable sectors. He has completed a higher education qualification in charity & social enterprise management, acted as a grant assessor for a charitable foundation and currently sits on several boards for social enterprises and charities. Ian is a Non-Executive Director at Worthstone.
Declan McAndrew, CFA
External Adviser
Declan is Head of Investment Research at Foster Denovo which provides wealth management and financial planning advice to private client, employer, charity and institutional clients. Declan has extensive experience in the development, implementation and review of the investment proposition and research functions for financial advisers. A long standing interest and belief in sustainable and impact investing has led to him seek out opportunities in this exciting field. Declan believes strongly that financial advice is vital to helping clients make better choices for their futures including investing for a positive net impact. He is a CFA charterholder.
Abigail Rotheroe
External Adviser
Abigail has experience in both impact and traditional investment analysis. As Head of Impact at Project Snowball, she is responsible for their approach to managing impact. Previously, Abi led the impact investment work at NPC, a charity think-tank and consultancy. She has over 15 years’ experience as an investment analyst and fund manager, is a CFA charterholder, holds an MSc in Charity Accounting and Financial Management from Cass Business School and the ICAEW Diploma in Charity Accounting. She was a Director of Threadneedle Investment Management and has also worked as an independent consultant for an actuary.