Annamaria Koerling

Managing Partner, Delfin Private Office

Annamaria’s career in wealth management spans over 27 years including senior roles at Schroders, Cazenove Capital Management, Merrill Lynch and C Hoare & Co. After overseeing the successful sale of the C Hoare & Co wealth management business to Cazenove Capital in 2017, she moved to a portfolio career, taking on a number of non-executive and advisory roles. Her main executive role is as Managing Partner of Delfin Private Office, a strategic wealth advisory and family office services business. Annamaria is also a Commissioner of The Jersey Financial Services Commission and an independent Chair of Praesidium SgR, a European multi-family office specialising in Private Equity. Amongst other roles, she chairs Golden Springs Group, a Singapore-based business which invests in Aquaculture, advises the oversight board of Hymans Robertson and is a Fellow Commoner of Queens’ College Cambridge, serving on the College’s investment committee. Annamaria has an MA in modern languages from the University of Cambridge, speaks Italian, German and French and is a Chartered Wealth Manager. In her spare time, Annamaria is an active angel investor, with a particular interest in female-led businesses in Fintech. She also writes a regular column for Spears magazine on financial topics for investors and is a trustee of the choral Charity, ORA, which has a mission to build cultural and social bridges through choral music.

Billy Stephenson

Chief Executive, Stephenson Executive Search

Billy is a headhunter and the Chief Executive of Stephenson Executive Search (SES), a multi-award-winning executive search firm focusing on appointments in the financial services and legal sectors. Billy focuses on C suite and senior appointments in the private banking, wealth management and family office sectors and works across management, investment, distribution and operational functions. He operates at board level and his clients include FTSE 100, FTSE 250, AIM listed and private companies. Billy is a former investment advisor, he is a Chartered Fellow of Chartered Institute of Securities and Investments, a Freeman of the City of London and serves on the board of a charity. In 2021, SES was awarded Best Wealth Management Executive Search firm at the WealthBriefing Awards, Boutique Recruitment Specialist of the Year in the Innovation and Excellence awards and the company is part of the Race Fairness Commitment.

Chris Hawes

Deputy Editor, Spear’s

Edwin Smith

Editor, Spear's

Editor, Spear's

Fiona McKenzie

Head of Carfax Education

Ian Douglas

Head of Research and Insight, Spear’s

Mark Somers

Founder and Director, Somers Partnership

Mark has been a Judge on the Spears Wealth Management Awards panel since their inception, and over the past 17 years the Somers Partnership has become the trusted growth adviser to the founders and CEOs of the most innovative wealth management organisations and family offices around the world. We are one of the most connected businesses across the wealth management industry and the trusted career advisor to many of the most productive professionals in the sector. With well over 40 years of cumulative experience are the most experienced search team specialising in C Suite and Front Office wealth management roles globally and we are entrusted with some of the highest profile and most transformative searches. Mark was voted one of the ‘100 Most Influential’ in the Family Office space by Family Capital magazine in 2020 and won the Outstanding Contribution to Wealth Management Thought Leadership (Individual) Wealth Briefing Awards, 2021. We publish the only Front Office compensation report that actually compares pay to performance. He is the author of the bestselling ‘How to Work for a Billionaire’; the first book published on Family Office careers. In 2013 he was selected by Goldman Sachs to attend their business programme for entrepreneurs (10ksb) at University College London. In his earlier career Mark won a military university full scholarship to Oxford Brookes University, one of 20 awarded per annum. He graduated in 1990 before attending the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst and being commissioned into the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards where he currently serves as one of the four Trustees of the Regimental Trust. In 2013 he was invested with the Duke of Kent’s medal at St James’s Palace for services to charity. For more than a dozen years he has served on the Committees of the Gulls’ Eggs and the Grouse and Grape lunches, the two leading charity networking events for the wealth management which raise significant funds for Cure Parkinson’s.

Michael Lewis

Partner, Private Client Services, EY Frank Hirth

Michael has over 23 years of experience in advising on US and UK private client tax issues. He provides advice across a broad spectrum of areas including; US/UK interaction on personal income, capital and social security taxes, US Gift/Estate taxes, UK Inheritance Tax, and tax-efficient charitable planning. Michael is a qualified Chartered Tax Adviser (CTA), and a US Enrolled Agent (EA).

Rasika Sittamparam

Senior Researcher, Spear's

Senior Researcher, Spear's

Rupert Phelps

Partner, Family Wealth Group Smith & Williamson

Rupert Phelps is the Partner leading the Family Wealth Group, which comprises 10 partners from across our company, representing all our services for business owning families. Rupert gives strategic advice on family governance, family constitutions and councils, succession planning, setting up single family offices, philanthropy and next generation preparation. He graduated in 1993 from the University of St. Andrews with a degree in Mediaeval History and after RMA Sandhurst served for a short service commission in The Life Guards. Rupert has worked with business owning families and single family offices all his career. Between Merrill Lynch and Bank of New York Mellon (where he set up their Family Office Services in EMEA), he served on the board of the London-based single family office of an international family.