Attitude Financial Services has launched a new advice proposition which aims to provide the LGBTQ community with financial advice.
Darren Styles owner of British gay lifestyle magazine Attitude has partnered with managing director Dawn Gale and financial planner and director Ian Meekins from financial advisory firm Blueprint South West to create the firm.
Attitude Financial Services offers wealth management, mortgage, retirement planning and protection advice from a range of advisers who are allies of the LGBTQ community. The firm is an appointed representative of Quilter Financial Planning.
The owners said the idea for the firm was prompted by a desire to give the LGBTQ community access to financial advisers who ‘understand their personal background without making them feel alienated or different due to their sexuality’.
Darren Styles, owner of Attitude magazine and Attitude Financial Services, said: “It’s this desire for normalcy for our community that led me to become the first gay owner of Attitude magazine back in 2016. It’s the want to protect our community’s most vulnerable that led, in 2018, to the creation of an Attitude Magazine Foundation that has already raised nearly £200,000 for LGBTQ causes.
“And it’s the peace of mind I found in organising my own financial well-being that has led me – alongside partners Ian Meekins and Dawn Gale, with the support of the renowned Quilter Financial Planning network – to create Attitude Financial Services now.”
Dawn Gale, owner and director of Blueprint South West and Attitude Financial Services partner added: “While the financial services needs of the LGBTQ community are no different to anyone else, due to the industry historically not being as inclusive as possible, there are a huge group of people who could stand to benefit from financial advice but don’t seek it out.”
Jane Goodland, corporate affairs director at Quilter said that with inclusivity “at the heart of what Quilter stands for” the group was “delighted that Attitude Financial Services have chosen to become an appointed representative of Quilter Financial Planning”.
