Client Profile: Alice Li and Alan Smith

By Nicole Carmichael

A chance encounter brought scientists (and Attivo clients) Alice Li and Alan Smith together.

Speaking to Attivo Life Magazine, they talk about love, life, laboratories, and everything in between…

Fate has had more than a hand in the lives Alice Li and Alan Smith now lead. Despite both growing up in Bexley, South East London, both becoming chartered chemists and both bagging their first jobs at The Wellcome Foundation, it was years before they met.

That meeting was thanks to Alice being headhunted and then a colleague of Alan’s being unavailable to meet her. ‘I came in at the last minute to show Alice around and then we ended up working for the same boss,’ says Alan. Later, when they both found themselves single, they got together. They were both working in senior positions for a high-ranking global pharmaceutical company in Essex in the early 2000s; with four children between them, life was busy, so when a holiday request for them to be on leave simultaneously was rejected, the couple made a huge life decision.

‘I said, let’s just leave to set up a business ourselves,’ says Alan. And they both resigned. ‘It was a risk, but a calculated one. We had talked about it previously – Alice had run a business before and together we had a specialist skill set,’ says Alan, now 59. Their careers were exemplary, both being heads of quality departments, Alan had a postgraduate in Industrial Pharmaceutical Studies and was a registered Qualified Person.

Alice was a Chartered Chemist with a post-graduate qualification in management. Despite this, Alice admits leaving salaried roles to go solo was terrifying. ‘Doing it so quickly, we didn’t have a savings pot, we had young children, we didn’t have any clients. We left with just the shirts on our backs. Was I worried? Absolutely!’ The pair then spent the next six months setting up a strategy for their new venture, pharmaceutical consultancy QED-QED Ltd. ‘Our five-year plan was to set up, work nonstop, grow it by employing consultants, eventually we keep it, or we sell it, and that would be our retirement fund,’ explains Alice.

Pretty straightforward, except it wasn’t. Determined to make their firm a success, work began to seep into every aspect of their life. ‘We became like ships that passed in the night,’ says Alan. We chat as the couple sit in their shared office at the family home in the Kent countryside. I ask what they decided to do differently and Alice glances at Alan. ‘We went for work/life balance,’ she says. ‘When my girls were younger, I hardly saw them as I was out working all the time. I didn’t want that to happen again, so QED stayed just the two of us and the five-year plan was scrapped!’ I wondered if they felt they’d stifled the business. Alan laughs and shrugs before he answers. ‘We’re happy with our decision. Yes, maybe we could have sold it by now and become multimillionaires, but we might not have made it that far.’

Attivo has helped us to realise that we have done enough to be able to enjoy this early phase of retirement.

The decision to keep the firm smaller still saw them fly high, working on important projects for pharmaceutical industries across the UK, Europe, Asia, America and Australia in fields such as gene therapy. The scale of their operation may have been reduced but their ambition and focus rewarded them with financial success. At the start, their focus was to make money to put back into the business. ‘We didn’t really think about pension planning in those early days,’ says Alice, now 64.

That changed when they switched Financial Adviser and stepped up again a few years ago when they joined Attivo. ‘Attivo helped us understand how to plan for retirement and they made sure they understood how we wanted to live when we reached that stage,’ says Alice. So, have they reached that stage? Almost. ‘I’m semi-retired,’ says Alan. ‘I’ll keep on until I don’t enjoy it anymore.’

Phasing into retirement is something Alice agrees with. ‘You must work up to it, change your habits. We want to realign our lives to get more enjoyment out of the next phase.’ And the couple has already engaged in their retirement warm-up plan. They’ve taken up gardening, Latin and ballroom dancing, and this year, far-flung travel is on the agenda, big time. First Hong Kong and Singapore, a pause for Alice’s youngest daughter’s wedding in May, then a Kenyan safari and Zanzibar, before they hit San Francisco followed by Hawaii – all before September!

‘Attivo has helped us to realise that we have done enough to be able to enjoy this early phase of retirement, and that’s been really comforting,’ says Alan. Alice nods. ‘They’re not just a wealth management company, they’re not just about the mathematics, they ask what we want from our life they then set about helping us achieve that. They’ve been great.’

For a couple who have bucked the norm most of their working lives, I expect their retirement will be no different. ‘Others in the pharmaceutical industry who have retired say they’re so busy they can’t remember how they found time to work! That sounds good to me!’ laughs Alice.

Words by Joely Carey.

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