ATTIVO

Client Profile: The Calm After The Storm

By Joely Carey

Two weeks before her 60th birthday, former Attivo pensions director Frances Roch was given a devastating diagnosis which threatened to upend her life plan…

There’s an oft-quoted phrase… life will always throw you curveballs. It’s up to you how you swing the bat… which can sound flippant until you meet someone like Frances Roch. She’s a woman who hasn’t just learned how to roll with the punches, but to reinvent herself on the fight back.

The first of her extended family to go to university, she graduated from Cardiff with an excellent degree in French still trying to figure out what to do next. ‘I didn’t want to farm, but that was all my parents knew, so they weren’t much help!’ she laughs. Frances stayed in Cardiff and worked in retail until she was hired into a managerial role within a large department store. ‘Back then retail was very stuffy, very hierarchical… a bit like the old sitcom Are you Being Served?, but without the humour!’ she laughs. ‘The hours were long, you always worked Saturdays and never had two days off in a row… it just wasn’t for me.’ A chance conversation at work resulted in an industry switch to be a sales negotiator for a housebuilder.

She quickly established herself and was promoted to Sales Director at the age of just 29. But then life took a twist. ‘I discovered I was pregnant, unexpectedly!’ she laughs.

Life at Attivo

Like many women of her generation, Frances left her career to raise her family until family finances meant she had to return to work. Deciding that personal finance might fit better with family life, she soon rose to director levels, winning awards and accolades along the way. In 2003, she joined Attivo as a pension specialist. ‘Pensions are complex,’ she says. ‘I liked to get to grips with it all and help people by explaining all the details to them in a language they could understand… to have the life they want.’ Frances says her years at Attivo were the very best of her career.

In 2003, she joined Attivo as a pension specialist. ‘Pensions are complex,’ she says. ‘I liked to get to grips with it all and help people by explaining all the details to them in a language they could understand… to have the life they want.’ Frances says her years at Attivo were the very best of her career.

In 2010, she qualified as a Chartered Financial Planner. ‘It wasn’t that common to have that qualification, and, for a woman, it was even less so,’ she says. She was also a Fellow of the Personal Finance Society and one of the most senior women in her field. The family lived in a beautiful home just outside Cheltenham and owned part of her family’s farm in Pembrokeshire.

In 2013, Frances and her partner got married. ‘I always tell people I did it for tax reasons!’ she laughs. ‘A Financial Planner to my core, once it got to the point that we would have to pay tax if one of us died, after inheriting some family wealth, it made sense to get married. ‘We married in a Register Office with our daughter and one of her best friends as witnesses; then we punted along the River Cam with vintage champagne and canapes. It was perfect!’ That was the year they also decided to buy a house in France.

‘We’d always talked about it, and I had spent some time in the south of France when studying for my degree. As lovers of Bordeaux wines, that seemed the perfect region for us. We discovered a longère [traditional French country house] with a garden and a saltwater pool. We bought it on a bit of a whim really, but we haven’t regretted it for a second, and it meant we could holiday and take our dogs with us.’ She describes family summers spent there with family, friends and their beloved rescue Jack Russells, all enjoying their little slice of French countryside.

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Top 10 Financial Advisers in the UK

Soon after, in 2015, Frances was recognised as one of the top 10 Financial Advisers in the UK. Then just before Frances’s 60th birthday , life as she knew it changed completely. ‘I was feeling very tired, so I thought I needed to slow down… I dropped from five days a week to four…,’ she says, ‘then I found a lump in my breast… a mammogram showed a tumour. I had breast cancer.’

As she talks of her breast cancer journey, Frances’s slight Welsh lilt becomes a little more prominent as she talks of the emotional impact of her diagnosis. She needed extensive surgery as her cancer was rare, affecting just nine per cent of women. ‘It was the worst birthday present! The horrible cancer… there was no breast cancer in my family, and so it didn’t cross my mind I might get it. I had three surgeries… It was,’ she falters, ‘it was a bit traumatic.’

Her recovery wasn’t straightforward; she needed further treatment and monitoring, most recently to a lesion on her pelvis picked up in a routine check. Thanks to its exemplary company benefits scheme, the only easy thing was the backup of Attivo’ s private health care. ‘I had private health, and I had critical illness cover with long-term income protection, I’m lucky to have had no money worries,’ explains Frances.

She credits not just Attivo but its Founder and Chairman, Stephen Harper, for the unwavering support throughout her treatment and recovery. Being able to concentrate on her health and her recovery entirely is something she will be eternally grateful for. ‘I was extremely lucky to be with such a good company with such a wonderful CEO in Steve at the helm, he’s quite an incredible person. The company policy Attivo held had such good company benefits, so I didn’t have to start using my own money straightaway,’ she says. ‘I was totally supported, so all I had to do was focus on my health and getting better. Planning for the unexpected is so important, having peace of mind for if and when your health falters, it’s something people neglect but shouldn’t.’

I asked Frances what the most challenging part of all this was. She hesitates, then says, ‘apart from the obvious hurt for the family, the hardest thing was not being able to say goodbye to my Attivo clients. ‘I’d looked after some lovely clients for many years, helping them to plan the most personal of details such as wills and pensions. I was sad that I couldn’t say goodbye properly.’

Frances’s recovery was slow but steady, and then last year, her husband, Peter, now 75, was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He had surgery in September and, so far, hasn’t needed further treatment. ‘I have regular scans, but I’ve told my oncologist that I am done with cancer and that I’ll die of something, but it won’t be cancer!’ she says firmly.

With the toughest battles behind her, I ask what she plans for retirement, and she smiles before adding, ‘Do you know, I am happy just pootling about? We always have things to sort with the three houses, and I like to see my friends. I love reading and go to a book club in the village, and we try to get to France for three months each year. We’re here. That’s it, and that’s good enough for us.’

Words by Joely Carey.

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