48 | Tees Business
OUR
CULTURE
IS KEY
Vision – Paul Gibson, a director at
Active Chartered Financial Planners.
Paul Gibson, director at Active Chartered Financial Planners, on
why the firm’s vision and values are key to its culture…
T
he German poet Hanz Magnus
Enzensberger once said, “Culture is like
dropping an Alka-Seltzer into a glass of
water – you don’t see it, but somehow
it does something”.
Here at Active, we have invested heavily
over many years to ensure our culture can be
defined not only as “how we do things” but
“why we do things” also.
We have a clear company vision and set
of company values that are embedded and
understood by our entire team, no matter what
role they play.
Striving to reach the highest possible
standards, our coveted Chartered Financial
Planner firm status by the CII (Chartered
Insurance Institute) shows commitment
towards ethical behaviours, higher levels of
expertise and being 100 per cent committed to
acting in our clients’ best interests at all times.
You may have seen the investment we
undertook in 2018 to evolve our brand and
culture, creating the ‘Active Spirit’ which helps
to underpin the firm we are – transparent with
crystal clear advice for all clients.
Our flexible approach to work is built on
trust and our team are rewarded largely on
their behaviours and commitment to delivering
excellence for clients.
We believe that a clear culture drives the
right behaviours, which then leads to the fair
treatment of our clients.
Active has for a long time been praised for
our open culture by Investors in People (IIP)
when they awarded us with the prestigious
Gold standard initially in 2013, then for the