“It took me 17 years and 114 days to become an overnight success” – Lionel Messi

As we blow the final whistle on World Cup year, I'd like to begin this business update by saying 'well played' to colleagues, clients and industry peers for a game that I hope we all feel that we leave winning as we refocus on the 2023 season. 

2022 presented many challenges for individuals and businesses as the world tried to normalise following the pandemic, whilst plunging into a war in the West. The resilience of the Ukrainian people can only be admired and one hopes that the recent Russian ceasefire is the beginning of a roadmap towards withdrawal and peace rather than a pause for breath before more fighting.

At Enhance we have been very fortunate to enjoy a stellar 2022 and, whilst I would like to put this down to me being a managerial savant like Pep Guardiola, the continued evolution and growth of our business is thanks to my team (which all played their positions perfectly) and our clients (which have supported us faithfully at the turnstile). We are climbing the Premier League table of investment oversight and believe we will progress into the Champions League in 2023.

The Lionel Messi caption at the beginning of this update is entirely apt, not just the underlying sentiment that success is typically built over time following a lot of hard work, but because Enhance is now into its 17th year of trading and generally recognised as a leading light in investment oversight for the global fiduciary community. It has been a long journey to get to this point and everyone, from the Founders and earliest employees through to the current staff roster, has contributed to our success so far.

We enter 2023 with a team that boasts a variety of talents and specialisms which I have majored on in previous updates. Now it's time for those individual talents to come together as a team and deliver on the pitch. We continue to hire and are currently recruiting Investment Analysts, Software Developers and Automation Analysts to bolster our playing squad. We will consider domestic (Jersey based) and overseas (remote) signings to ensure that we remain on top of our game.

In Q1 we will begin to roll-out our new CPD programme to help educate fiduciaries on all things investment oversight. Our 'Introduction to Investments' presentation is one that I would encourage our clients to request for their more junior members of staff to aide with their foundational understanding of securities and investments. This initiative is being spearheaded by our Head of Relationship Management and Founder, Richard Sayers, so please do get in touch with him if you would like to book CPD in the diary for the weeks and months ahead.

Hot on the heels of Dr Ruzhen Li's keynote presentation at the Elite Summit in Montreaux in Q4, in the quarter ahead Richard Sayers will be speaking at a number of industry events including for STEP in Jersey and ACSP in the Isle of Man. We have team members with deep specialisms in various aspects of investment and increasingly technology, so please consider this an open offer for Enhance to speak at appropriate events in 2023. We travel very broadly to service our global client base and this continues in 2023, so are happy to consider speaking engagements in all geographies.

A major strategic initiative for us this quarter will be the formal launch of our integration with TrustQuay's NavOne platform. We believe this will be a 'game changer' for NavOne users, who will be able to consume Enhance's services without having to leave their core administration software. Our Ecosystem Partner status sets us apart from other investment monitoring and advice businesses and is a prime example of how we are embracing and investing in technology to deliver an enhanced service to our clients (pun firmly intentional!). More on this integration to follow.

Developing our proprietary software Mosaic remains at the forefront of our tactics for the season ahead and so we have a jam packed roadmap of new features scheduled for delivery throughout the year. These include a new benchmarking framework, refined rating algorithm and improved automated reporting capability with a variety of more technical analytics and visualisations. We are a bootstrapped business, so our clients should take confidence from the fact that their fees at the turnstile are not only being directed to acquiring players on the pitch but also being invested in our infrastructure.

To help manage the growing demand for our services we have also invested in hiring an Operations Manager with deep project management experience, who designs and implements a bespoke project plan for each fiduciary we onboard. We have identified that moving providers, particularly for investment monitoring where client volumes can be high, is an onerous process for clients and a potential barrier to change. Bill Higgins' help and expertise in this dedicated role is already proving invaluable to our clients as they switch to, or expand their use of, our various services.

So, as we step onto the field of play in 2023, I would like to close off this update wishing you all the very best of luck for the new season. I hope it is a healthy and successful one for you all. No doubt it will be another competitive year and the team at Enhance very much looks forward to the challenges that will follow. Onto the January transfer window! 

Happy New Year,
Tom