Kristen Cunliffe DipPFS CeFC firmly believes that everyone can grasp personal finance. For the last 24 years, she has made her career in financial services by developing a multi-award winning financial planning company, Red Star Wealth, and, with her husband Nick, financial education provider Red Star Education. She is dedicated to financial education and strongly advocates for keeping commercial interests out of education and player care in sports, which is an area she has worked within for over a decade.
Read on to discover how Kristen came to believe all aspiring professional footballers need financial education, and how she set out to provide it.
How would you summarise your passions, both in and out of work?
I am annoyingly passionate about financial education and wellbeing, and helping people understand a) how it all works and b) why they do what they do around money. Everything about the businesses is very much focused on these two things to be honest. I have a passion for the arts, music and travel all of which I try and do as much as possible. I have a season ticket at Blackpool Football Club as football is a massive part of our lives both professionally and at home.
What’s your happiest memory?
Giving birth – my daughter is my whole world. But after that it is the best date I have ever had. My now husband used to live in Chicago and one time when I visited him out there he took me on a date to the Lyric Opera to watch Tristan and Isolde and then to a “real” American diner afterwards – the whole red leather booths gig. We drove through the city on the roads where Batman was filmed in a totally surreal and wonderful evening. Best date EVER!
What do you wish you’d been told about finance when you were 15?
It is for you. The lack of money was terrifying for me at that age, and I grew up thinking anything about money and finance was not ‘for me’, when in fact it’s my life’s purpose
What made you want to work in finance?
I love that I’m able to work with a huge variety of clients, and really help them plan their finances and their futures to ‘improve’ their lives and opportunities so to speak. It is such a huge part of supporting good mental health too which is really important to me.
How did you come to launch Red Star Wealth?
The company I was working for as an employed adviser was being sold to a bigger organisation when the owner was retiring and I saw this as an opportunity for me to build a company based on the ethos I had around bespoke planning with superior customer service and it felt like a ‘now or never’ scenario.
How did this then lead to you launching Red Star Education?
In 2013 I became very aware of a number of situations where professional football players had and were receiving inadequate financial advice from advisers who frankly should have been doing better. I set about writing a curriculum aimed at academy level players to teach them all about finances which I hoped would support their professional journey. We are now starting our 11th season as life skills provider on finance for the Premier League and League Football Education, and have grown the business to include clients of other sports and a number of corporate clients and their apprenticeship program.
I trained as a financial coach in 2021 to be able to support all of the financial conversations in a deeper way, and to support that important link of financial wellbeing and overall mental health and wellbeing.
What do you love to do when you’re not working? Do you have any secret talents?
I love travel, I love art, music and theatre. I love gardening and I honestly don’t think I have any talents – but I am hooked on playing Hogwarts Legacy on a Nintendo Switch which is a guilty pleasure to help switch my brain off
What prompted you to join the Institute for Financial Wellbeing?
I heard about the IFW when it first launched in actual fact but at the time I wasn’t sure the direction of travel I was on in terms of how much coaching and wellbeing I would integrate into my businesses. I’m now at a point where my coaching practice is really growing and I’m eager to learn from others. I think potential new clients want to see that as a professional I am engaged in the IFW community.
What’s your top tip for someone wanting to improve their financial wellbeing?
Don’t be afraid of the conversation because almost every person has experienced some kind of financial challenge. I find that most worries, concerns and feeling of guilt or shame can be reduced by simply talking!
Who or what is your favourite wellbeing guru, podcast or book?
Can I say our podcast Do I Have To Adult Now?
I find Professor Steve Peters very insightful and practically helpful too
What are you doing to advance your own financial wellbeing?
Constantly reassessing where I am at happens with each coaching opportunity as I reflect both before and after on how what I have said to clients shows up in my own life. Plus I’m unsubscribing from clothes store marketing because I don’t want them to keep telling me about their sales.
Is there an IFW member you would like to see featured in the IFW Showcase? Send an email to members@ifw.org.uk and let us know.
