CONKERS' CORNER

Welcome to the 48th CONKERS’ CORNER recorded on 11th June 2017. In this interview, I have the pleasure of speaking with business man, entrepreneur, thought leader, speaker, author, CEO & Co-Founder of Inzsure.com @TunstallAsc Steve Tunstall.

Steve grew up in North Nottinghamshire on the edge of a mining community, his Grand-father was a Miner and for a while his Father was also a Miner, later he worked as a Council worker. His Dad advised him to “never go down the pit”, fortunately enough for Steve, when he was leaving school he did not have much choice because most of the mining pits in the nearby community had closed. Steve’s Mother was a Teacher and she had different ideas for him, encouraging him that he could go anywhere and be anything he wanted.

Steve stayed on a school at did A Levels, he explains, “I did exceptionally badly, passing only one of them”. He points out that this was in the early 1980’s where within the mining communities, there was not a lot for anyone to do with regards to jobs/employment. Therefore as an 18 year old, he applied for a variety of jobs. He explained “I applied for around 150 jobs without getting even one interview”. So Steve did a part-time course in Mechanical Engineering, which took him to Cumbria, working at Sellafield. This was to be the beginning of Steve’s fantastic education, employment and entrepreneur journey. He was always looking “to upgrade his skills and upgrade himself”.

This drive would take Steve all around the world as a global Insurance/Insurtech thought leader and ambassador. Steve now has over thirty years of experience in owning, running and future proofing companies. He has been CEO, Managing Director or equivalent in seven companies in four countries managing teams of up to 500 employees and based in Asia for over 20 years.

Steve has been recognised as the No.1 worldwide influencer in Insurtech, according to the Global Instech 100. He features in the Top 20 Global Influencer lists of Rise, Richtopia and Onalytica in the areas of Insurtech, Fintech and Blockchain and has a significant presence on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Tumblr. He is always looking to grow, learn more, share his knowledge, nurture others, whilst always remaining humble, this is his style of leadership and entrepreneurship.

Steve had always been interested in investing and saving for his future, however he explains that when starting out, he was not a consistent investor and a bit too flighty. He admits that he would have been well served by Warren Buffet’s advice to buy, hold and don’t lose money. He explains that whilst still in the UK in the 1990’s he did a little bit of trading in stocks. He says that he was “ill-formed and swayed by the influence of lots of people, which probably he should not have listened to”. Many of his early investments “were less than stellar”.

Nowadays, Steve has a significant proportion of his investments in Tech stocks such as Facebook, ETFs and cryptocurriencies. With his current business Inzsure.com http://www.inzsure.com/ leveraging cryptocurrency even further. Inzsure is an aggregation solution transforming commercial insurance built on Ethereum – a derivative of Blockchain. The platform leverages chatbot interfaces on a mobile first platform powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and informed through intensive data analysis. The radical transparent business model significantly lowers frictional transaction costs and improves both speed and security. Plus enables SME’s to purchase insurance via a technology platform direct from the global insurers. Steve buys into the vision of where of cryptocurrences is going long-term and now has a significant proportion of his wealth in cryptocurrencies.

The topics we discussed include:

More recently Steve’s interests and experiences in risk mitigation and risk management have led him to write his book “RISK and the Asian CEO: Take Risk, Take Care – A practical guide to risk management in Asia. His book has been described as the “First book ever dealing with the specifics of Asia in both culture and behaviours. This is the corner-stone of successful and meaningful risk management in an Asian organization”. As “it covers it covers the reality of risk management as needed and perceived in the Asian environment. This is a must for everyone who wants to understand what risk management means or should mean outside of USA and Europe”. For those in the C-suite, leaders and entrepreneurs, this could be a must read.

Welcome to the 47th CONKERS’ CORNER recorded on 23rd May 2017. In this interview, I have the pleasure of speaking with business man, semi-professional part-time private investor and blogger @darrenhazelwood Darren Hazelwood.

Darren describes himself as a “Council estate boy”, with only a couple of GCSEs. He started his employment journey in a multitude of menial jobs, warehousing and flour mills, however he always held aspirations to exceed his starting point. He had a good group of friends and watched his Dad work “seven days a week to buy his council house”, which he feels empowered him to desire more than his modest start in life. Darren is a firm believer that brightness can not be measured by exam results. He states “any kid can achieve what they want if they are willing to work at it.”

Darren has “always had a natural interest in money and finance”, what he did not have was the confidence to believe in his ability. At 19 years of age, after reading the Mail on Sunday’s Midas column, he followed the column’s tip and bought his first stock: Manx and Overseas. Darren admits that at that time he did not have the understanding or knowledge to do the due diligence required. Whilst his first foray was unsuccessful, his aspirations to achieve more led to him reading the Financial Times whilst he was working in warehouses and labouring with mates who were reading the Sun newspaper and skipping straight to sports pages. All the time Darren was learning from the university of life and being open minded in his pursue of greater financial achievements.

Darren describes himself as “an ultra-high risk investor” almost predominately in AIM commodity resource stocks. He advocates that investors create a line of communication with the CEOs in order to learn more about the individual in charge of the company, their strategy and goals. Darren’s view is that “only people complicate business” and therefore does not like to deal with complicated people or companies. Darren is an advocate of attending investment seminars, AGMs, Investor Events and taking the opportunity to ask CEOs/CFOs “difficult questions”.

Darren is of the view that certain commodity resource stocks have value and could achieve “astronomical gains over the next 18 months”. Darren insists that he is not a trader and always looks to invest. He has had several investment successes and made some mistakes during his investing journey. However throughout he has learnt many lessons from the positives and negatives. This discussion provides an insight into the journey that Darren has taken, which so far has encompassed working in warehouses, Woolworths, setting up his own Builders Merchants business, and much much more.

The topics we discussed include:

Listen now to gain insights into how Darren invests and learn from the lessons in his successful and insightful investing journey to now being a TR 1 investor (a shareholder that holds a major shareholding in a listed company) .

Welcome to the 46th CONKERS’ CORNER recorded on 18th May 2017. In this interview, I have the pleasure of speaking with part-time private investor and blogger @sholdsworth1963 Steve Holdsworth.

Steve was born in Bushey, Hertfordshire, and lived in Borehamwood until he was four, after which the family moved to Perivale, West London. His father was a self- employed carpenter and his mother mixed bringing up two children with various secretarial jobs and had a pretty ordinary upbringing. Steve attended Northolt High School a pretty ordinary large comprehensive. Whilst bright and in all the top streams for most subjects, Steve by his own admission “lacked the kind of drive to excel in anything in particular.” He left school at the age of 16 years age with a handful of O levels as he “didn’t do much work”.

On leaving school Steve, found employment as a junior at Barclays Bank, his role was mainly administrative initially but later took on other roles in the Bank, including that of a Bank teller. However after around five years Steve found Banking was not for him. He then took a job as a salesman for the electronics retailer Tandy, but by his own admission he was not a great salesman.

In the late 1990’s whilst Steve was working with a large market research company called Taylor Nelson AGB, he gained his first interest in stocks and shares from some of the colleagues he worked with. However it was also at that time when Steve had got himself into a lot of consumer debt. With a determination to clear his debts, Steve stumbled upon the Motley Fool boards for consumer debt. Via these boards Steve found the Motley Fool investor forums and boards. He describes Motley Fool as a wonderful forum of individuals freely sharing their knowledge and experience. He added that he attended their monthly socials in London and found them “great for his learning”.

Steve admits that he was a bit impatient and actually started investing before he had cleared his debts. The first stock that he bought was Lloyds TSB in 2005, because it was a big blue chip, high yielding stock. He admits that he made ad hoc purchases and bought and sold shares as they took his fancy. He admits that when he first started out he would not look beyond the tips he found via Motley Fool boards and the Financial Times with very little research. However later he found Digital Look and Hemscott (Morningstar) for screening stocks.

Having worked in a series of jobs across many sectors, more recently Steve has worked as a Charity Fundraiser. Starting in June 2017, Steve intends to embark on a phase that will encompass him being a full-time active investor. This ties in seamlessly with the personal blog that Steve has just recently started, which he has called GoStevie’s website http://gostevieblog.weebly.com/ .

Steve has had several investment successes and some made some notable mistakes during the past twelve years or so. This discussion provides an insight into the journey that Steve has taken, which so far has encompassed Banking, Retail, Market Research, Administration, Charity Fundraising, and much much more.

The topics we discussed include:

Listen now to gain insights into how Steve invests and learn from the lessons in his successful and insightful investing journey.