Ex-AG lawyer Laura Pomfret on becoming a ‘reluctant entrepreneur’ to change the world of finance for women!

Ask Laura Pomfret, co-founder of the female-focused financial well-being web site Financielle and former AG lawyer, to list some of the successes of the innovative service she launched with her sister and they tumble out at speed.

“We have enabled people who previously never thought they could save the deposit to buy their first house to do so, helped one woman pay off £27,000 of debt even whilst on furlough and another to afford a further round of IVF which resulted in a successful pregnancy. So we now have the first baby in our Financielle community

“They all achieved their financial goals by following the methodology we have developed. We have a really simple KPI for the business. It’s the number of people we help to what we term as financial wellness by unlearning bad habits and replacing them with good ones.“

With evident passion, she adds:

“With every step they take along our programme they see positive consequential benefits, not just in taking control of their money but also in the mental health improvements that come from relieving the stress and worry that are the persistent partners of financial concerns.

“The feedback we get from people who we have helped to actually transform their lives is heartwarming and very satisfying. It just makes us more determined to continue growing our community.”

Insight and control

In the four years since the business launched it has gathered 37,000 followers across its social channels, its primary source of building profile and awareness and an active community of more than 6,000 app users who are using its innovative ‘Playbook’ toolkit to gain greater insight and control over their finances. In 2022, Financielle took its first pre-seed investors, a combination of existing FinTech founders and funds and have recently celebrating growing the net worths of our users by over £1,000,000.

The central aim of the site is to debunk the ‘mysteries’ around personal finance, what Laura terms as ‘lifting the lid’ on the often complex and confusing language that can surround loans, credit cards and buy now, pay later offers, particularly when targeted at women.

Although ‘female-focussed’ with 89% of users being women, it does not exclude men who make up the balance. Members are predominantly in the UK but with smaller numbers, as yet, in the USA, Australia and Canada.

But the ambitions that the sisters have for the business are much bigger with a vision to empower millions of women, currently ill-served by the advice market in compared to men, to become financially well, pay off debt, improve their finances and grow generational wealth. And because the methodology they have developed is not tied to any particular currency it has global potential.

A family connection

Laura, who is 34 with daughters aged three and 10 years - sister Holly is two years younger and has boys age two and five – describes herself as a ‘reluctant entrepreneur’ and credits her experience at AG for firing her interest in business.  But the connection with the firm began when she was just a 13 year-old teenager.

Her mother was a manager in ICI’s outsourcing division at a time when former London-based AG partner Margaret Harvey was its adviser on a major deal. The pair became friends and Margaret an inspiration and mentor to the young Laura.

After graduating from the University of Leeds, followed by a year at the BPP Law School, she was awarded a training contract with AG in September 2009 on the back of an application for a two week placement.  Laura became an Associate three years later.

She worked on various corporate M&A, commercial and commercial litigation cases, including for British Airways and MyTravel, among other high-profile clients. This experience at such an early stage of her legal career, fired a passion for business and she joined Travel Counsellors, which specialized in helping inspirational travel business owners serve their customers better, as Head of Legal and Company Secretary in 2013 and spent seven fulfilling years there.

An idea sparked by the pandemic

It was seeing how the pandemic was impacting on the finances of families and individuals, burdening them with debt and feeling they were sinking with no clear plan for the future, that sparked the idea for Financielle. It started as an Instagram account in 2018 but grew into a digital financial community. In May 2020, with mass furloughs, looming redundancies and business closures across the country, the pair launched their novel Financielle Playbook  model.

Laura says:

“I would describe myself as a reluctant entrepreneur. Many people dream of starting a business whereas I saw a problem that I felt compelled to fix and, since no one else was doing it, I knew I had to build the solution by starting a business.

“The experience I gained at such an early stage of my career with Addleshaw Goddard has been invaluable in achieving that. The firm involved you in some big-ticket deals with major clients and trusted you to fulfil your role as part of a team committed to delivering outstanding client service. The knowledge gained and the philosophy learned stay with you.

“Margaret Harvey eventually left the law and bought and ran a vineyard in France for a number of years before selling that and acquiring a holiday business in the country. In many ways she was the start of my 20-odd year relationship with AG and she remains a mentor, inspiration and friend to this day.”