I had a fantastic time at RGS. When I look back now, what stands out most isn’t any single moment, but the overall experience: the friendships I made there, many of which I still have today, the teachers who genuinely pushed me to achieve my best and the sense of being able to enjoy everything without overthinking it. Most of my strongest memories are pretty simple ones - time with friends, sport, school trips and just enjoying school life for what it was. There was a seriousness that naturally arrived in exam season, but up until then it felt like a place where you could grow without feeling rushed.

Academically, I gravitated towards Economics, Politics and History at A level, which meant I spent a lot of Sixth Form in the Broadfield building. In a way, that period quietly set the foundations for what would later become Broadfield Capital. Two teachers in particular had a lasting influence on me: Mr Flanagan in Economics and Mr Sanderson in Politics. Both of them had previously worked in the City before moving into teaching and that made a real difference. They didn’t just teach theory, they brought lived experience into the classroom. That context made the subjects feel real and it probably sparked my early interest in the world of business and finance more than anything else at the time.

After leaving RGS and going on to study at the University of Nottingham, my route into private equity was not especially linear. I started on a trading floor in 2008, which, looking back, was a fairly intense time to enter investment banking. It wasn’t an easy environment, but it was formative. From there I moved into management consultancy, which I genuinely enjoyed and which gave me a strong grounding in how businesses actually operate. That experience proved incredibly useful later on.

In 2013, I joined Goldman Sachs and that marked the real entry point into the investment side of private equity for me. Since then, I’ve been investing in the space continuously. If I were speaking to someone today who is looking to enter the industry, I often say I probably would have benefited from doing an accountancy qualification earlier on. It’s one of those skill sets that underpins almost everything in finance and business. I didn’t take that route, but I can certainly see its value in hindsight.

What attracted me to private equity—and more broadly hedge funds and venture capital - was the sense that you are operating at the sharp end of investing. Outcomes are very direct. Success or failure really comes down to the quality of your decisions. There’s something quite pure about that. If you’re going to work in finance, there’s a real satisfaction in being responsible for allocating capital and ultimately generating returns for investors. It’s also a very meritocratic environment: good decisions tend to compound, and over time the quality of your judgement is what drives your progress.

Before founding Broadfield Capital Partners, I spent several years at Rockpool Investments, where I was a Partner building a lower mid-market portfolio. That period was hugely formative. I invested around £50 million into seven platform businesses and completed more than 25 bolt-on acquisitions. More importantly, I worked closely with seven CEOs as they scaled and transformed their businesses across different sectors. Staying close to those management teams and seeing businesses evolve over time was a real privilege, and I’ve remained in touch with them even after exiting the investments.

If I had to distil the biggest lesson from that period, it would be that while being analytical and detail-oriented is important, the real driver of success is people. It’s about relationships, trust, and bringing people with you on the journey. The technical side matters, but it’s the human side that ultimately determines outcomes. If anything, that’s only become more relevant today, particularly as AI takes on more of the analytical workload. The ability to align people around a shared vision is becoming even more important.

Launching Broadfield Capital was a natural next step, but still a significant one. I had always wanted to build my own firm, and I was fortunate enough to have established a track record that made it possible to raise capital independently. Across any industry, there’s real value in building something of your own. It brings autonomy, responsibility, pressure, but also a strong sense of purpose. My advice to students is often that whatever path you choose, it’s worth aiming to run or own something at some point in your career. It changes how you think.

At Broadfield, we focus on backing management teams and executing “buy and build” strategies. What I enjoy most is working directly with founders and leadership teams. They are the lifeblood of any business. Without a strong team, there is no value creation. The most rewarding part is partnering with ambitious, high-energy founders who genuinely want to make a meaningful impact in their sector. That energy tends to spread through the organisation and often defines the trajectory of the investment.

Alongside that, I’ve been involved in mentoring and initiatives like CareerPaths. That’s something I care deeply about. My own route into the industry wasn’t entirely straightforward and I’m conscious that not everyone has the same visibility or access to networks. Through mentoring, I’ve tried to help make the industry feel more open, so that ambition and ability matter more than just being in the right circles at the right time.

Looking back, I don’t think I was ever overly focused on being in the “right role” at the “right time.” I was more focused on being on the right path. There’s a difference. It’s often better to start at the bottom of a ladder you genuinely want to climb than to be halfway up one that doesn’t feel right. I’ve effectively restarted several times - moving across trading, consultancy, and private equity - each time going back to the bottom rung. Joining Goldman Sachs in 2013 stands out as a key turning point, and launching Broadfield Capital was the other.

Guy's Top Tip

If I had one piece of advice for current RGS pupils thinking about their futures, it would be to speak to as many people as possible before deciding what to do. It’s very easy to drift into a career based on limited information or assumptions about what a job involves. But once you are in an industry, changing direction becomes harder. So it’s worth investing the time early: ask questions, have conversations, and get exposure wherever you can. The RGS community is a strong resource for that - there are people across every industry who are usually very willing to share their experiences and give honest advice.