David Shepherd
Managing Partner – Business owner, Kingsford Wealth Management | Host, The 6 Minute Partner Podcast for Lawyers
About David Shepherd
David began his career in investment banking, working with organisations including Santander, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and Barclays. He was drawn to the numbers, but over time realised that the work he valued most was not just analysing markets or managing financial detail. It was helping people make clearer decisions about their future. After a serious back injury forced him to step back and reassess what he wanted from his career, he retrained through the Chartered Insurance Institute exams and moved into financial advice.
Today, David works with professionals who are intelligent, ambitious, and often time-poor. He has a particular focus on lawyers and city professionals, along with successful business owners and people who have exited multi-million-pound businesses. A recurring theme in his work is that capable people can still neglect their own planning because they are busy solving complex problems for everyone else. David’s role is to bring structure, context, and calm to decisions around wealth, tax structures, long-term security, and the life people are trying to build beyond work.
He also hosts The Six Minute Partner Podcast, created to speak directly to the financial questions and pressures faced by senior legal professionals. His style is practical and plain-spoken, with a focus on making financial advice feel less abstract and more useful.
As a podcast guest, David brings a grounded view of wealth, professional pressure, and long-term planning from someone who has worked inside major financial institutions and now advises the people whose lives are often too busy to plan properly.
Key topics
The best exits are built years before the buyer shows up
Most owners think about exit planning when an approach lands or burnout hits — and by then, the most valuable options are already off the table. David explains why the difference between a good exit and a great one is usually made three to five years out: getting the company structure and share ownership right, extracting wealth from the business tax-efficiently along the way so the sale isn't the only payday, using pensions and allowances that disappear at completion, and making sure the business isn't so dependent on the founder that the price reflects it. He also covers the personal side buyers never see — knowing your own number, so you negotiate from clarity rather than emotion. Whether an exit is two years away or ten, he shows owners how to build their plan, one worth having, on their own timeline rather than a buyer's.
Building wealth should make your life better, not stop you living it
Most people experience financial planning as a sacrifice: save more, spend less, feel guilty about the holiday. David challenges that mindset entirely. The goal isn't accumulating the biggest possible number — it's knowing, with confidence, what you can spend today without compromising tomorrow. He explains how proper planning often gives clients permission to spend more, not less, because they can finally see the full picture, and shares real examples of clients who discovered they could take the sabbatical, buy the house, or reduce their hours years earlier than they'd assumed. It's a refreshing conversation about making money serve your life, rather than building a life that revolves around money.
Why the highest earners make the most expensive mistakes
There's a comfortable assumption that a big income automatically builds financial security. In David's experience, the opposite is often true: the busiest, highest-earning professionals lose the most wealth — not through bad investments, but through inaction, unnecessary tax exposure, and simply never having time to step back. Intelligence doesn't transfer automatically to personal finance, and a demanding career actively works against good decision-making because the cost of delay is invisible until it compounds. Drawing on years advising lawyers, executives, and business owners, David explains why the gap between what high earners make and what they keep is usually a planning problem, not an income problem — and why the next pay rise fixes none of it. Listeners will leave understanding that successful people don't need more financial knowledge; they need the right financial conversations at the right time.
View all topics →
Key topics
The best exits are built years before the buyer shows up
Most owners think about exit planning when an approach lands or burnout hits — and by then, the most valuable options are already off the table. David explains why the difference between a good exit and a great one is usually made three to five years out: getting the company structure and share ownership right, extracting wealth from the business tax-efficiently along the way so the sale isn't the only payday, using pensions and allowances that disappear at completion, and making sure the business isn't so dependent on the founder that the price reflects it. He also covers the personal side buyers never see — knowing your own number, so you negotiate from clarity rather than emotion. Whether an exit is two years away or ten, he shows owners how to build their plan, one worth having, on their own timeline rather than a buyer's.
Building wealth should make your life better, not stop you living it
Most people experience financial planning as a sacrifice: save more, spend less, feel guilty about the holiday. David challenges that mindset entirely. The goal isn't accumulating the biggest possible number — it's knowing, with confidence, what you can spend today without compromising tomorrow. He explains how proper planning often gives clients permission to spend more, not less, because they can finally see the full picture, and shares real examples of clients who discovered they could take the sabbatical, buy the house, or reduce their hours years earlier than they'd assumed. It's a refreshing conversation about making money serve your life, rather than building a life that revolves around money.
Why the highest earners make the most expensive mistakes
There's a comfortable assumption that a big income automatically builds financial security. In David's experience, the opposite is often true: the busiest, highest-earning professionals lose the most wealth — not through bad investments, but through inaction, unnecessary tax exposure, and simply never having time to step back. Intelligence doesn't transfer automatically to personal finance, and a demanding career actively works against good decision-making because the cost of delay is invisible until it compounds. Drawing on years advising lawyers, executives, and business owners, David explains why the gap between what high earners make and what they keep is usually a planning problem, not an income problem — and why the next pay rise fixes none of it. Listeners will leave understanding that successful people don't need more financial knowledge; they need the right financial conversations at the right time.
View all topics →