Five Star Insights: Louise Oliver’s Wonderful World

My guest on Five Star Insights is Louise Oliver who has worked in the financial services sector for over 30 years and is co-founder and director of Piercefield Oliver.
She is also UK President of the British Association of Women Entrepreneurs ā affectionately known as BAWE.
A membership organisation, BAWE is a network for women who have considerable experience in running their own businesses.
In her day to day work Louise is a certified Financial Planner and Chartered Wealth Manager, helping families and individuals going through lifeās changes with a particular focus on divorce, business sales and bereavement. A role less than 10 per cent of women do in this sector.
She is an expert commentator on the BBCās Breakfast TV and Radio 4ās Money Box programme and has won several awards including Role Model of the Year in Financial Services.
Lessons learned include it takes time to find the right team with shared values, ethics and passion and that not everyone is right for her business. She has also learned to say āyesā to challenges and step out of her comfort zone.
Location
Louise grew up on the doorstep of the Peak District and named her favourite location as the magnificent stately home, often voted Britainās favourite country house, Chatsworth House in Derbyshire.

She has fond memories of visiting the grand estate, with vast grounds during her childhood and watching her two sons playing in the cascading fountains years later. āEscapism and beautifulā are the words she uses as she reminisces of the long strolls and lazy summer afternoons spent at Chatsworth House. She loves that āit has such a rich heritage and history combined with stories of intrigue, tragedy and scandal from generations of royal visitors.ā She credits the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, who live with their family in private apartments on the estate for the well-maintained property saying āit canāt be easy looking after 125 rooms with more than 1000 acres of gardens and grounds!ā
Louise, was the eldest with two brothers in Sheffield and says āwhen growing up there were no PCās, mobiles and we spent lots of time playing outdoors and visiting the House.ā She is proud of being a Yorkshire ālassā and says āI went to a good local school and Yorkshire people are very welcoming, friendly and there was a real sense of community.ā She now lives in Cheltenham but does go back to Chatsworth House whenever she can.
Literature
The stories surrounding Chatsworth House lead us nicely onto her choice of literature.
Louise has just finished a series of six books called āThe Seven Sistersā by Lucinda Riley. She loves books with a good plot, lots of twists and turns, love and tragedy and āthis one combines that with a mix of fiction and historical facts.ā The story is about āa wealthy businessman who adopts seven daughters and the legacy he leaves them are clues about where they are from.ā Each sister is a different character with a rich heritage, so you have a sailor, a model, a musician, a healer coming from different countries like Brazil, Australia, Scotland, Norway, Spain and Kenya. āHer descriptions are so good and Iāve not been to Brazil or Australia but through the book, I feel like Iāve visited those places and Iāve learnt about things like Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, the aborigines in Australia and the Maasai tribe in Kenya.ā
She enjoys biographies too and says āI liked Richard Bransonās book as it provided some good insight as to how he built his career.ā
Louise also likes self-help books like āWho Moved My Cheeseā by Dr Spencer Johnson. A popular book in the shape of a business fable, I ask her if she applies the principals from her reading to real life situations? āItās short, to the point and makes you go out of your comfort zone and search for an alternativeā¦you have to go with your fear and embrace it and challenge it and not be afraid to fail.ā
Reading time is normally on holiday or on the train down to London, āI would rather read than fall asleep on the train!ā
Louiseās choice of books resonates well with me and I went with her recommendation of The Seven Sisters. Suffice to say I couldnāt put it down!
Cuisine
Moving on then to cuisine and when I ask Louise what tantalizing delights tickle her taste buds she firmly statesā¦
āI love a good curry. I like spicy hot food.ā And furthermore, Louise enjoys making her curries using fish, meat or vegetables. When she invites guests to her house, she says āI like to cater for everyone and increasingly, people are turning to vegetarianism, veganism so I cook all sorts of things.ā Her love of cooking is shared with her partner, Stephen as she says āhe enjoys cooking but takes on the role of commis chef because he knows Iām good at itā¦and I often swap recipes with my younger son too. He has inherited my love of cooking.ā

Louise also says āI make a mean Yorkshire pudding and toad in the holeā¦never brought and always made at home.ā She remembers growing up with Sunday roast, āthough people donāt do that nowadaysā and credits her grandparents for being āamazing cooks.ā When I ask her where she gets her inspiration from she states āI follow recipes properly and I like Delia Smith, the Hairy Bikers, Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver.ā I comment that they are very different types of chefs and she says āIāll give anything a go as long as it doesnāt take too long to make, I donāt want to spend hours and hours in the kitchen.ā

When I ask her if we will see her on Masterchef anytime soon, she laughs and says āNever and besides my presentation definitely needs work!ā
Music
I tell Louise I have visions of her dancing and cooking in the kitchen to her favourite music which happens to beā¦
āI like Genesis, Ed Sheeran, James Blunt, Duran Duranā¦but Iām an 80s girl at heartā
How would she describe herself at that time?
āI liked fashion, I had blond streaked hair, but no perm as my hair was just too thick and my hairdresser refused, high waist baggy trousersā¦and I listened to varied music.ā
Whilst she didnāt get the opportunity, due to lack of funds to see many concerts back then she has gone to revival music gigs over the years and seen bands like the Human League, Belinda Carlisle, Toyah; on the whole, she says they have met her expectations. She also says she went through a phrase liking rock bands like Guns and Roses, ACDC, Black Sabbath, Led Zepplin, ālargely down to my boyfriends at the timeā¦I think our music does change depending on the friends we have at the time.ā
Louise says she doesnāt listen to much classical and summarises her taste in music as ānothing specific, lots of different.ā
The one tune she says that āsums up how I feel about the world is Louis Armstrongās, What A Wonderful World.ā She says āthe lyrics say so much⦠that we should embrace it, we should make the most of it, we should pause and look at things and appreciate the world we live inā
Art
Leaving the music section on that profound note, we turn our attention to our final section on art.
Louise starts by describing the artwork that adorns her walls at home.
The painting is by a local artist to Cheltenham, Hamesh Blakely. āThere is a couple, doing a Latin American dance, maybe the Argentine Tangoā¦I can see the detail of the muscles, the flow of the dress is amazing and I look at that picture and imagine my partner and I dancing together.ā She laughs and says, she has tried the argentine tango but has two left feet!
When I ask her if she finds art emotive, she pauses and thinks before answering āyes, it can be emotive.ā Iām curious given her financial background whether she sees art as an investment tool? āI have to love art first before seeing it as an investmentā¦and it goes on the walls, you see it so you have to like it.ā
She also describes a contrasting piece of art by her father in law, also on display in her home. āHe was a draughtsman by trade and lives in Cambridge. He has used watercolours to draw some of the buildings there. I love the detail, its timeless, he is 89 so when he passes we will have that to remember him by.ā Given the contrast of the bold strong shades and the delicate, sublime colours from the two paintings Louise has described, it is clear that art has to have meaning for her.
We touch on theatre and Louise says she loved seeing āMy Fair Ladyā in a small, intimate theatre setting. āI just love the story, rags to riches, the songsā¦I just want to be her!ā She also has fond memories of taking her two sons, when they were 8 or 9 to see The Lion Kingā and ātheir faces were mesmerized.ā
Recently her youngest son, called her and said āhe wanted to take his girlfriend and mum to see the Lion King, he wanted to revisit it and I guess those memories stayed with him. It just shows if you take young children to see theatre, they can continue to enjoy it and appreciate it.ā
On that great sentimental thought I thank Louise Oliver and bring the Five Star Insights interview to a close.