Trust is earned over time.

We brought Alex in to look after the administration of the office. That was the whole brief, and it was not a large one.

Within a couple of years he was sitting in on investment discussions, had a large group holding structure under his outright management, and was the person our advisers telephoned first — before me, in some cases, which I did not mind in the slightest.

I should explain how that happens, because it did not happen by design. Nobody in a family office hands over responsibility willingly; the entire point of the arrangement is control. What changes it is a long run of small matters dealt with without fuss — an asset sale that completes on the day in the contract, a private equity drawdown funded before anyone has to chase it, a difficult letter written well. After enough of those you stop checking. That is the whole mechanism, and in Alex’s case it took about eighteen months.

Our formal arrangement came to an end when the group was restructured. He still takes my calls, and my family’s, and none of us has ever been invoiced for one of them.

Founding Partner · Family Office

I was expecting a compliance-shaped person. That isn’t what turned up.

I’d built the strategy and the systems. What I wanted alongside that was someone who’d managed real financial risk somewhere serious, and who would pull apart the assumptions I’d already made. That much I got.

What I didn’t expect was to be the one being taught. He’d been running his own wallets for a few years and knew the token side better than I did — the mechanics of it, what the protocols were actually doing, where the exposure genuinely sat rather than where it appeared to. He understood why we were watching the lines every second, which almost nobody arriving from his end of the market does. A fair amount of what I know about the underlying technology, I know because he sat and explained it to me.

Most people we spoke to could hold one half of that conversation. He held both, so the risk framework got built alongside the strategy instead of bolted on afterwards, and the two didn’t end up fighting each other.

Founder · Digital Asset Investment Fund

I’m difficult to work for. Enough people have told me so that I’ve stopped arguing about it.

The property side ended up with Alex. Schemes running at once, in different countries, and by then running away from me. I gave him very little for the best part of a year — no proper authority, plenty of second-guessing. He got on with it anyway.

What changed it was one of the bigger schemes. The main contractor walked three weeks before we were due on site. Alex knew before I did, and by the time he brought it to me he’d already worked out two things we could do about it. Instead of a fortnight of panic we had a decision by the Friday.

He doesn’t get excited, which in development is worth a great deal. He also tells you when you’re wrong, which is rarer.

I’ve since put him in front of two other people I know. That’s the only recommendation I’ve got that’s worth anything.

Private Investor & Property Developer

Several years ago, after many years in the Estate Agency business, I thought it time that I should establish my own Estate Agency in Gibraltar. Alex arranged the setting up with me — the company itself, the internal processes, internal accounting processes, client accounting processes, compliance, and general good governance.

He was always on hand to answer any query no matter how trivial. For the first six months I was on the phone to him constantly, and he never once made me feel stupid for asking. I asked some very stupid things.

Nine years on and the business is still here. I don’t think the business would have enjoyed any success had it not been set up properly at the outset. This is testament to Alex’s expert input and guidance.

Business Owner

We had worked alongside Alex before any of this existed, so when we set up the fund there wasn’t much of a discussion about whether to bring him in.

The first two years were the usual chaos of a start-up. One of us was trading, one of us was raising capital, and Alex took everything else — the prime broker and fund administrator onboarding, the regulatory requirements and filing deadlines, the myriad of ever changing work streams that pile up and can often stop a fund before it ever starts. He didn’t ask for a title but if he did it would have been COO, not just for the breadth of work he undertook, but how he took control of the situation and the people around him.

What we’d say now is that the operational side never became a crisis. Not once. Funds our size usually have at least one — a breach, a reconciliation that won’t reconcile, an audit that drags on longer than it has any right to. We didn’t. That wasn’t luck.

He moved on in 2024 to an opportunity he couldn’t say no to. It took two people to replace him, which is a credit to Alex’s work capacity and capabilities.

Founding Partners · Absolute Return Hedge Fund

It was supposed to be one phone call. A family friend told me to speak to Alex before I signed the lease, so I rang him one evening expecting ten minutes.

We went through it line by line. Then we did it again every time it came back from the agent, which was more times than either of us expected. I had never taken on a lease before. I had never taken on anything before — this was my first business — and there were clauses in there I would have signed without blinking.

Then he asked to see my forecasts, which was the harder conversation. He went through them one number at a time and asked where each one had come from. By the end I could see for myself which ones I had simply hoped into existence. We built them again from scratch. He also sorted the accounts and the VAT registration, but it is the forecasts I still think about.

The restaurant opened. I would have opened it either way — I was too far in to stop. It would have been a considerably worse business, and I would have found all of this out the expensive way instead of over the phone.

He never sent me anything for any of it. I asked twice.

Business Owner

I’ve worked with Alex on several transactions, acting for the client. His instructions are always clear and complete, and his responses to questions consistently arrive the same day. On more than one occasion, he has anticipated and raised the very point I was about to make — something that rarely happens.

Alex is a genuine pleasure to work with, and I would recommend him without hesitation.

Corporate Lawyer