Luke Sparkes
Luke Sparkes
Founder & Managing Director
Highly Commended Team Leader of the Year 2025 | Professional Paraplanner of the Year 2024 | Former PFS Paraplanning Panel Member | Fellow & Chartered Financial Planner (CII/PFS)
With 19 years’ experience in the financial services industry, Luke brings extensive technical expertise across a broad range of financial planning solutions. His career began with a strong focus on pension products and has since evolved into advanced Paraplanning for complex client scenarios.
Luke's areas of specialism include retirement planning, later life and care planning, estate and tax planning and savings and investment strategies. He holds a comprehensive range of professional qualifications, including Discretionary Investment Manager and Pension Transfer Specialist status, having passed the AF7 Pension Transfer exam in 2020 alongside the Certificate in Pension Transfer Advice. Luke is also a qualified Mortgage Adviser (Cert CII MP) and hold the Level 6 Advanced Diploma in Financial Planning (CII/PFS).
Committed to continuous professional development and inclusivity, Luke has also achieved Level 1 and Level 2 British Sign Language (BSL) qualifications, enabling effective communication with BSL users.
Outside of work Luke likes to keep fit by partaking in Hyrox events, spending time with his young family and takes a keen interest in sports including F1 and Football. For his sins, Luke is a supporter of Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club.
Lucy Paul
Lucy Paul
Head of Tech and Operations
Lucy works closely with Luke to help drive the strategic direction of Sparkes Paraplanning Ltd, bringing 12 years of experience in DevOps and data engineering to her role providing strategic and technical support for the business.
She also manages the company's day-to-day operational backbone, including HubSpot, Google Workspace and data analysis. Lucy acts as a point of contact for the wider team on tools, access, onboarding and technical setup.
Alongside her work in tech, Lucy is a qualified Meditation and Yoga Coach and is currently cycling solo across Africa, riding from Kenya to South Africa.