The Balance Episode 2: How I work in wealth with chronic fatigue syndrome

Loading player...
When Beth Yates was 13, she was taken to hospital with extreme tiredness and a ‘paralysing’ pain in her arms and legs.

She was diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis, which is also known as chronic fatigue syndrome.

In this episode of The Balance, reporter Laura Purkess speaks to Yates, who now works in the personal wealth support team at Schroders Personal Wealth, about how she manages to work in financial planning with a debilitating condition.

Yates has a had a successful career in financial services, working at Lloyds Banking Group before joining SPW, but her life has involved constant comrpomise.

She had always wanted to study at Oxford University, but with her diagnosis came the knowledge that there neither a cure or treatment for her condition. Her future looked very uncertain.

After spending several years bed- and wheelchair-bound with limited independence, Yates says she eventually got ‘fed up’ and, through a lot of determination and ‘fighting constantly’, started to learn how to get on with life while managing the illness.

She is now studying for her diploma in financial planning alongside her work, an endeavour SPW is supporting.

If you have a story to tell for The Balance contact lpurkess@citywire.co.uk
21 May 2021 English United Kingdom Business · Investing

Other recent episodes

FCA director: We want consolidators to think about incentives

Laura Dawes, the FCA’s director of authorisations, joins the Advice Show to discuss how the regulator is handling authorisations, what advice firms can do to make applications smooth and how the regulator still thinks about advice firm phoenixing. Dawes also discusses the regulator’s consolidator review last year, and how the…
26 Feb 23 min

Connor Broadley’s MD on picking the right tech for the £750m firm

Alex Twiss, the managing director of London advice firm Connor Broadley, joins the Advice Show to discuss the firm’s AI provider Saturn and how he thinks the technology could soon be writing advisers’ suitability reports. In the podcast Twiss also says his firm is reviewing platform providers and discusses the…
6 Feb 33 min

The Advice Show: Matthew Sinclair 

Matthew Sinclair joins the week after the Budget to discuss its impact, implications and what the government might have done differently.
9 Dec 2025 28 min

The Advice Show: Ben Hampton

Ben Hampton joins The Advice Show this week to discuss Wealth Wizards, the business he heads, as well as targeted support, value for money and Royal London. 
16 Jan 28 min