Duncan Forbes

Duncan Alexander Forbes is the Managing Director of Trident Financial Planning Limited, where he is listed as a Chartered Financial Planner and Certified Financial Planner™ with the designations CFP™, Chartered FCSI and MA(Hons). Trident’s team page says his academic background is in Financial Economics and that this underpins his focus on evidence-based investment-planning strategies.

Trident Financial Planning was founded in 2010 by Vince Reeves, Duncan Forbes and Andrew Wagstaff. Focus Financial Partners announced in October 2021 that Trident had been acquired by Connectus Wealth Advisers, describing Trident as a boutique chartered financial planning and wealth management firm headquartered in Berkshire with a satellite office in East Lothian, serving individuals and families across the UK.

In his current Trident role, Forbes’s board responsibilities are strategy and chairing the firm’s investment committee. The firm says he is based in its North Berwick office and splits time between that office and the Wokingham headquarters.

Regulatory and company records connect Forbes to UK financial-advice businesses over a long period. FinancialAdvisers.co.uk lists him with 24 years of experience in roles requiring FCA-regulated permissions, including prior roles at Connectus Wealth Limited, Pantheon Financial Management Limited, Pantheon Financial Investments Ltd and Quadrant Caldwell Drake Limited. Companies House lists him as a current director of Trident Financial Planning Limited, appointed on 8 November 2021.

• Trident’s stated investment approach is evidence-based, disciplined and grounded in academic research rather than “investment fads or flashy promises.”
• The firm emphasizes risk profiling before implementing investment strategy, aligning portfolios with client risk tolerance, return expectations and required returns.
• Trident’s portfolios are described around diversification, cost efficiency, discipline, control and annual rebalancing.
• Forbes’s direct board responsibility includes chairing Trident’s investment committee, so any investment discussion should be framed around long-term wealth management, risk-adjusted portfolio construction and client outcomes.
• No public source reviewed verified the stub claim that Forbes is an angel investor making seed-stage startup investments; no check size or startup-stage mandate was found.