REAL Talk Interview with Sami Robertson | Harwood Advisory

Our founder, Sami Robertson, recently sat down with REAL TALK to discuss Harwood Advisory, Wildpool, open-water swimming and his next endurance challenge.

Sami Robertson, father of four, open-water swimmer and founder of Harwood Advisory and Wildpool.

After nearly two decades at Knight Frank, where he ran the agency’s Kensington office, Sami launched Harwood Advisory in 2020. The business helps clients find and sell residential property across London and the countryside, with a particular focus on Southern England.

Alongside property, Sami has also built Wildpool, a swimming shoe company created by swimmers, for swimmers. Having spent years in and out of oceans and seas, and in spots in South-West England, he designed Wildpool for the global swimming community, offering “an alternative to traditional utility or seaside footwear”.

Based in West London, Sami’s life revolves around family, business, swimming, and the constant pursuit of the next challenge.

His day starts early, usually around 5:30 am, before the rush of family life and business begins. He uses the quiet part of the morning to settle his mind, read, journal, and prepare for the day ahead. With four children needing to be at the bus stop by 7:15 am, the mornings are structured and full, but once the school run is done, exercise becomes the anchor.

Most often, that means swimming.

Whether it is the Serpentine, David Lloyd in Acton, or a stretch of open water somewhere across Southern England, swimming has become a central part of his life.

“I love my swimming community and there aren’t many spots in South-West England where I haven’t swum.”

For Sami, the pull of the water is simple. If time and money were no object, he says he would buy a house by the sea and swim every day, whatever the weather.

“I want to be in the sea, it’s my happy place.”

Swimming first became a serious part of his life after a knee operation at the age of 29. The operation forced him into six months of recovery, and during that period, a friend suggested a 10k swim to raise money for Nordoff Robbins.

That challenge gave him something to work towards. After completing it, another friend jokingly suggested he swim the Channel. Sami’s reaction was immediate.

“I thought, yes!”

He went on to complete the swim, although the process was far from easy. The training, the weight management, the physical demands and the mental pressure all took their toll. For a while, he felt sick of swimming altogether. But over time, he found his rhythm again.

The Cook Strait Swim.

Instead of throwing everything into one huge challenge and then stepping away, he now focuses on consistency. Little and often. A steady baseline of fitness. A way of keeping himself physically ready and mentally sharp for whatever comes next.

That approach has taken him all over the world, including his recent Cook Strait swim in New Zealand, a nearly 30km crossing.

“When the call finally came to say ‘we’re swimming tomorrow’, I was so happy, I even cried.”

He knew the swim would take at least nine hours, but after just 90 minutes, the conditions became rough. The water started to chop up, and the mental side of the challenge became just as important as the physical one.

“When you face challenges, particularly early on, it can shift your mindset and if you’re not careful you can spiral somewhere very negative in no time.”

Some recent reading helped him stay calm. Books such as Breath by James Nestor and Manifest by Roxie Nafousi gave him tools to manage his thoughts when the conditions became difficult. For Sami, endurance swimming is never just about fitness.

“In endurance swimming, you can train and train and train, but fitness is only 50% of what’s required. Your mental management is the other 50% while you’re submerged in the water, over hours and hours.”

The 71 Mile Journey Ahead.

Now, his focus has turned to an even bigger challenge: swimming around the Isle of Wight.

Unlike many of his previous swims, this one is not organised by an official body. There is no established package, no event team handling the logistics, and no simple route to sign up. Everything has to be planned from scratch.

The swim is roughly 71 miles and completely tide-driven. It requires two boats, a support team, navigators, pilots and kayakers. If the team misses the tide, they can be knocked back by six hours. The record is around 15 hours, but Sami is clear that this is not about chasing records.

“We’re not chasing a record, we just want to get round in one piece.”

The swim also carries deep personal meaning. Sami scattered his parents’ ashes at sea off the jetty of his great friend, John Caulcutt CBE, who is currently living with Parkinson’s. John knows the waters better than anyone and will be acting as pilot for the swim.

The challenge will raise money and awareness for Cure Parkinson’s and will begin from the end of John’s jetty in Yarmouth, finishing at the same spot. 

For Sami, exercise is not just about fitness. It is part of how he manages life, work, grief, stress and pressure. In the past, he would finish a major challenge and then throw himself entirely back into work, family and business, often neglecting his own fitness in the process. That has 

“Swimming is my meditation, and the community I am part of is everything for me. I couldn’t be happier than when I’m in the water.”

That sense of perspective also shapes how he deals with harder moments. Having lost both parents and other meaningful people in recent years, Sami often returns to the things that keep him grounded: his children, his friends, his home and the life he has built around them.

“I am always reminded by how incredible my four kids are. This sense of appreciation keeps me very stable.”

While Sami loves the changing seasons, he admits the dark winter months are not his favourite. He thrives on movement, activity, people and the outdoors. Family remains the centre of everything, and if there is one thing he would happily live without, it would be his phone.

“If there was one thing I could get rid of it would be my phone. I would throw it into the sea!”

Between Harwood Advisory, Wildpool, family life and open-water swimming, Sami’s world is busy, varied and rarely still. But the thread running through it all is clear: movement, resilience, community and a deep connection to the water.

If you would like to read more about this article, click here for the full interview with REAL Talk.