A three-times qualified chartered financial planner has been dubbed as a "real hero" for bringing different faiths together.

Former Chipping Barnet MP and Conservative parliamentary candidate Theresa Villiers visited Slipaczek Chartered Financial Planners in late October for the opening of the company's new offices.

Ms Villiers was full of praise for the firm's founder, Filip Slipaczek.

Speaking at the ribbon cutting ceremony in Lytton Road, New Barnet, Ms Villiers said: "It’s great to be supporting Polish business endeavour here. I am also a great admirer of not only his [Filip’s] professional work, but the work he does in terms of supporting multi-culturalism - particularly among Polish and Jewish communities. And, he is real hero in this constituency.”

"I know that the firm has many loyal clients and I’m sure the business will go from strength to strength in this new location."

Mr Slipaczek, who grew up on a council estate in Winchester and is a second generation immigrant with an Irish mother and Polish father, has lived in London since the late 1980s.

The financial adviser said: "It has certainly been an interesting journey. From being told as a youngster in Winchester ‘I didn’t belong here’- to having a cabinet minister opening my business premises at the age of 61."

He is a patron of the leading inter-faith organisation Faith Matters, a trustee of the UK committee for the Preservation of the Mount of Olives cemetery in Jerusalem, and media officer of the Institute of Polish-Jewish Studies, whose president is Vivian Wineman and a former president of the Board of Deputies.