Adviser 3.0: The Podcast

SoapBox is the undiluted edition of Adviser 3.0, where Abraham Okusanya and Matt Pitcher give their unfiltered take on the news moving UK financial advice. This week they're joined by Emma Bird, Financial Planning Director at Hansford Bell, for a wide-ranging and often provocative conversation.They open on the news that a long-trusted technical and tax resource is being pulled in-house, what that leaves for the independent advisers who relied on it, and why the veteran who built it is striking out on his own all over again. From there the talk turns to accountability at the top of the profession: a high-profile regulatory ban upheld on appeal, and what it says about governance, culture, and whether the industry feels like a safe place to build a career.Emma then makes the case that the so-called adviser shortage is a story the profession tells itself. Firms complain there's no new blood coming through, she argues, while only ever hiring the already-qualified, applying entry requirements the current generation never had to meet, and overlooking the talent already sitting in their own offices and in the banks. Her own route from a standing start to director and part-owner is the counter-example.Finally, in Matt's AI Corner, the panel digs into the news that a leading AI lab has begun plugging straight into US adviser tech, why UK data-protection rules keep that same firepower away from client data on this side of the Atlantic, and where tools like Timeline's own Penny fit for firms that want the upside without handing their data away.Listen, subscribe, and let us know which side you land on.Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0x7rCJ8VE9of5WkVLxCTkgApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/adviser-3-0-the-podcast/id1547403924YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Adviser3.0

A portfolio built from the biggest, best companies in the world, held right through one of the great bull markets, and it still lost to inflation. How does that happen, and who is it happening to?That is where this episode of SoapBox begins. Abraham Okusanya and Matt Pitcher are joined by Julian Gilbert, Founder and Director of Wealth Matters, for a blunt hour on where financial advice earns its keep and where it quietly fails people.They open on the great companies beaten by inflation: a prospect's ten-year review showing an expensive, actively managed, almost entirely equity proposition that trailed inflation for the best part of a decade, and what that says about a profession still being paid to underdeliver. Then the pensioner tax raid. Fiscal drag is pulling more retirees into higher-rate tax every year, the triple lock has become the most toxic subject in the profession, and the demographic maths behind all of it is starting to look impossible. Inheritance tax gets its turn too, now that pensions are being pulled into the estate.And then the quiet crisis nobody solves: no new advisers. The people already in the room are ageing, and the routes in are a big-name academy sausage machine or a small firm willing to take a risk, with almost nothing in between. So where does the next generation actually come from?Three arguments, no fence-sitting, and a guest happy to say the thing out loud.

Ask a room full of advisers whether they have clients affected by special needs or disability, and most will say it is not really their world!Ali Fanshawe, Co-Founder of SENDA, is on the show to explain why that answer is almost always wrong, and why the families sitting quietly in every client bank are among the most exposed to getting the planning wrong.Abraham and Matt both admit, on air, how little the industry really sees of the end client behind the pot of money. From there the conversation gets uncomfortable. Ali makes the case that the junior ISA, marketed as a no-brainer for every parent, can be quietly disastrous for a family whose child may lack mental capacity at eighteen, the moment the money becomes legally theirs. She walks through what she calls the age 18 cliff edge, the reality of the Court of Protection, and how savings in a young person's name can switch off the means-tested benefits and care their whole life is built around.The team then turns to the child trust fund problem hiding in plain sight, the hundreds of thousands of matured accounts whose owners cannot be found or, in many cases, cannot legally reach their own money. Is the regulator's push to trace them a fix, or just passing the problem down the line?In the second half, the panel picks apart the regulator's latest wealth management survey and asks the question nobody in the sector wants to answer: if the market is already this consolidated, how is every firm planning to keep growing? The episode closes on a big platform deal across the Atlantic, what it signals about AI coming for direct-to-consumer advice, and why the human adviser's edge might come down to exactly the kind of care Ali spends her life fighting for.Ali Fanshawe is Co-Founder of SENDA, the specialist body raising standards in special needs financial planning. Hosted by Abraham Okusanya and Matt Pitcher.

A bonus episode, and a look back at the standout conversations from across Adviser 3.0 and its sister show, SoapBox.Six moments worth a second listen. Nick Hutchings of Rockwealth on care fees, the annuities that pay for them, and why a fixed fee changes the whole conversation. Caroline Hawkesley of Craven Street Wealth on the cash sitting on platforms, and whether clients are getting their fair share of the interest. Victoria Hicks of Melo on the growth wobble, and why the hardest decisions a firm owner makes are always about people. Michelle Hoskin on why, after decades, advisers are starting to walk away from one of the biggest names in the business. Rob Edwards of Morningstar on the mega-cap IPOs that dominated the headlines, and why the reality is a lot smaller than the noise. And Victoria returns with her colleague Gaynor Rigby for a thoughtful back and forth on the advice gap, what it really is, and how the profession might close it.Every conversation is available in full wherever you listen. Adviser 3.0 returns to its regular schedule next week.

What does it take to walk away from a secure, senior role at one of the world's biggest asset managers and start again with nothing?Matt Abouzeid (Co-Founder and Managing Director) and Mohneet Dhir (Co-Founder and Chief Investment Officer) came from Vanguard, where they helped shape how the UK invests. Matt spent fifteen years there, building the largest book of business in Vanguard's European operation. Mohneet was a senior leader in the multi-asset team behind the LifeStrategy range, used by hundreds of thousands of UK investors. Then they left it all to build &together, an independent financial planning firm for founders and entrepreneurs, from a blank sheet of paper. No clients. No book. No blueprint.In this episode, hosts Abraham Okusanya and Kate Phillips draw out the full, unvarnished story of the leap: the twelve-month countdown to handing in their notice, the decision to go while Mohneet was on maternity leave, and the single question that tipped the balance, whose dream are you living? They get into the practical machinery too, why they chose a network over going directly authorised, how they modelled two years without income, and the discipline of sense-checking every line of a start-up budget.From there the conversation turns to the hardest part of all: winning clients from zero. Matt and Mohneet share how they grew out from concentric circles of people who already trusted them towards a genuine inbound engine, the difference between a polite introduction and true advocacy, and what it felt like to land in a competitive tender against a long-established chartered firm. They are candid about the war wounds, the marketing money they would spend differently, the constant pull between a young family and a young business, and how they think about fees, investment philosophy, and building a firm optimised for client outcomes rather than margin.It is a rare, honest look inside the first ten months of a brand-new advice firm, and essential listening for anyone who has ever wondered whether they could do the same.