Between Meetings with Matt Heine

Listen to Dean Lombardo, Founder & Principal of Effortless Engagement, as he shares his history in advice to becoming a consultant and an author. Dean talks through how he developed a unique method of evaluating client progression and confidence using short-term milestones and adult learning theory. He discusses the benefits of goals-based planning and explains how re-engineering adviser processes could lead to increased productivity, referrals, and better client outcomes. Dean suggests that advisers could address the advice supply gap and service more clients with less effort by using technology. He warns of the risk of not investing in intergenerational planning and multidisciplinary services and finally concludes that the best businesses are already using AI and other tools to enhance their client engagement and value proposition. Effortless Engagement: www.effortlessengagement.com.au

Hear Lawrence Calcano, Chairman & CEO of iCapital, a platform that helps advisers access private markets, share his experiences of growing iCapital from a small team to a global company with over 1,200 employees. Lawrence emphasises the importance of having a strong culture, a clear vision, and a commitment to innovation and client success. He explains why alternative investments, such as private equity, private credit, hedge funds, and real estate, are becoming more popular among advisors and can help investors achieve their long-term goals. Lawrence also shares his enthusiasm about partnering with Netwealth to bring these opportunities to Australia, enabling Netwealth's clients to access iCapital's curated selection of alternative investments, as well as its educational program and operational support.

Jean Oelwang, CEO of Virgin Unite, discusses creating a better world through business partnerships. She shares insights on finding purpose, connecting with like-minded people, and impacting the bottom line. Learn how businesses can change the world and advice for smaller companies starting their journey.

Shachar Kariv and Bernard Del Ray, co-founders of Capital Preferences, discuss innovative tools for understanding client preferences in wealth management. Topics include risk aversion, loss aversion, ambiguity aversion, and personalization for modern couples. They highlight the importance of aligning financial goals with individual comfort zones and enhancing client engagement through interactive experiences.

Listen to Stephen Scheeler, CEO & Co-Founder of Omniscient Neurotechnology, relate how his corporate career moved to the internet and e-commerce sector, working at Facebook and finally setting up Omniscient, a leader in the field of neurotechnology. Stephen describes how he joined Facebook as one of the "adults" who helped transform the company from cult success into a global powerhouse. He explains how he learned to be a humble, flexible and transparent leader at Facebook, and the practices he adopted, such as posting his performance reviews, creating a good boss/bad boss list, and empowering his team to succeed. Stephen talks through how he co-founded Omniscient, a company that uses AI to decode the human brain and solve problems in areas like mental illness, neurodegeneration, emotions and intelligence.

In this episode, we roundup some of the highlights from our 2023 podcasts, to give you a flavour of each episode and so that you can catch up on what you missed, or find an episode you’d like to hear more of. We cover the best bits from: Ep 83: Ringing in the changes for the financial industry ​- Marcus Price Ep 82: Achieving the unachievable for financial services ​- Sarah Abood Ep 81: Raising the voice of the financial sector ​- Blake Briggs Ep 80: Harnessing the power of AI in the advice industry ​- Michael Kollo Ep 79: Evolving the client value proposition with technology - Matt Heine Ep 78: Empowering students for their financial future - Kendall Flutey Ep 77: Strategic perspectives on scale and independence - Matt Brinker Ep 76: Building a wealth platform to transform lives - Brent Brodeski Ep 75: Talking about a revolution in investing - Jennifer Risher

Hear Marcus Price, CEO and Managing Director, Iress as he shares his background in banking to building PEXA and what drew him to the investment side of financial services with Iress. Marcus discusses the industry step change he accelerated with data and automation in banking decisions as well as bringing the digitisation of property settlements through PEXA (Property Exchange Australia) to fruition. He expands on the hallmarks of change management, his eye-opening first few days at Iress and the inspiration he draws from other companies. Marcus chats through the applications for AI as a tool to provide actionable insights and the need for tech toolkits for people in financial services.  He finally shares his concerns over cybersecurity with old tech stacks, the role of communities, and where he sees Iress heading in the next few years.

Hear Sarah Abood share her journey into financial services and how she headed the merger of the FPA and AFA to become the CEO of the newly formed FAAA. Sarah discusses how she brought two longstanding organisations together and chats through the process of creating the FAAA brand to represent a united voice for the profession. Sarah relates the FAAA’s involvement with QAR and their focus on the key issues facing consumers and advisers. She mentions the FAAA’s continued support of video SOAs and how technology and data standards will play a key role in the path to the future. Finally, Sarah outlines the strategic priorities of the FAAA relating to policy, its members and consumers.

Listen to Blake Briggs as he shares his diverse career journey through industrial advocacy, superannuation policy and finally to financial services and the FSC. Blake relays the skills, governance processes and overarching consumer lens that assist in creating a unified strong voice for the financial industry through the FSC. He explains how the FSC is engaging a cross-section of licensees, advisers and associations to achieve successful regulatory frameworks and create a healthy sector. Blake outlines that diversity of product options to aid retirement planning will be a big focus for the FSC over the next 12 months and how removing red tape could enable the introduction of overseas technology solutions to deliver advice in new and innovative ways.  Lastly, Blake explains the issues around moving clients from old legacy systems to new products and foreshadows a groundswell of consumer concern around failed products in the coming months for advisers to be aware of.

Hear Dr. Micheal Kollo as he discusses his journey from a PhD in finance to becoming a quantitative manager, using algorithms to forecast markets. Michael uncovers how AI now translates complex financial data into intuitive client reports. He takes a deep dive into the intricacies of tools like ChatGPT and how financial advisers can harness its potential without compromising sensitive data. Kollo throws light on groundbreaking plugins, their pros, pitfalls, and the steps for crafting effective AI prompts. Finally, he presents a glimpse into the future of SOAs and ROAs, where automation meets human intuition and shares his vision on how AI adoption could redefine and personalise financial education. You might also be interested in Netwealth's 2023 AdviceTech report - Humans and Machines: How AI and adjacent AdviceTech can supercharge advice practices.