Between Meetings with Matt Heine

 Listen to Hugh Humphrey, CEO of Count, as he traces his unique career path from roles in consulting, to telecommunications, and eventually to financial advice, now leading one of the largest licensee groups in Australia. Hugh shares the leadership insights he gained from other impressive leaders, such as values-based decision-making, the importance of effective communication, and the need to respond quickly and transparently when problem-solving. He chats through the evolving role of the licensee and the areas he is focused on with scaling the business, diversifying revenue streams, and integrating technology to improve client service. Finally, Hugh identifies technology and outsourcing as crucial for increasing efficiency and client capacity, while also emphasizing the need for more advisers and new ways for people to enter the profession.

Hear Danielle Press, ex-Commissioner of ASIC and Consultant at Income Asset Management (IAM), discuss her diverse career in finance, including her roles at the Reserve Bank, a family office, and ASIC, before joining IAM. Danielle shares her views on leadership and change management, emphasizing the importance of honesty, humility, and vulnerability to get the best out of people, and creating a balanced leadership team. She reflects on the impact of the Royal Commission and the Quality of Advice Review on financial services and shares her ‘back to the future’ prediction on the role of superfunds. Finally, she discusses the future of hybrids, her current work on fixed income and bonds, and her efforts to make bonds more accessible to retail investors through Netwealth.

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.