The Trusted Adviser

For years, advice technology has defaulted to one model, a single all-in-one platform trying to handle everything from CRM to modelling to SoA production. Andrew Gardner and Ivon Gower join Rob to explain why that default is starting to look more like a liability than a convenience, and what's actually made a different approach possible.
Andrew is the founder and managing director of RetireMap, a cash flow modelling platform for financial advisers. Ivon is RetireMap's operations manager and works day to day with advisers as they adopt the platform.
The conversation centres on the Model Context Protocol, MCP, and why it's succeeding where API integrations have long fallen short. Instead of connections that might land anywhere from 50 to 90 percent of the data on a good day, MCP moves it across as a complete bundle every time. Andrew and Ivon walk through a real-world example of what that makes possible, modelling a complex retirement village decision for an elderly client, three entry options, different fee structures, a five-year exit fee, using Claude and RetireMap side by side. What would once have taken days of paraplanning work was produced, reviewed and ready to present in minutes, including a set of questions to help the client weigh the financial decision against the personal one.
We also get into:
Why familiarity bias keeps advisers locked into tools they've already mastered, even once better ones exist
The client who walked into a meeting armed with an AI-generated report already showing what he should be paying
What a well-run advice practice's technology stack could look like five years from now, once modular, MCP connected tools become the norm rather than the exception
Andrew's message for anyone still fully embedded in the old system: embrace it now, because there's no going back.

Cybersecurity has moved from an IT problem to a boardroom problem, and most AFSLs haven't caught up yet.
In this episode, I sit down with Michael Connory, CEO of Aphore Technology, who has spent over a decade helping some of the largest licensees in Australia, including RI Advice in the wake of their well-publicised incident, build genuine cyber resilience. Aphore now supports around 250 AFSLs through its Cyber Assurance Risk Rating program, and Michael brings a rare view into what actually happens when advice firms get hacked, what ASIC expects when they come knocking, and why the old Essential 8 framework is being retired in favour of something better suited to businesses like ours.
We talk through:
What Aphore does day to day, and how the Cyber Assurance Risk Rating process works
Why credential compromise, not unpatched software, causes the vast majority of breaches
Inside the first 48 hours of a real incident, and the exact order of calls a firm should make
How AI is already reshaping both the threat landscape and the defences available to us
The one thing Michael says every AFSL should do right now
This is a timely, occasionally confronting, and ultimately reassuring conversation for any adviser or licensee who has been meaning to get on top of cyber risk but hasn't quite gotten there yet.

Drew Burden is the co-founder and CEO of MBS Insurance, an insurance specialist advice firm celebrating its twentieth year in business. In that time, MBS has grown from $8 million in premium and 1,500 clients to $250 million in premium and 25,000 clients, without ever deviating from a single specialist discipline.
In this conversation, Drew shares the three deliberate choices behind that growth: hiring above the role, building a genuine flywheel, and quarterly focus on what matters most. We go deep on the technology MBS built when the market wouldn't, the JV model they've developed with 40 to 50 firms nationally, and the newer minority investment model they're now using to help quality risk practices grow with the tools and insurer relationships MBS has spent two decades building.
Drew also reflects honestly on the acquisitions that didn't go to plan, and what keeping going actually looks like in practice.
A conversation with plenty of lessons for advice firms of any kind.

Most advice firms know the under-40 client exists. Few have built their entire business around them.
Rebecca Tai is the co-founder of Game Plan Wealth Advisers in Melbourne, a practice she built from scratch with her business partner Alicia specifically to serve the millennial client — a cohort that the traditional advice model has largely left behind. In this episode, Rob sits down with Rebecca to unpack what it actually takes to design an advice business for a generation that thinks, engages, and makes decisions differently.
They cover the origin story behind Game Plan — born not from a business plan but from a genuine personal need — and the deliberate choices Rebecca and Alicia have made to keep their service model tight, their boundaries clear, and their long-term vision intact. From a three-tiered service structure to a project-based advice model that lowers the barrier to entry for new clients, the conversation is a masterclass in business design and the discipline required to say no to the wrong opportunities.
Rebecca also shares how she has built a highly engaged Instagram following using nothing more than a phone and a tissue box — and why that low-fi approach is far more effective for her audience than any polished production could be. She talks pricing evolution, onboarding, technology, the decision to refer insurance work rather than take it in-house, and what has surprised her most about running her own firm.
And stay tuned to the end. After the episode wrapped, Rebecca and Rob kept talking — and there was too much to leave on the cutting room floor. The bonus conversation includes the story behind a quote Rebecca has had on her bedroom wall since childhood, one that gets to the very heart of why she does what she does and how she thinks about money, values, and the kind of advice that actually changes lives.

Rod Bertino has spent 26 years inside hundreds of Australian advice practices through Business Health, and his message is clear: the biggest threat to your firm right now isn't technology or client acquisition — it's the war for talent, and most practices aren't ready for it. In this episode, Rod and Rob cover the findings from Business Health's latest remuneration research, what independent practice valuations really look at, and — saved for the very end — the question every self-licensed principal needs to sit with about what their business is actually worth if they're no longer in it.

Most financial planning principals are so focused on building their business that they never stop to ask a more important question: what happens to it if you're not there?
Gabe Enslin is the CEO of Adapt, a business built specifically to help SME owners answer that question — before it becomes an urgent one. In this episode, Gabe traces how Adapt came to exist through a very personal crisis faced by founder Bill Withers, who discovered the hard way just how fragile a business becomes when it's been built around a single person. That experience sparked over a decade of research into what it actually takes to build a business that can thrive without its owner at the centre.
Rob and Gabe dig into the distinction between succession planning and succession thinking — and why the gap between those two ideas is costing business owners time, money, and options. Gabe walks through the five principles that give owners a framework for building a genuinely resilient business, unpacks why role clarity is the principle most consistently underestimated, and explains why it's often the owner's own behaviour — not a lack of good people — that stands in the way of real transferability.
They also get into the mechanics of how Adapt works with businesses — from the business resilience assessment that measures a firm's health across economic engine, culture, financial security and organisational design, to the reverse performance review that asks not how your team is performing, but how your business is performing for them. It's a reframe that lands differently when you hear how directly it connects to what financial planners already do every day with clients.
For financial planning principals thinking about their own business — whether succession is five years away or fifteen — the practical takeaway from this conversation is clear: the time to start is well before you think you need to.
You can find Gabe and the Adapt team at theadaptway.com or connect with him directly on LinkedIn.

What does it actually take to attract your next best client — before they've been referred to you?
Most advice firms are excellent at converting a warm referral. But in a world where affluent consumers increasingly search before they ask a friend, the ability to earn trust from scratch is an entirely different skill.
In this episode, Rob is joined by David Newson, founder of XNW Atelier and a marketing strategist with over two decades of experience inside the independent advisory world. David brings a rare combination: deep expertise in consumer behaviour, a background in business development at a San Francisco-based RIA, and a genuine understanding of what makes affluent clients choose — and stay with — a financial advice firm.
Together, Rob and David unpack why most advice firm websites look and sound the same, the critical difference between communications and true marketing strategy, and what it means to build genuine magnetism rather than just push content into the world. They explore the psychology of the affluent consumer, how to design trust signals that actually hold water, and why positioning is a business decision long before it becomes a marketing one.
David also shares a perspective on AI and the future of advice that is worth the listen alone — and it has nothing to do with out-teching the technology.
Whether you're a principal thinking about organic growth or a leader wondering why your digital presence isn't converting, this conversation will reframe how you think about marketing your firm.

What happens when 13 of the most successful independent advice firms in Australia decide to put their egos aside and build something together? That's the modern origin story of Shadforth Financial Group — and it's the backdrop for one of the most compelling conversations we've had on this show.
Terry Dillon has been with Shadforth for 34 years. He spent the first two decades as an adviser before stepping into the CEO role in 2018 — right in the middle of the Royal Commission. Rather than retreating from the scrutiny that came with institutional ownership, he walked into the boardroom and told the parent company: if we can't make each other better every day, you should probably sell us.
That moment set the tone for everything that followed.
In this episode, Terry and Rob cover the decisions that transformed Shadforth from a business built for sale into one built to lead — now close to 100 advisers, 270 staff, 11,000 families, and around $20 billion under stewardship. They get into Shadforth's evidence-based investment philosophy, the family advice guarantee that addresses intergenerational wealth transfer in a way Rob hadn't heard before, and their technology roadmap — including a client app that takes advice from a static document to something closer to a live financial plan on your phone.
They also talk acquisitions. Shadforth is growing strongly — double digits, organically — and now has its sights set on inorganic growth to match. But it's the way Terry frames the ambition that really lands. He's not talking about incremental targets. He's asked his leadership team to think about what Shadforth looks like at ten times its current size — and what that forces you to do differently today.
Stick around for the moment near the end where Terry names the kind of firm he believes Shadforth can become — and the professional services names he wants spoken in the same breath. It's the kind of ambition that reframes how you think about what's possible in advice.

 
What does it actually take to build a financial planning firm that wins Company of the Year?
Jeff Thurecht is the co-founder and CEO of Evalesco Financial Services, a Sydney-based firm he built alongside business partner Marshall Brentnall nearly two decades ago. The name says it all: Evalesco is Latin for "to grow strong, prevail and add value." In 2025, the industry agreed, awarding Evalesco both the Holistic Advice Firm of the Year and the overall Company of the Year at the IFA Excellence Awards.
In this conversation, Jeff opens up about the deliberate decisions behind that recognition. He shares how Evalesco built demographic-specific advice pods, from wealth accumulators and pre-retirees through to a genuine high net worth, multi-family office offering via the Principal Edge acquisition. He explains how a team of nine in the Philippines became one of the most valued parts of the business, not as outsourced support but as genuinely embedded team members.
Jeff is also candid about what it really meant to win a company award rather than an individual one, and why building a team without "rock stars" has always been the goal.
We also cover:
The acquisition of Principal Edge: what made it the right move, what made it hard, and what's still being worked through
The identity shift from adviser to CEO, and the surprisingly difficult task of measuring your own progress when client appointments no longer fill your diary
Evalesco's bold 3k 30 vision: 3,000 ideal clients by 2030, and exactly how they plan to get there
How technology is being used to free up adviser face time, including a new CRM build on Microsoft Dynamics and a purpose-built Technology and Advice Delivery Manager role
Jeff's answer to the final question, what single thing would move the needle most right now, is one of the clearest articulations of great advice leadership you'll hear. 

 
In this episode of The Trusted Adviser, I sit down with our Chief Operating Officer, Nick Bordi, to unpack one of the most talked-about topics in financial planning businesses: employee ownership.
At HPH Solutions, what started as a simple idea to reward and retain great people has evolved into something far more powerful. Our Team Equity Trust now plays a central role in ownership transition, long-term incentives, and what we’ve come to think of as an “internal private equity” model.
Nick and I go deep into how the structure actually works – from eligibility and valuation through to funding mechanisms for younger team members and the governance required when you have dozens of employee owners. We also share the lessons we’ve learned along the way, including mistakes, structural changes, and the thinking behind key decisions like not discounting equity.
If you’re a business owner thinking about succession, culture, or how to align your team to long-term growth, this conversation offers a practical and transparent look at what’s worked for us – and what we’d do differently.