Women run some of the best businesses in financial services. So why do men still run the biggest ones, and why does around eighty percent of private equity investment still flow to all-male boards?

That is where this episode of SoapBox begins. Abraham Okusanya and Matt Pitcher are joined by Victoria Hicks, CEO of Melo, and Gaynor Rigby, COO of Melo, for three of the most divisive questions in the profession right now. They open with the zero-to-a-billion rise of Amber River, the leaders nobody sees, and the labels that trail ambitious women. Then comes the advice gap: as Vanguard rolls out targeted support and JP Morgan writes down more of its Nutmeg bet, should the bar to give advice fall to a Level 2 qualification, or would you no more accept a Level 2 adviser than a Level 2 doctor? Finally, the millionaire exodus, and whether Britain is quietly taxing its wealth creators onto the next flight to Dubai.

Three topics, no fence-sitting, and a room that refuses to agree.

When SpaceX entered the US total market index, some of the coverage asked whether index providers were reshaping the market rather than simply reflecting it. Rob Edwards, Global Head of Product and Research at Morningstar Indexes, has a blunter view of the job: accurately reflect the passive composition of the market, and let the market do the rest.

In this episode, Abraham Okusanya and Timeline's Laurentius van den Worm sit down with Rob to unpack what actually happens when a giant private company finally goes public, why its weight starts tiny and climbs as lock-ups expire, and whether anyone can systematically profit from those mechanics. From there the conversation opens out into the questions advisers keep asking: is passive investing really passive if researchers and boards decide what goes in? Does indexing distort price discovery, or make it more efficient? And how worried should we be about concentration when a handful of names now drive most of the market's return?

Rob also takes us inside Morningstar's acquisition of CRSP, the University of Chicago dataset with more than 65 years of market history, and makes the case for challenging an index industry he argues has grown on inertia and price rises rather than innovation. Along the way: capping and home bias, the reset in sustainable investing, why peer-group benchmarks flatter active managers, and the private markets frontier that could one day let retail investors buy in before the next SpaceX lists.

A sharp, practical listen for advisers who want to understand what really sits under the funds their clients hold.

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In this special episode of SoapBox, Abraham Okusanya and Matt Pitcher are joined by Michelle Hoskin, founder of Standards International and co-founder of The Business and Operations Management Network, for a no-holds-barred look at a profession being reshaped in real time. It is also, for the record, one of the funniest episodes we have recorded, so expect the odd tangent into robot uprisings, lost aeroplanes and the grown-up kids who won't leave home along the way.

It opens on the uncomfortable truth about AI and cybersecurity. The vulnerabilities in your tech stack exist whether or not you have an AI policy, and an attacker does not need your permission to find them. Opting out, Abraham argues, simply is not an option any more.

From there the trio turn to St. James's Place, where some of the largest practices have started breaking away. They get into why SJP's old defences, the exit charges and the loan-funded valuations that kept advisers locked in, have quietly crumbled, and whether the advisers who stay are just too institutionalised to leave.

Then it is platform technology's turn. With one of the sector's giants posting losses north of a billion pounds, the panel asks what the future holds for tired legacy tech in a world where clients, and advisers, will no longer tolerate mediocre. As Michelle puts it, the slow and the clunky are running out of road.

Finally, Michelle makes her case for the people who actually keep advice firms running. Operations is the heartbeat of every business, she argues, yet the profession still treats anyone who is not an adviser or planner as an afterthought. Her prediction is blunt: within a decade the firms that thrive will be led by operations people, not planners.

Listen now, and if you know someone who runs the engine room of an advice firm, point them at the giveaway.

Victoria Hicks knows what a bad exit feels like!

She sold her chartered financial planning firm in 2018, watched the culture collapse within weeks of completion, and spent the years that followed working out why so many sales go wrong. Today, as Founder and CEO of Melo, she's done over 100 transactions and helps firms grow, sell, and build with the end in mind.

In this episode, Abraham sits down with Victoria to explore the real barriers to growth in financial planning firms, from owner mindset and the advisor-to-leader transition, to the financial reporting gaps that leave businesses exposed. Victoria also digs into what buyers actually look for, why internal exits are underused, and how Project Exit is opening up the M&A market for privately owned firms.

Matt Pitcher and Abraham Okusanya are back on the SoapBox, joined this time by Caroline Hawkesley, Managing Director of Craven Street Wealth.

They open on the tax question no adviser can escape. With a new government expected under Andy Burnham and a £4.7bn hole in the defence budget, the speculation cycle is already grinding client decisions to a halt. Abraham makes the case that wealth taxes are a fantasy that never raise what politicians hope, picking apart Gary Stevenson's Channel 4 turn and siding with Dan Neidle's numbers. Caroline flips the debate to the other side of the ledger: means-testing the state pension, charging for GP visits, and whether we are asking the wrong question entirely.

Then to platform cash. The FCA wants platforms to disclose the interest they take on client money more prominently. Abraham, who runs a platform himself, argues disclosure dodges the real issue and that the practice should simply be banned. Why should a platform take a cut of interest on cash when it cannot on equities, bonds or property?

The final stretch looks a decade ahead. With half the advice profession heading for retirement, who is building the next generation, and what does a financial planner even look like in the AI-driven 2030s? Caroline argues the profession is not looking far enough forward.

And no SoapBox is complete without a trip to the "Shoe Box." This week it is Neil Woodford, still refusing to go quietly, and Terry Smith, who turned over half his portfolio in six months then wrote a 17-page letter blaming the index for his own underperformance.

Blunt, opinionated and built for advisers who want the arguments and the evidence in one place.

Nick Hutchings is a Chartered Financial Planner, Accredited SOLLA adviser, and Founder of Rockwealth Reading. He accidentally niched into retirement planning, runs his own podcast The Retirement Lounge, and recently appeared on the Martin Lewis show. In this conversation with Abraham Okusanya, Nick is refreshingly honest about the fixed fees model, what it really takes to go solo, and why the care fees world is rife with conflicts of interest most advisers won't talk about. He makes the case for deferred care fees annuities, explains why he places 50% of his clients into them while the industry average sits in single digits, and reflects on the personal moments that shaped his approach to retirement planning.

Recorded live at Adviser 3.0 2026, this is the fourth and final Sunset Studio Session. Nicki Hinton-Jones, CIO at Timeline, sits down with Gary Paulin, Chief Investment Strategist, International at Northern Trust Asset Management, for a conversation that starts with a warning: every major move of Gary's career has landed on a market top, from the Russian debt crisis to 9/11 to the GFC. But the real story is what that has taught him about reading risk.

Gary makes the case that AI is a structural shift, not a bubble, walking through the five classic bubble signals (concentration, overspending, lack of ROI, circular financing, leverage and euphoria) and explaining why none of them stack up the way they did in 2000. He unpacks why the Magnificent Seven behave more like conglomerates than companies, why AI could be the disinflationary force that lets central banks run the economy hotter, and why the most contrarian call in markets right now might be a dovish Fed under Kevin Walsh. Nicki and Gary also get into the psychology of investing, the amygdala's role in bad decisions, and why avoiding pessimists might be the single best investment strategy available to advisers and clients alike.

Some conversations on SoapBox are uncomfortable. This is one of them.

Abraham Okusanya and Matt Pitcher are joined by Lauren Turner, Head of Financial Planning and Chartered Financial Planner at TFP Financial Planning, to work through three topics that every adviser should be thinking about right now.

First: has the SpaceX IPO broken indexing? The media says yes. The data says otherwise. Abraham makes the case that the panic doesn't survive contact with evidence, and that for Mrs. Miggins in a balanced portfolio, the numbers involved are smaller than anyone is letting on.

Then: pension IHT. Lauren and Matt are seeing it first-hand. Families weighing up whether to pursue life-prolonging treatment based on where the April cliff edge falls. Clients facing the prospect of 80% of a pension fund disappearing on death. Abraham takes the unpopular view that the overall direction is right -- even if the double taxation is indefensible.

Finally: deepfakes. Matt brings the numbers, and they are staggering. In the UK, investment fraud is the single largest category of deepfake losses. AI-generated video calls are convincing people who know each other. The question is what advisers do about it, and whether the answer involves going back to basics.

For years, financial advisers have been told that empathy is their ultimate competitive advantage, the moat that no algorithm can cross. But what if that assumption is the most dangerous bet in the profession?

Recorded live at the Adviser 3.0 2026 conference, this special live edition of SoapBox takes Dan Haylett's viral LinkedIn article, The Empathy Delusion, as its starting point and tears into one of the most urgent questions facing the advice profession today. Host Matt Pitcher is joined by Sarah Roughsedge, Chartered Financial Planner and Founder of Eva Wealth Management for Women, and Dan Haylett, Director of TFP Financial Planning and Founder of Humans vs Retirement, for a debate that is equal parts sobering and energising.

The numbers they share are hard to ignore: 28 million UK adults now use AI for money management and financial questions, making it the single biggest use of AI in this country. Sixteen million have sought specific financial advice from an AI. And research increasingly shows that people feel less judged, less ashamed, and more comfortable talking about money with AI than with a human adviser. So where does that leave us?

The panel confronts the fee compression question head-on, debates whether the future belongs to advisers serving fifty ultra-high-net-worth clients or thousands through AI-augmented subscription models, and explores what skills the next generation of planners actually needs. Psychology. Coaching. Prompt engineering. The ability to challenge, not just affirm. And they land on something quietly radical: being clever may now be the least valuable thing an adviser can bring to the table.

Pascal's Wager, a Blockbuster Kodak warning for the profession, and one unforgettable story about a client who would rather discuss her sex life than her finances. This one does not pull its punches.

Read Dan's article that inspired this session: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/empathy-delusion-why-many-financial-advisors-may-making-dan-haylett--nedne/

What does it actually take to build a financial planning firm that lasts, not just one that sells? Keith Butten, CFP Certified Financial Planner and co-founder of boosst, has spent four decades finding out. In this episode, Abraham sits down with Keith to explore the philosophy behind one of the UK's most distinctive lifestyle financial planning businesses, from scrapping self-employed advisers and building from a blank piece of paper, to a fee model designed around service levels and client selection rather than volume.

Keith shares how boosst runs at 45% pre-tax profit margins, why he believes "fans" are a better metric than AUM, and the thinking behind their Bright to Boost talent development programme. He also makes a candid case for the Employee Ownership Trust over consolidation, explaining why he and Josh chose to build an infinite business rather than cash out.