Adviser 3.0: The Podcast

Lisa Conway-Hughes never expected to end up in financial advice. She always felt it wasn't an industry for people like her, so when she founded LCH Wealth she set out to build the firm she would actually have wanted as a client.

In this episode, host Kate Phillips traces Lisa's route from a commission-only role cold-booking appointments, with no safety net to fall back on, to becoming a directly authorised Chartered Financial Adviser running her own growing practice. Lisa is candid about the leap: why she refused to burn bridges on the way out, how she kept the clients who mattered through honest conversations rather than a dash for the door, and the principle she carried with her, doing the right thing even when it's hard.

She also tells the story behind Miss Lolly, the money brand she has built on Instagram, and it was anything but an overnight success. She went years without a single client from it, and the most common thing new clients say now is that they followed her for years before ever getting in touch. Lisa explains why she almost never sells on social, how commenting on the news became a compliance-friendly way to create content, and why she would rather teach people to think for themselves about money than tell them what to do.

The conversation gets practical too: how she segments clients and takes people on from scratch, why she hires for people skills over financial knowledge, the strict money routines that keep both her business and her personal finances on an even keel, and the worry that a whole generation of investors has never lived through a real market crash. And she shares the holiday read that finally convinced her to stop waiting and back herself.

A warm, honest listen for any adviser weighing up whether they could build something of their own.

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/0x7rCJ8VE9of5WkVLxCTkg
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/adviser-3-0-the-podcast/id1547403924
YouTube: 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.

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.

🏆 GIVEAWAY 🏆

We're funding five free tickets to the Empowering Excellence Conference and Awards 2026 in London. Enter now at https://adviser3point0.co/giveaway

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.