Between Meetings with Matt Heine

Hear Tane Hunter and Dara Simkin discuss their unique career paths and collaboration on Future Crunch, a thought-leadership and research company that explores the frontiers of science and technology, and shares stories of human progress. Tane, a scientist with expertise in biology and technology, and Dara, a marketing and executive coaching professional, share their insights on the importance of play and storytelling in business. They explore the balance between technology and human interaction, emphasizing intelligent augmentation over artificial intelligence. The conversation delves into the challenges of rapid technological changes, cognitive flexibility, and the role of AI in various industries. Tane and Dara provide practical examples of integrating play and improvisation into business practices to foster creativity and innovation. They also highlight the significance of adaptability and the adaptability quotient (AQ) in navigating the evolving business landscape.

Listen to Philip Pryor, Founder & CEO at Family Business Central, talk through his career transition from psychology and large corporates to family businesses, finding greater fulfilment and leading to the founding of Family Business Central.

Phil notes that the family enterprise market in Australia is less mature than the US and Europe, with fewer multi-generational families and a lack of understanding about family offices. He provides insights and examples of the emotional and logistical challenges families face when selling a business and highlights why fairness in family enterprises doesn't always mean equality. Phil outlines the importance of preparing the next generation through education, financial literacy, and involvement in family business activities to ensure long-term success. Lastly, he mentions that he is writing a book, titled "Risking It All," to help families in business navigate issues like communication, conflict management, and succession planning.

Hear Sue Viskovic, General Manager, Consulting at VBP, trace her career in financial services, and discuss how she started Elixir Consulting (now part of VBP) to provide business coaching to advice firms.

Sue recounts the challenges when advice businesses moved from commissions to fee-based models. She emphasizes the need for advisers to understand the intricacies of running a business, thorough business planning and being well-capitalized. Sue predicts that scalability will be crucial for advice businesses and outlines how practice management roles, technology (especially AI, data and CRM systems), and outsourcing to countries like the Philippines, can significantly reduce costs and improve efficiency. Lastly, Sue mentions how VBP helps firms looking to improve their operations through consulting, coaching, and outsourcing services.

 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.

Listen to Jean Oelwang, CEO of Virgin Unite, relate how she was instrumental in creating the foundation of Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, which brings together the business and not-for-profit worlds to scale change and create a better world.

20 years on Jean recounts what drew her from telcos into the impact sphere, how she observed and had a few ‘’light bulb’’ moments whilst incubating groups of great leaders, like Nelson Mandella, which became the inspiration to write her book on Partnering. Jean shares stories of people and companies who have connected with purpose and the rituals they maintain for success. She highlights the opportunity for businesses to change the world, how this impacts the bottom line, and shares advice for smaller businesses starting their journey

Hear Shachar Kariv and Bernard Del Rey, co-founders of Capital Preferences, a company that provides solutions for understanding client preferences and behaviours in financial decision making, describe their research, background and motivations.

Shachar and Bernard outline the challenges and limitations of traditional risk profiling methods. They break down the innovations and applications of Capital Preferences' tools in areas such as risk aversion, loss aversion, ambiguity aversion, multi-dimensional social preferences, and how to go about advising the modern couple. They also discuss the trends and opportunities for utilising these tools in financial advice and wealth management, especially in the context of personalisation, inter-generational client engagement, and enabling clients to achieve greater financial wellbeing.

Learn more about Capital Preferences 

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.