As regulatory costs and client expectations increase following the implementation of Consumer Duty, many business leaders are feeling squeezed. Fortunately, decades of behavioural science insights coupled with the scalability of AI provide the ideal tools to help advisers improve client outcomes while creating more time to develop the business. This session is designed to help the leaders of advice businesses make use of these tools by moving beyond theory to focus on practical implementation strategies.

By the end of this session, attendees will be able to:

• Fulfilling Consumer Duty: Learn how to embed behavioural nudges into your advice process to demonstrably improve and evidence positive client outcomes.
• Coaching Better Decisions: Discover practical techniques to help clients navigate emotional markets, avoid common cognitive biases, and stay committed to their financial plans.
• Driving Commercial Growth: Understand how a behaviourally informed client experience increases retention, generates stronger referrals, and ultimately builds a more resilient advisory business.
  

Cyber incidents are inevitable. The firms that recover fastest are those who have prepared properly. Using real life case studies, this session breaks down what effective incident readiness looks like, how to build assurance before a breach occurs, and how leaders can ensure systems, data and reputation are protected when the unexpected happens.

• The most common blind spots are found in firms’ defences.
• What effective incident readiness actually looks like.
• How to build an incident plan that works under pressure.
• Quick actions to reduce disruption and recovery cost.
  

Attend 35 minute boardroom sessions over the two days of the conference with leading players including Brooks Macdonald, Clever Investment Management, Orbis Investments, Premier Miton, Quilter and RBC Brewin Dolphin.

Brooks Macdonald - Thinking differently – past performance may not be a good guide to the future

Following a long period of globalisation based on mutual trust and shared goals, the world now appears to be on a different path. Geopolitics is disrupting supply chains and trade relationships, shifting political priorities towards defence, energy security, immigration, infrastructure renewal and protecting domestic industry and employment. Can we rely on historic patterns and relationships to guide how we invest through the coming decades? Or do investors need to think differently to take advantage of the opportunities that this new world presents? Learning Objectives: Learn how multi-asset fund structures provide maximum flexibility to adapt in a changing investment landscape Explore how to build resilience into investment strategies through careful and adaptable portfolio construction Understand how an unconstrained and flexible investment approach is well suited to consistent delivery of client objectives over the long term

Speaker: David Appleton, Investment Director, Head of Risk Managed Funds

Clever Investment Management - From Allardyce to Algorithms – What Sport’s Data Revolution Can Teach Fund Pickers

From football’s embrace of expected goals (xG), player heatmaps and predictive models to baseball’s Moneyball revolution, sport has shown that moving beyond gut instinct to evidence-based strategies, uncovers hidden value, challenges biases, and drives superior performance. Baseball’s use of sabermetrics to identify undervalued players revolutionised recruitment and team building; parallels that resonate strongly with portfolio construction and manager selection.

Traditionally, fund selection relied on reputation and historical returns, much like old-school scouting in sport. Today, as markets grow more complex, the need for data-driven, algorithmic approaches mirrors the evolution seen in football and baseball. This session examines how techniques such as predictive analytics, contextual interpretation of metrics and disciplined frameworks can help fund pickers avoid common pitfalls, such as over-reliance on headline statistics, and build adaptive, resilient investment processes.

By blending engaging sporting analogies with practical investment insights, the presentation argues that success in both arenas depends on moving beyond intuition towards a culture of informed, systematic decision-making.

Learning Objectives

• Understand how analytics transformed football and baseball strategy and identify parallels in investment decision-making.
• Learn practical techniques for applying quantitative insights to fund selection while avoiding common misinterpretations.
• Explore how algorithmic tools and predictive models can create a more robust, adaptive investment process.

Speaker: George Cliff, Co-CIO and Research Director, Clever Investment Management

Orbis - Risk in the real world

We have long worried about the risks facing investors in traditional stock and bond allocations. After years of trending markets and crowded trades, markets have been buffeted by a series of geopolitical shocks: lockdowns, tariffs, trade wars, and kinetic wars among them. These events have disrupted the trends of past decades, creating a new environment in which to seek risk and return. In this discussion, we focus on how securities across asset classes respond to these shocks, and how investors can seek to balance risks while maintaining attractive prospective returns.

By the end of this session, delegates will be able to:

• List the persistent risks facing traditional multi-asset portfolios
• Understand how different types of stocks, bonds, commodities, and currencies respond to various economic regimes
• Explain the relationship between real-world uncertainty, investor fear, and asset valuations
• Identify real-world drivers of recessions and market sell-offs

(Subject to change depending on world changes)

Speaker: Rob Perrone, Senior Investment Specialist, Orbis 

Premier Miton - Navigating the new normal: Multi asset income strategies for a changing world

In our presentation we will explore the structural forces driving current investment markets largely independent of the cycle— in particular, economic nationalism, reshoring, rearming/defence,—with reference to US hegemony concerns, AI driven US power demand forecasts, and geo-political conflicts. We will unpack the investment implications & connect these themes to asset behaviour and shifts in correlations between equities vs. bonds/commodities, contrasting what worked from 2000–2020 with a portfolio construction more attuned to today. We will outline a macro & thematic investment approach: pragmatic (not benchmark constrained), predominantly direct holdings, avoidance of forecasting, use of positive price momentum, and a commitment to true diversification. Finally, we will illustrate how this investment strategy supports clients seeking income in retirement by blending income and capital growth and evidence the Premier Miton Cautious Monthly Income Fund’s track record in delivering growing, reliable monthly distributions as well as net capital returns.

By the end of this session, you will be able to:

• Understand the macro/thematic forces currently driving the markets & what “economic nationalism,” reshoring, rearming, and AI linked power demand mean for asset prices.
• Explain how these themes translate into portfolio construction by applying pragmatic, benchmark agnostic allocations that favour positive price momentum, and genuine diversification.
• Articulate how this investment approach can support retirees seeking regular, predictable & rising income with capital growth.

Speaker: David Jane, Fund Manager, Premier Miton 

Quilter - Investing in the new world order

Markets and geopolitics are shifting quickly in 2026. Equities have hit record highs, gold has swung sharply, and doubts persist over the durability of the ‘AI bubble’. You are helping your clients to navigate a very different investment landscape from that of the last decade. WealthSelect Portfolio Managers, Stuart Clark and Helen Bradshaw, will examine the forces reshaping the global landscape and what they mean for portfolio construction. They will explore whether traditional investment principles remain fit for purpose, and outline how to maintain a disciplined, long-term approach when unpredictability becomes the norm.

By the end of this session, attendees will understand:

• The forces driving current market and geopolitical volatility.
• How this environment differs from the past decade and its implications for portfolio construction.
• How we’re navigating conditions within the WealthSelect portfolios - managing both challenges and opportunities.

Speaker: Stuart Clark, Portfolio Manager and Andy Miller, Lead Investment Director, Quilter

RBC Brewin Dolphin - Not All Passives Are Equal

With the continued rise in popularity of low cost solutions RBC Brewin Dolphin will explore the MPS market and the rise of passive instruments being used. Set against a backdrop of an increasingly volatile global market, and changes to investor behaviour in light of impending tax changes, we will look at how solutions have changed and what advisers may need to consider going forward.

Learning Objectives

• Understand the five key elements of passive portfolio construction
  
• Understand the benefits of cost versus value when selecting passive solutions
• Understand how consumer behaviour can impact portfolio longevity

Speaker: Paul Speight, Head of National, Network and International Distribution, RBC Brewin Dolphin

Attend 35 minute boardroom sessions over the two days of the conference with leading players including Brooks Macdonald, Clever Investment Management, Orbis Investments, Premier Miton, Quilter and RBC Brewin Dolphin.

The financial advice profession is at a crossroads: advisers are optimistic about growth opportunities, but constrained by capacity, regulation, and shifting client expectations. This session explores how strategic outsourcing can help firms unlock capacity, meet compliance demands, and accelerate growth - without diluting the client experience.

We will look at practical examples of outsourcing, including compliance oversight, client acquisition, centralised investment propositions, and specialist advice support and how each can help advisers build a more efficient, profitable, and future-ready business.

Delegates should leave with a clear framework to identify which functions to keep in-house, which to outsource, and how to choose reliable partners.

The financial advisory sector is in the grip of a structural talent shortage — and the firms losing out aren't losing out because of their remuneration structures. They're the ones with the worst reputations. Today's top advisers research employers thoroughly before they apply, reading Glassdoor reviews, scanning Google ratings and asking contacts in the industry. Culture and employer brand have become the deciding factors in attracting and retaining quality talent. This session cuts through the noise to explore what financial advisers are genuinely looking for when evaluating a firm, why online reputation now directly impacts your talent pipeline, and what practical steps IFA business owners can take to build a culture that attracts, retains and grows the best people in the market.

By the end of this session, attendees will be able to:

• Attendees will be able to identify the top factors financial advisers prioritise when choosing an employer — beyond salary — and apply them to audit their own firm's current offer. 
• Attendees will understand how online employer reputation (Glassdoor, Google, Indeed) directly reduces or increases application volumes, and leave with a clear first action to improve their firm's digital employer brand.
• Attendees will leave with an action plan across cultural pillars — Leadership, Communication, Development, Recognition and Work-Life Balance — to begin measurable culture improvement immediately.
  

• Understand the difference between Consumer Duty compliance and genuine client experience excellence and leave with a practical framework to assess where their firm currently sits on that spectrum.
• Learn how elevated client experience directly influences firm reputation, referral rates, and valuation; and identify at least two tangible actions to strengthen their client journey immediately.
• Leave with a clear understanding of how to communicate value in a way that deepens client trust and loyalty, moving beyond compliance language to connection, clarity, and commercial impact.
  

Attend 35 minute boardroom sessions over the two days of the conference with leading players including Brooks Macdonald, Clever Investment Management, Orbis Investments, Premier Miton, Quilter and RBC Brewin Dolphin.