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 Albemarle Street Partners, Brooks Macdonald, Clever Investment Management, Morningstar Wealth, Orbis Investments and Quilter.

Albemarle Street Partners - Prepare, don't predict - how to navigate volatile markets in a world of uncertainty

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, Senior Investment Director, Head of Risk Managed Funds, Brooks Macdonald 

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:  Helen Bradshaw, Portfolio Manager, Quilter

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, CIO and Research Director, Clever Investment Management 

Orbis Investments - 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

Speaker: Matthew Spencer, Head of UK Retail, Orbis Investments

Attend 35 minute boardroom sessions over the two days of the conference with leading players including Albemarle Street Partners, Brooks Macdonald, Clever Investment Management, Morningstar Wealth, Orbis Investments and Quilter.

Consumer Duty has redefined the baseline, but the firms that will truly differentiate themselves are those that go beyond compliance to treat client experience as a strategic asset. In an era where trust is the currency of financial services, the way clients feel about your firm directly shapes your reputation, your referrals, and ultimately your enterprise value. This session explores the gap between meeting regulatory expectations and genuinely winning client loyalty, and why that gap is where your competitive advantage lives.

Ana draws on her global experience advising financial services firms to show how embedding a client-first culture, measuring experience with intention, and communicating value with clarity transforms both retention outcomes and business reputation. For IFA owners and leaders, this is an invitation to reframe client experience not as a cost of doing business, but as the most powerful growth lever you have.

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

• 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.
  

Whether you are looking to acquire and grow or are planning your own long-term succession, this talk provides a roadmap for avoiding common pitfalls and ensuring your deal delivers lasting value for both your firm and your clients.

Attend 35 minute boardroom sessions over the two days of the conference with leading players including Albemarle Street Partners, Brooks Macdonald, Morningstar Wealth, Orbis Investments and Quilter.