When Godfrey Pembroke Group held its first adviser conference since leaving the Insignia Financial group, it quickly became obvious that the licensee could do more to support up-and-coming advisers across its network.
Trevor Bransdon, a director of advice firm Much More Than Money and chair of the Godfrey Pembroke Group board, says a number of GPG practices brought younger staff to the September event – those that were looking to become advisers in the future, including a couple that had started the professional year (PY) – and that both he and Julia Schortinghuis, a director of advice firm Lighthouse Capital, realised “there was just a different dynamic to the conference with them there”.
“They were full of energy, they were really curious, they were engaging,” Bransdon tells Professional Planner.
“Jules and I and a few of us had really picked up on just what they brought to the conference, and saw this as an opportunity to go, well, how do we leverage this and help these guys out on their journey?”
Bransdon says that “one of the beauties of not being with a big corporate is that we can move more quickly” to develop new ideas.
“Jules and I had many chats since then about what could we do, and Propel Academy came off the back of that.”
The academy program is designed to run over two years but will take in new candidates annually.
The first intake of around 10 will complete year one of the program as their first year; in a year’s time a second intake of six to eight candidates will complete the second year of the academy program as their first year, before the program rolls over and starts again and they complete the first year of the program as their second year.
“We didn’t want to have two years between intakes,” Brandson says.
The content for the program will draw on GPG’s internal resources and a select range of external participants, including Insignia chief executive Scott Hartley.
Schortinghuis says her background in education, including work with Curtin University, will help, “and it’s something that I personally enjoy, and so does Trevor”.
“So I’ll be committing quite a bit of time to it, and we will be harnessing the expertise from around the group.”
Determined by candidates
But the program will in large part be determined by the candidates themselves and what they think will be useful to them for career development. Brandson says GPG wants candidates “in this first session in January to come up and let us know what they feel like they need”.
“They will help us design the subsequent sessions based off what they think they’ll benefit from. In the first session, we’ve got a really strong adviser from the GPG network who also sits on the board. He’s going to host drinks on the first night, and it’ll just be a bit of an open forum about his journey and what he’s learned and what his challenges have been, and what advice he’s got to give. And then we’ll do a bit of a get-to-know-you dinner.
“The next day we’re going to meet with Scott Hartley and do a similar sort of thing. He’ll be the key person that they’ll effectively interview, and there’s a little bit of time in regard to them just doing a bit of role playing on some challenging client scenarios. And then we’ll spend a bit of time designing out the rest of the program with them.”
Schortinghuis says the GPG leadership believes there is “value in them having input into the things that they’d like to see”.
“It’s interesting to reflect because it really is our heritage and DNA to have this kind of community amongst the next gen,” she says.
“[Trevor and I] have been going to conferences together for, I think, 30 years, and the relationships we’ve developed over those years and the community that we’ve built has actually I think been one of the X-factors about the longevity of our group.
“Seeing that next cohort, it really did throw me back to my mid-20s and chatting to Trev around what would we have valued at that point in time? I just don’t think we should underestimate the value of the relationships they will build together and grow together as a cohort through the GPG network. It probably sounds a little bit intangible, and I think it’s quite hard to put a value on that, but I think it’s important.”
Co-funded
The academy program will be co-funded by Insignia, alongside GPG practices on an essentially user-pays basis. Schortinghuis says the benefits to GPG of engaging a younger cohort of aspiring advisers won’t all be one-way traffic.
“We’re grateful for this cohort coming through for the reasons you pointed out right at the beginning: they look at the world through a different lens, and they’ll have contributions to make and ideas and help drive innovation for the group as well,” she says.
“So it’s a bit of a no brainer, from my perspective, to harness that and see how we can really deepen the strength of the group through these really capable, curious and excited young people.”
