Lifespan’s strong growth sparks significant investment in marketing, brand and technology

Lifespan Financial Planning, the 32-year-old privately owned licensee, is investing heavily in brand and marketing, unveiling a new logo and website. The identity covers Lifespan Partnership, its support service for self-licensed practices. 

For Lifespan chief executive Eugene Ardino, the change reflects an “expansion” of the business that has evolved a lot since its beginning, but especially so in the last five to six years. 

“We continue to have a fairly unique offering in the licensee community given that we are still privately-owned for a medium to large licensee,” Ardino tells Professional Planner. 

“Over the last five or six years we’ve had a very large growth spurt. There’s been a range of things that have happened in the licensing community that helped that, but also, we positioned ourselves uniquely as a privately-owned business and positioned ourselves as being committed to that as well, whilst much of the rest of the industry, particularly at our size has changed a lot there has been an enormous amount of merger and acquisitions, and a lot of [public] listings. 

“Now, a lot of our competitors are in that listed space or their businesses are structured a little bit differently. I suppose all that’s meant is we’ve been able to run the business more like a community and hold off becoming too corporate and trying to run like a large boutique, I suppose, is the best way I could describe it.” 

Ardino says the plan is to remain privately-owned as it enables greater autonomy and flexibility to focus on what’s best for the community rather than worrying about satisfying external shareholders. 

Opportunities and challenges 

As the AI boom continues, Lifespan is also investing in technology, seeking technology solutions for advisers to optimise the advisory experience.  

The challenge, according to Ardino, is finding the best solutions while avoiding any pitfalls. 

Industry-wide the biggest challenge is attracting new entrants into the advice profession, which is also partly an opportunity, he says.  The supply and demand imbalance is an opportunity for advice businesses with capacity, but for those wanting to grow it is a challenge as they’d need more advisers to get there. 

“That’s probably the biggest challenge that government, the licensee community and the professional bodies need to be focussed on,” Ardino says. 

“We do need a widening of the education requirements to allow for a broader range of degrees to allow you to enter the profession which is something that government seems to be supportive of but hasn’t happened yet. I think when that finally goes through, that’ll make it easier to advocate.” 

Lifespan has 310 authorised representatives across around 220 practices. Six years ago, it launched its licensee business, Lifespan Partnership, for self-licensed advice business and licensees. That community has about 48 AFSL and 150 planners. The group’s funds under advice across both communities is $17 billion  

John Ardino, Eugene’s father, started Lifespan in November 1994. The business forged strong relationships with accountants, at a time when entering financial advice was an attractive expansion or diversification path for them. 

Initially John did everything himself, from reviewing financial plans to recruiting advisers and running professional development days. At a time when banks and institutions dominated the industry, Lifespan remained resolutely privately-owned. 

Eugene worked at Lifespan during a gap year in 1999, returned after university to work in compliance and business development, and became chief executive in 2015.