Building better client outcomes in a changing advice landscape

‍We’re on the road again, and this time advisers get 5 expert sessions with Morningstar, Aspen, M&G, Marloo – and us!

‍Join us this May at The Malmaison in Reading (just a 30-minute commute from London Paddington) for GROW on Tour.

Make the most of small-group learning in a friendly space where you speak openly, ask questions and glean insights from expert speakers.

Connect in person with like-minded financial advisers, paraplanners, compliance managers and other financial professionals and explore how investment solutions, behavioural insight, AI, tax planning and compliance come together to deliver better client outcomes.

Expect a day of cohesive learning sessions that help you do the right thing, and prove it.

‍

What’s the format?

Across the day, we’ll break into small groups with rotating speakers sharing actionable insights on:

• Understanding client behaviour
  ‍Insight into real client spending patterns and decision-making, helping advisers better inform suitability and long-term planning with Morningstar.
• Delivering consistent investment solutions
  ‍How managed portfolios can support scalability, consistency and governance within an advice proposition with Aspen.
• Planning for long-term and intergenerational outcome
  ‍Practical considerations around inheritance tax and protecting client wealth beyond their lifetime with M&G.
• Improving efficiency and consistency through technology
  ‍The role of AI in supporting adviser productivity, personalisation and repeatable advice processes with Marloo.
• Embedding compliance to support better outcomes
  ‍How advisers can evidence, govern and sustain the outcomes discussed throughout the day with Verve.

‍

What does it cost?

In short - nothing!

Thanks to the generous support of our partners, there's no cost to attend. However, we do have a cancellation policy: if you book a spot but don’t show up without letting us know in advance, a £50 admin fee will apply.

Spaces are limited, so please only grab a ticket if you’re planning to join us on the day. Max 3 tickets per firm.

For the full agenda, in-depth overview of the interconnected sessions and learning outcomes, see below.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

10:00 ☕️ Arrival with refreshments

10:20 🤗 Verve welcome

10:50 ⭐ Session 1

11:30 ☕️ Refreshment break

11:50 ⭐ Session 2

12:30🍴 Lunch

13:10 ⭐ Session 3

13:50 ☕️ Refreshment break

14:10 ⭐ Session 4

14:50 👋 Verve closing remarks

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Morningstar – Unlocking potential and building trust: A human-first approach to AI in Financial Advising 

Generative AI is reshaping industries, and financial advising is no exception. But with great potential comes great responsibility. This session dives into the transformative power of AI, unpacking what it is, why it matters, and most importantly how investors and clients want it to be used.

Drawing on their latest behavioural adviser and client research, Morningstar will explore client approved AI use cases that drive efficiencies, free up time, and allow advisers to focus on what matters most: your business and your clients.   

Not all use cases are created equal, and this session will reveal where clients are comfortable with AI integration and where they’re not, helping you navigate this evolving landscape with confidence.  

Guided by behavioural science, Morningstar will showcase the fundamentals of generative AI, its capabilities, and real-world applications in financial advising.

But it’s not just about the tech. This session takes a human-first approach, addressing investor concerns around data protection, transparency, and the critical need for human oversight.

You’ll discover how to integrate AI into your workflows in ways that align with client values, foster trust, and preserve the personal touch that defines exceptional financial advice.  

Learning Objectives:

• A solid grasp of generative AI and its relevance to financial advising

• A clear understanding of the opportunities and challenges of AI integration

• Practical strategies for using AI ethically and in harmony with investor expectations

• Insights into client-approved AI use cases that can enhance your practice while maintaining trust

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aspen - Risk Profilers: Built for modern planning or stuck in the past?

As financial planning evolves, how do you deal with risk profiling tools that can’t keep pace? 

Financial planning has become far more holistic and goals based. Clients aren’t just asking about performance; they’re asking how their money gets them to where they want to be, and what “good” looks like along the way.

In this session, Aspen will challenge the status quo of risk profiling and explore what a more modern, client-first approach could look like. From the limits of traditional questionnaires to the messy reality of how clients actually behave with money, they’ll unpack where risk tools fall short and why “risk appetite” alone doesn’t tell the full story.

Aspen will bring this to life through a practical case study that shows how aggregate risk techniques and bucketing can support different client goals across multiple time horizons - not just in retirement planning. The outcome is a more intuitive, outcomes-driven investment experience that aligns with Consumer Duty and with how clients naturally think about their future.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the limitations of traditional risk profilers and why they may not align with holistic, goals-based planning or clients’ real-world behaviours.

• Differentiate between a client’s risk profile and their objectives and articulate why goals-based frameworks resonate more meaningfully with clients.

• Design a CIP that reflects ambitions, time horizons and outcomes, rather than defaulting to a single risk-score-led strategy.

• Apply bucketing and aggregate risk approaches across a broad spectrum of client scenarios - far beyond retirement use-cases.

• Understand how Consumer Duty shapes expectations around suitability, transparency, and client outcomes.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

M&G – Top Trumps, trusts and tax treatment: practical approaches to IHT planning

Inheritance Tax planning can feel like a maze of rules, timelines and trade-offs — but it doesn’t have to. IHT Top Trumps reframes the conversation using a simple visual approach that helps you segment client assets and align the right planning tools at the right time.

In this interactive session, M&G starts by categorising assets into Green Money, Amber Money, and Red Money - a practical way of assessing whether funds are expected, possible or unlikely to be used in a client’s lifetime. This segmentation becomes the foundation for matching planning techniques to real-world behaviour, rather than to generic tax theory.

From there, you’ll explore the “Famous Five” trust-based solutions - Gift Trust, Discounted Gift Trust, Loan Trust, Reversionary Interest Trust and Business Relief - and assess how each solution plays against the three asset types. You’ll quickly see what is suitable, what is borderline, and what is unlikely to deliver the right outcomes.

The team from M&G will also look at scenarios where planning has been delayed - showing how options compress over time and why early segmentation matters. A focused comparison between Business Relief and Loan Trust highlights the trade-offs in liquidity, legislative risk, capital growth access and tax efficiency.

The final section models investment outcomes over 15 years, showing how tax treatment and IHT relief can significantly impact returns.

The session concludes with a reminder not to let tax considerations override sound investment decisions, encouraging a balanced approach to IHT planning.  

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the implications of upcoming IHT changes on pensions and the potential impact of April 2027 legislation.

• Develop tax-efficient wealth transfer strategies using asset sequencing, segmentation and prioritisation.

• Apply trust and investment solutions such as Gift, Loan and Discounted Gift Trusts - and understand how smoothed funds can support diversification and reduce behavioural risk throughout IHT planning.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Marloo - Beyond the note taker: How to get your team actually using AI (not just buying it)

Most advisers have bought an AI tool by now. But here's the problem: your team isn't using it. Or one person is, and everyone else has gone back to the old way. You're paying for software that sits idle while Sunday evenings are still spent on compliance work.

Building AI for hundreds of firms has shown us this: the gap between buying and adopting is where most firms fail. This session is about closing that gap.

This session will cover:

• Why adoption fails in most firms. The real reasons teams don't use AI tools they've paid for. It's not what you think (and it's not about being tech-adverse or "too old to learn").

• The three things firms with high adoption do differently. Not features. Not training. The structural choices that make AI something your team reaches for daily instead of avoiding.

• How to evaluate AI for adoption, not just capability. Every tool demos well. But will your team actually use it in six months? Marloo will show you what to look for and what questions separate tools that get adopted from tools that get abandoned.

• The implementation mistakes that kill adoption before it starts. Common patterns Marloo see firms make in the first 30 days that doom the rollout. And how to avoid them.

Learning Objectives:

• Develop a framework to assess whether your team will actually adopt an AI tool before you buy it.

• Understand the early warning signs that adoption is failing (so you can fix it fast).

• Gain honest answers about what makes teams use AI versus what makes them ignore it.

• Analyse where adoption breaks down in your firm and compare them to patterns observed across hundreds of practices.

• Reflect on your frustrations about tools that didn't stick and articulate lessons that improve future adoption outcomes.