In a career spanning Toronto, Boston, Tokyo and London, Heather Hopkins is a data and research expert specialising in the UK financial adviser and retail wealth management markets. Heather is the Managing Director and Founder of NextWealth. She is also on the board of the Mercantile Investment Trust and Orbis Investments UK.

Outside of work, she spends time with her family and tries not to dunk into the river Thames as she learns to scull.

Peter stepped down as Vice Chairman of Old Mutual Wealth following his time as Managing Director Skandia UK, after the Skandia businesses merged in September 2012 to form Old Mutual Wealth. Peter held the position of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Skandia UK for a period of 5 years prior to this. In his last role Peter was a senior ambassador for the Old Mutual Wealth Business, focusing on the needs of advisers and business growth across the newly formed Old Mutual Wealth business.

Peter has over 30 years’ experience working in the Financial Services industry. Prior to joining Skandia in 2008 as Chief Development Officer, Peter was Chief Executive of Bankhall, a leading supplier of support services to financial advisers.

As Bankhall CEO, Peter was an active member of the AIFA panel, lobbying the FSA, Ombudsman, Product Providers and other market participants on behalf of Bankhall members. He has also held senior Board and Strategy roles in the CityUK organisation, helping to promote London, amongst other things , as a World Class Financial Services Centre. He was also a regular spokesperson on panel debates throughout Financial Services speaking on key industry topics and ensuring that the voice of Bankhall members and the wider Intermediary market was heard.

Prior to those roles Peter was an independent financial adviser and Pension Director for a large financial advice firm in Glasgow. He as also been Sales Director at Scottish Amicable and Group Distribution Director at Prudential.

Emma has spent her whole career watching financial services evolve in the UK, it never ceases to amaze her how things have (and haven’t) changed over the years. Emma’s working life has entered its 3^rd decade, yet she remains excited about the future of advice, particularly, how that advice is delivered to an individual.

Emma has a whole heap of experience in-the-thick of, pretty much, all elements of distribution. Anyone who knows her knows she is fuelled by an enormous passion to “do the right thing for the end customer”. Emma is also all too well aware, navigation and getting-it-right is tricky.

As Consulting Director, Emma is sharing her knowledge, understanding and experience of what is actually involved in the end-to-end process of advice and distribution – with those who value it most.

Hannah Wemyss is NextWealth’s head of operations, where she leads our project management, systems, operations and finance.

Before joining NextWealth Hannah studied International Business with Business Analytics and Technology at the University of Strathclyde Business School, spending 6 months studying at The University of Ottawa. Her Honours year research thesis focused on global expansion within information technology firms.

Having also previously worked at a tech firm SIMUL8 and interning at Embark, Hannah has a keen interest in adviser technology and the possible future efficiencies achievable within the sector.

Alex is Nextwealth’s quantitative analyst and joined the company with a decade of experience in the financial services industry as a researcher, analyst, and consultant. Over the years Alex has worked as a freelance consultant, insight specialist at ADG Corporate, and as Senior Manager at AON’s wealth management consultancy business – formerly Scorpio Partnership. He specialises in running insight programmes which feed into actionable, strategic output.

At NextWealth, Alex’s core focus is to run our variety of research programmes and to synthesize data into useful strategic output for the industry.

Philip is Senior Qualitative Researcher at NextWealth, where his focus is on distilling insights from in-depth conversations held with stakeholders across the industry.

Prior to becoming part of the NextWealth team, he was Consultant specialising in luxury consumer and high-net-worth wealth management research at Savanta (formerly Wealth-X Custom Research).

Philip has particular interest and experience in exploring the attitudes, experiences and relationships surrounding wealth transfer.

Outside of work Philip can be found in the pool or gym or working on his family farm in Wiltshire.

Mark Aldous is NextWealth’s Senior Quantitative Researcher, he focuses on the collection and analysis of data for our research projects and turning data into actionable insights.

Mark joined NextWealth having completed a Masters Degree in Finance and Investment at Brunel University, with his thesis focusing on the effect of ESG ratings on ETF prices. He has a keen interest in the potential for technology to help create greater efficiency and choice within the financial advice sector.

Sham Latif is NextWealth’s events & marketing co-ordinator, where she focuses on events, sales and marketing support to ensure an efficient and smooth delivery process.

Sham has joined NextWealth having completed a Bachelor of Business Administration degree whilst also more recently holding the position as senior connections expert with a utility contractor, specialising in sales support, administrative/secretarial to ensure well-rounded support of business needs and closely communicating with affiliates and VIP clients to ensure a smooth moving process.

Julie Best is a qualitative researcher with 17 years’ experience in retail financial services. Julie joined the NextWealth team in 2019 having developed a depth of knowledge of the advice market as head of research at Incisive Media and previously Centaur Media.

Julie is passionate about understanding the DNA of financial planners, their firms and their strategies and is qualified in cognitive behavioural approaches and Socratic questioning techniques to get to the thinking behind the answers.

At NextWealth, Julie focuses on exploring the experiences of financial advice professionals to understand and interpret patterns and trends in our extensive market data and create actionable insights to help both our clients and research panellists adapt to what’s next for financial advice.