Am I actually dreaming? Nope. This is my first blog post and for those that don’t know me, I am Emma Napier, Consulting Director at Next Wealth. *pinches herself*.

I am beyond excited at the opportunity for us all at NextWealth – it’s a wonderful business with a great team. We have lots of plans – lots of people we want to talk to and a huge amount of knowledge to impart.

My first month has been a whirlwind – I haven’t stop smiling.

It’s been a while since I have been so eager for the work week to start. It starts with “thank you” Both Heather and I have been inundated, with friends from across the industry saying congratulations on the news we have been itching to share. How lovely. The articles are here if you missed the formal bit.

So much to talk about but I wanted to reflect on a few things. Busy Busy.

We have launched Season 2 of the NextWealth Insights podcast, please have a listen and subscribe. Kicking off episode 1, Heather and I discuss the reasons I joined NextWealth, some of our plans and why now is the right time to grow the business. Through the rest of the series, you will hear us delving deeper into the content and outputs from NextWealth Live, our flagship annual conference that takes place every March. Questioning the why.

We also hosted our quarterly breakfast for heads of distribution at asset management firms, our Council for Fund Distribution and our DFM Council. I’m still buzzing after those discussions with really committed, focused and likeminded individuals chewing the industry cud and sharing their own company challenges, thoughts and ideas, as a community. Refreshing. Without innovation and challenge, the industry stagnates. Question the why.

This month I also attended the Intelliflo conference. It was energising to hear about some new innovation – Nick Eatock launched the new Wealthlink tie up with SS&C. On paper it sounds great and I am absolutely convinced SS&C platform users (also using IO) will be over the moon. Wealthlink wasn’t the only big announcement for back office systems. GBST recently announced the acquisition of Salesforce powered Wealth Connect, Fintel made an investment in Plannr and Fluido’s Wealth 360 (also powered by Salesforce) has gone live with a UK advice firm. NextWealth has called out a lack of competition among back office systems as satisfaction scores continue to fall while market concentration increases. That may now be changing and that’s good news for advisers and their clients. I look forward to collating the next round of provider service scores in NextWealth’s Advice Tech Stack report series. Question the why.

This leads me onto more and more thoughts and of course, questioning the why. Back in January 2023, NextWealth coined the, now industry-recognised, label of Platform+, in The Great Platform Shakeout report. The research outlined the various platform models emerging such as adviser-as-a-platform.

As we, Heather and I chatted about in the podcast, digital innovation has to be high up on the programme upgrade schedules of most (if not every) large-scale retail platform in the market today. No brainer.

PLEASE, please can we see investment in real innovation. Not reactive or panic. New, sensible, logical, and aligned to the world most of us live in today. Wouldn’t it be great if the incumbents did really step up to the challenge and reinforce their significance.

Whilst on the subject of digitalisation and progress, we are on the cusp of releasing our next report in the Adviser Tech Stack series on digital processes. My lips are sealed – for now. Look out as we highlight this year’s digital champions, and why when the report publishes next week.

At NextWealth we work and connect with, the industry. We provide relevant, industry-related research, insight, and consultancy. Not just questioning the why but providing across-the-board support to those innovating the future.

Emma