Adviser 3.0: The Podcast

Abraham Okusanya
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The Adviser 3.0 Podcast is hosted by Abraham Okusanya. Get ready for his signature raw honesty, critical analysis and no-holds-barred insight at the intersection of retirement, investing and fintech.

  1. 23h ago

    SoapBox Ep.9 - The Wealth Tax Fantasy, Platforms Skimming Cash & Woodford Won't Quit

    Matt Pitcher and Abraham Okusanya are back on the SoapBox, joined this time by Caroline Hawkesley, Managing Director of Craven Street Wealth. They open on the tax question no adviser can escape. With a new government expected under Andy Burnham and a £4.7bn hole in the defence budget, the speculation cycle is already grinding client decisions to a halt. Abraham makes the case that wealth taxes are a fantasy that never raise what politicians hope, picking apart Gary Stevenson's Channel 4 turn and siding with Dan Neidle's numbers. Caroline flips the debate to the other side of the ledger: means-testing the state pension, charging for GP visits, and whether we are asking the wrong question entirely. Then to platform cash. The FCA wants platforms to disclose the interest they take on client money more prominently. Abraham, who runs a platform himself, argues disclosure dodges the real issue and that the practice should simply be banned. Why should a platform take a cut of interest on cash when it cannot on equities, bonds or property? The final stretch looks a decade ahead. With half the advice profession heading for retirement, who is building the next generation, and what does a financial planner even look like in the AI-driven 2030s? Caroline argues the profession is not looking far enough forward. And no SoapBox is complete without a trip to the "Shoe Box." This week it is Neil Woodford, still refusing to go quietly, and Terry Smith, who turned over half his portfolio in six months then wrote a 17-page letter blaming the index for his own underperformance. Blunt, opinionated and built for advisers who want the arguments and the evidence in one place.

    SoapBox Ep.9 - The Wealth Tax Fantasy, Platforms Skimming Cash & Woodford Won't Quit

  2. Jul 15

    Ep.136 - Niche Down, Charge Fixed, Stand Alone: Nick Hutchings on Fees, Care Costs and Purpose

    Nick Hutchings is a Chartered Financial Planner, Accredited SOLLA adviser, and Founder of Rockwealth Reading. He accidentally niched into retirement planning, runs his own podcast The Retirement Lounge, and recently appeared on the Martin Lewis show. In this conversation with Abraham Okusanya, Nick is refreshingly honest about the fixed fees model, what it really takes to go solo, and why the care fees world is rife with conflicts of interest most advisers won't talk about. He makes the case for deferred care fees annuities, explains why he places 50% of his clients into them while the industry average sits in single digits, and reflects on the personal moments that shaped his approach to retirement planning.

    Ep.136 - Niche Down, Charge Fixed, Stand Alone: Nick Hutchings on Fees, Care Costs and Purpose

  3. Jul 8

    Sunset Studio Sessions - In Conversation with Gary Paulin

    Recorded live at Adviser 3.0 2026, this is the fourth and final Sunset Studio Session. Nicki Hinton-Jones, CIO at Timeline, sits down with Gary Paulin, Chief Investment Strategist, International at Northern Trust Asset Management, for a conversation that starts with a warning: every major move of Gary's career has landed on a market top, from the Russian debt crisis to 9/11 to the GFC. But the real story is what that has taught him about reading risk. Gary makes the case that AI is a structural shift, not a bubble, walking through the five classic bubble signals (concentration, overspending, lack of ROI, circular financing, leverage and euphoria) and explaining why none of them stack up the way they did in 2000. He unpacks why the Magnificent Seven behave more like conglomerates than companies, why AI could be the disinflationary force that lets central banks run the economy hotter, and why the most contrarian call in markets right now might be a dovish Fed under Kevin Walsh. Nicki and Gary also get into the psychology of investing, the amygdala's role in bad decisions, and why avoiding pessimists might be the single best investment strategy available to advisers and clients alike.

    Sunset Studio Sessions - In Conversation with Gary Paulin

  4. Jul 1

    SoapBox Ep.8: Dying on the Wrong Day: Pension IHT, the SpaceX IPO and Deepfake Billions

    Some conversations on SoapBox are uncomfortable. This is one of them. Abraham Okusanya and Matt Pitcher are joined by Lauren Turner, Head of Financial Planning and Chartered Financial Planner at TFP Financial Planning, to work through three topics that every adviser should be thinking about right now. First: has the SpaceX IPO broken indexing? The media says yes. The data says otherwise. Abraham makes the case that the panic doesn't survive contact with evidence, and that for Mrs. Miggins in a balanced portfolio, the numbers involved are smaller than anyone is letting on. Then: pension IHT. Lauren and Matt are seeing it first-hand. Families weighing up whether to pursue life-prolonging treatment based on where the April cliff edge falls. Clients facing the prospect of 80% of a pension fund disappearing on death. Abraham takes the unpopular view that the overall direction is right -- even if the double taxation is indefensible. Finally: deepfakes. Matt brings the numbers, and they are staggering. In the UK, investment fraud is the single largest category of deepfake losses. AI-generated video calls are convincing people who know each other. The question is what advisers do about it, and whether the answer involves going back to basics.

    SoapBox Ep.8: Dying on the Wrong Day: Pension IHT, the SpaceX IPO and Deepfake Billions

  5. Jun 24

    Sunset Studio Sessions - The Empathy Delusion: AI Is the Real Threat to Financial Advisers

    For years, financial advisers have been told that empathy is their ultimate competitive advantage, the moat that no algorithm can cross. But what if that assumption is the most dangerous bet in the profession? Recorded live at the Adviser 3.0 2026 conference, this special live edition of SoapBox takes Dan Haylett's viral LinkedIn article, The Empathy Delusion, as its starting point and tears into one of the most urgent questions facing the advice profession today. Host Matt Pitcher is joined by Sarah Roughsedge, Chartered Financial Planner and Founder of Eva Wealth Management for Women, and Dan Haylett, Director of TFP Financial Planning and Founder of Humans vs Retirement, for a debate that is equal parts sobering and energising. The numbers they share are hard to ignore: 28 million UK adults now use AI for money management and financial questions, making it the single biggest use of AI in this country. Sixteen million have sought specific financial advice from an AI. And research increasingly shows that people feel less judged, less ashamed, and more comfortable talking about money with AI than with a human adviser. So where does that leave us? The panel confronts the fee compression question head-on, debates whether the future belongs to advisers serving fifty ultra-high-net-worth clients or thousands through AI-augmented subscription models, and explores what skills the next generation of planners actually needs. Psychology. Coaching. Prompt engineering. The ability to challenge, not just affirm. And they land on something quietly radical: being clever may now be the least valuable thing an adviser can bring to the table. Pascal's Wager, a Blockbuster Kodak warning for the profession, and one unforgettable story about a client who would rather discuss her sex life than her finances. This one does not pull its punches. Read Dan's article that inspired this session: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/empathy-delusion-why-many-financial-advisors-may-making-dan-haylett--nedne/

    Sunset Studio Sessions - The Empathy Delusion: AI Is the Real Threat to Financial Advisers

  6. Jun 17

    Ep.135 - Life Is Not a Rehearsal: Keith Butten on EOTs, Fees and Life Beyond the Money

    What does it actually take to build a financial planning firm that lasts, not just one that sells? Keith Butten, CFP Certified Financial Planner and co-founder of boosst, has spent four decades finding out. In this episode, Abraham sits down with Keith to explore the philosophy behind one of the UK's most distinctive lifestyle financial planning businesses, from scrapping self-employed advisers and building from a blank piece of paper, to a fee model designed around service levels and client selection rather than volume. Keith shares how boosst runs at 45% pre-tax profit margins, why he believes "fans" are a better metric than AUM, and the thinking behind their Bright to Boost talent development programme. He also makes a candid case for the Employee Ownership Trust over consolidation, explaining why he and Josh chose to build an infinite business rather than cash out.

    Ep.135 - Life Is Not a Rehearsal: Keith Butten on EOTs, Fees and Life Beyond the Money

  7. Jun 10

    Sunset Studio Sessions - Conspiracist or Realist? A Debate on Gold, Bitcoin and Investing for a Changing World Order

    What does it mean to protect your clients' wealth in a world where governments are spending without restraint? This session from the Adviser 3.0 2026 conference puts two of the most compelling voices in alternative assets on stage together -- and lets them argue it out. Dan Parkinson, the Bitcoin IFA, traces his conviction to Lebanon, where he watched a currency lose 99.9% of its purchasing power in three years. Thomas Holl, Portfolio Manager at BlackRock responsible for several of the firm's gold strategies, came to his view more quietly: two decades of watching what governments actually do with money, not what they promise. Both arrived at the same destination by different routes -- the conviction that holding cash or nominal bonds amounts to a slow-motion loss of purchasing power, and that something else is needed. Moderator Laurentius van den Worm, Head of Investment Strategy at Timeline, keeps the debate honest. He pushes both guests on valuation (how do you price an asset with no cash flows?), regulatory risk (gold was banned before; could it happen again?), and the practical question every adviser in the room is asking: how do I actually get this into a client's portfolio? Dan makes the case for Bitcoin as a hedge against money printing, pointing to the relationship between Fed balance sheet expansion and Bitcoin returns, a four-year cycle with a 99.8% success rate over any holding period, and the argument that at roughly five percent global adoption, we are still in the early adopter phase. Thomas positions gold as a zero coupon inflation-protected perpetual bond with zero issuer risk -- and explains why central bank buying doubled after 2022. They don't agree on everything. But on the things that matter most to advisers thinking about portfolio construction in an era of fiscal excess, they're closer than the title suggests.

    Sunset Studio Sessions - Conspiracist or Realist? A Debate on Gold, Bitcoin and Investing for a Changing World Order

  8. Jun 3

    Ep.134 - The Breath Moment: Olivia Maynard on Building a Business Around People, Not Job Boxes

    Olivia Maynard is Managing Director at TFP Financial Planning in Essex. In this episode, she shares how she went from school leaver to MD without ever planning it that way, why she stepped away from financial planning into operations, and how she has built a culture where no one is confined to a job box. Olivia talks about the "breath moment" - that exhale when a client finally lets go of years of financial anxiety - and why it still drives everything TFP does. She opens up about her first pregnancy during Covid, severe pre-eclampsia, an emergency delivery at 30 weeks, and how that experience shaped both her resilience and her thinking on boundaries in the workplace. The conversation also covers how TFP approaches team structure, the death of the brilliant jerk, disagree and commit, and where she thinks the industry is heading as technology reshapes every role from paraplanner to administrator.

    Ep.134 - The Breath Moment: Olivia Maynard on Building a Business Around People, Not Job Boxes
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About

The Adviser 3.0 Podcast is hosted by Abraham Okusanya. Get ready for his signature raw honesty, critical analysis and no-holds-barred insight at the intersection of retirement, investing and fintech.

Information

  • Creator
    Abraham Okusanya
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    150
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Abraham Okusanya
  • Show Website
    Adviser 3.0: The Podcast

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