High performance with a human focus: how Australian licensee leaders are redefining high-performing teams

In financial advice, high performance was once measured by hard metrics – growth in revenue, advisers, and funds under management – and driven from the top down with an emphasis on activity and accountability.

But today, a quiet but profound shift is taking place.

Recent episodes of Ensombl’s Licensee Podcast series featured conversations with three of Australia’s new-generation licensee leaders – Brooke Hooton of Advice Evolution, Keith Marshall and Mario Finocchiaro of AMAFA, and Eugene Ardino of Lifespan Financial Planning – and through these conversations a different understanding and context for performance emerges. One that is less about expansion at any cost, and more about alignment, autonomy and belonging.

Through this new lens, advice teams are seen to deliver at a high level because they are trusted, supported and connected, not because they controlled and measured.

Trust as the engine of performance

In the same way that trust is the cornerstone of effective and sustainable client relationships, trust is also one of the critical pillars supporting high performing advice businesses. Sometimes trust is systemised, built into processes and structures that empower rather than penalise. Other times trust embedded throughout the DNA and culture of a firm.

“We’re a people company… community is the first thing to us.” Keith Marshall, AMAFA.

While each licensee fosters trust in different ways, it is clearly foundational for all three.

At Advice Evolution, for example, trust is one of the four pillars – along with ‘no mandates’, ‘control and equity,’ and ‘no conflicts’ – that form the core of the licensee’s philosophy. They represent a deliberate rejection of top-down control, ensuring the firm’s advisers retain genuine autonomy and ownership while operating within a transparent, collaborative framework. These principles underpin how the group defines performance: through alignment, empowerment, and mutual trust rather than rigid compliance or scale.

At AMAFA, trust manifests through a culture of genuine community and partnership. As Keith Marshall acknowledges, advice can be a lonely profession, which is why they places so much emphasis on connection and peer support. Regular adviser engagement, open communication with leadership, and shared learning initiatives create a strong sense of belonging. Advisers are encouraged to collaborate, share challenges, and celebrate each other’s successes, reinforcing the belief that performance is amplified when people feel supported, valued, and seen.

At Lifespan, trust is built on continuity and constancy. The business has been held by the same family since inception, creating a culture that feels more like a community than a corporation. Stability in leadership and philosophy gives advisers the confidence to plan long term – both for their practices and their clients. Mentorship, accessibility, and the passing down of experience across generations have nurtured a deep sense of loyalty and shared purpose.

Across all three licensees, trust is not just a cultural virtue, it’s a form of performance infrastructure, creating psychological safety and encouraging innovation, the accountability that strengthens compliance, and the shared intent that keeps teams aligned through change.

In an industry often defined by regulation and turnover, these leaders show that enduring performance is ultimately powered by human connection and by the trust that makes high performance possible in the first place.

Culture comes before strategy

While the phrase “culture eats strategy for breakfast” is often attributed to management guru Peter Drucker, it is clearly a philosophy that resonates with contemporary leaders across all sectors. Indeed, the firms in focus for this article share a common cultural backbone of connection, visibility and shared purpose.

At AMAFA, culture is literally on display. Their major conference, for example, features every practice filmed and celebrated in equal measure, reinforcing the sense of belonging that defines their community.

For Advice Evolution, a fully virtual licensee, culture is sustained through online collaboration, frequent engagement, and events that bring people together with purpose, ensuring connection transcends geography.

At Lifespan, the family ethos fosters continuity and a flat structure where advisers are “treated like people, not like numbers.”

Each firm puts culture at the strategic and procedural core. Rather than being something manufactured by HR or confined to framed ‘values’ statements, it is built into how people lead, learn, and work together, becoming the real engine of performance.

Empowerment through autonomy

Another shared trait is how deliberately these leaders empower advisers and firms – encouraging autonomy within structure.

Advice Evolution’s ‘no mandates’ model gives practices the freedom to design their own tech stacks, choose partners, and shape workflows within a disciplined compliance framework.

At AMAFA, a significant amount of growth comes ‘new starts’ – advisers leaving institutional roles to launch their own businesses. A comprehensive program supports them in that leap, providing mentoring, systems, and a sense of community.

Lifespan scales up this empowerment to a broader audience, offering its infrastructure and research capability to self-licensed practices through Lifespan Partnership, combining independence with shared resources.

Across all three, autonomy is not about an absence of structure, it’s the presence of clarity, trust and support that allows advisers to operate at their best.

Technology to augment adviser capability

Technology plays a pivotal role in the contemporary advice practice, but while many view tech through the lens of cost-saving automation, these leaders speak about it as an enabler of human performance.

At Advice Evolution, the forthcoming Model Office framework captures this philosophy in action. It’s a practical blueprint combining automation, workflow design and AI-enabled tools to streamline operations without constraining individuality. It provides advisers with tested systems, digital templates, and compliance-ready processes that remove friction and free them to focus on client engagement and growth.

Lifespan is using its scale to deliver shared digital infrastructure and cybersecurity support to smaller licensees, extending the benefits of its technology investment across the broader advice community.

For AMAFA, a younger, more tech aware adviser base – their average age is 48 – is driving the uptake of integrated digital solutions, reinforced by peer learning and shared research.

Across all three, technology is thus seen as a multiplier of connection, consistency and confidence.

Stability as a competitive advantage

Uncertainty can act as a handbrake on performance — diverting energy, diluting focus, and disrupting momentum. While many licensees have changed hands or disappeared altogether, those featured here have built their value proposition on continuity.

At Lifespan, intergenerational succession has allowed the business to grow steadily while staying true to its founding values. This stability gives member firms absolute clarity about the direction of the licensee, enabling them to plan with confidence and consistency.

Advice Evolution’s use of offshore teams through Vital Business Partners reflects a stable and scalable operating model, where talent and trust are not constrained by geography. Flexible support structures can adapt to short-term workload pressures while maintaining long-term continuity.

At AMAFA, adviser partnerships extending more than a decade underscore how consistency breeds confidence, both internally and in client relationships.

In an industry where the ground often shifts, stability itself has become a defining feature of high performance – the foundation that allows culture, trust, and innovation to take hold.

Looking forward: The human edge redefining high performing teams
Across these conversations, a clear equation of performance emerges:

High Performance = Purpose × Trust × Support

• Purpose provides direction and clarity about what the business stands for and why it exists.
• Trust empowers decision-making which is decentralised, respectful and built on competence.
• Support delivers scalability through systems, tools and human infrastructure that reduce friction and free advisers to focus on clients.

Together, these factors redefine performance not as output, but as the alignment of people, culture and purpose around shared belief and shared responsibility.

The leaders of AMAFA, Lifespan and Advice Evolution share little demographically, and indeed are characterised by different generations, geographies and business models. But their philosophies all converge on a single truth: high performance is human performance. Their teams thrive not because of scale or process, but because they are trusted, supported and connected.

Where once licensees competed on compliance frameworks or cost, the next generation competes on culture, and their message is unmistakable –the future belongs to those who build high performing teams who are as connected as they are capable.

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