PROFILE - Georgina Smith Head of Distribution and Client Services: INN8

How did you get involved in financial services – was it something you always wanted to do?

Like a lot of people in the industry, I didn’t really plan to end up in financial services. I left university, joined Unilever and trained as an accountant. A couple of jobs later, finance management had given me an excellent grounding and I moved into training and development, specialising in finance. Training and coaching people, as well as personal and team development, is my absolute passion, and in 2006 an opportunity came along for me to put into practice all that I’d taught in the classroom – and walk the walk with my own business.

My husband (a dentist) and I set up our own dental business in the UK and over 10 years we built ourselves up to be the largest independently-owned private dental practice in the South East of England. When we sold the business and moved to SA for a better lifestyle and more family time six years ago, I met the then very small INN8 crew and started working with them, back in my comfort zone of training and development. It soon became apparent that because of my experience owning my own business, I could connect with advisers and understand what their challenges were. The same things used to keep me up at night: certain clients will always be front of mind, staff, compliance, cashflow, new business.

Describe your role at INN8

I’m privileged to run the Distribution and Client Servicing team at INN8. Both these teams I’ve built more or less from scratch, and it has been important to me to hire a diverse range of people from various backgrounds, rather than taking the easy route of poaching people with B.Coms from other product providers. This breadth and depth across the team gives a much broader perspective, better critical thinking and problem-solving skills – and new and different ways of doing things. Within the team we have three people who used to be advisers, an ex-military man, a well-known podcaster, a chap who did such a good job of selling us our phone and webex service that I hired him, and one guy who used be a high-board clown diver at Sea World! What they all have in common is that they understand it’s not just about great service, it’s about a great endto-end experience. I am proud to have built a team of empathetic problem solvers completely focussed on giving the very best adviser experience.

How have advisers adapted to the changing circumstances around COVID-19 and the subsequent lockdowns?

When COVID-19 first struck, I think most business owners were in panic mode. What does this mean? Will I survive? What will markets do? What will happen to my clients during this time? And will I still be able to serve my clients? As the move to digital engagement became the norm, advisers quite rightly started to ask questions of their providers. Wet signatures and paper trails needed to disappear, and fast. Providers stepped up with varying success and I’m very proud to say that INN8, with its signatureless,

straight-through processing – particularly in the offshore world – was able to seamlessly step into the breach that faced advisers.

Then, as lockdown 2 came along, there was a much more practical and predictable approach. Advisers, bolstered by their previous handling of lockdown measures, easily transitioned back to virtual meetings. Clients were also pragmatic and most welcomed the chance to Zoom. In fact, many advisers enjoyed the improved productivity and business efficiencies brought by not having to travel to see clients. I can see a new hybrid norm developing, which will be a combination of face-to-face meetings and more frequent video engagements with clients.

The success with which advisers have adapted to COVID-19 lockdown restrictions has also depended on the adaptability of their own compliance processes and tech stack present in their offices. Again, I’ve seen varying success across advisers here, with the most innovative and proactive advisers quickly implementing new systems that manage risk in their business, bring business efficiencies and deliver a better experience for their clients.

What do you think advisers are concerned about at the moment – and how can INN8 assist them with solutions?

I would distil that down to two things that I think advisers are concerned about at the moment, and fortunately I know INN8 can help on both fronts: How can I bring efficiencies to my business? How can I improve my client value proposition?

Traditionally, we’ve thought of running a platform as getting three separate buckets of things right: product offering, service, technology. With INN8, we haven’t thought of those buckets individually. We started with a blank sheet of paper and joined it together to form an exceptional adviser and client experience. From the way you move intuitively through the clean and easy-tonavigate web screens enabling you to place business in a matter of minutes, to the ground-breaking way we fit into the advisers’ own systems and processes, to the person answering the phone who gives consistent, knowledgeable and insightful information, the end-to-end experience is what was front of mind in our design, build and implementation.

The efficiencies brought to an adviser’s business, and the improvements they can make to their own client value proposition, include things like not having to phone call centres to find out when a transaction will be priced or paid – our tech delivers same-day pricing and all the information is right at the adviser’s fingertips. And not having to call someone to try to understand why because of a payment run a client’s switch is delayed – our smart queueing ability means there are no restrictions on when you can trade. And if you do want to speak to someone, having a person who responds immediately and correctly – first call resolution is a primary metric in my team – will save the adviser time and frustration, and I know how important that is.

Georgina Smith Head of Distribution and Client Services: INN8