0:00 Introduction and what Advice Intelligence does

Steve welcomes Jacqui Henderson, who is joining from the countryside during lockdown, and asks her to describe Advice Intelligence. She explains the platform transforms the traditional financial planning process into a live, digital, interactive experience where clients receive an app tracking all their financial goals, cash flow, and strategies in real time.

6:00 Five years in the making and the $40 million investment

Jacqui describes the five-year build, explaining that the complexity of Australian financial planning law required a team of actuaries and software engineers to convert the vision into working code. She and her co-founders self-funded $40 million into the company before launch. The platform recently secured backing from one of the country’s largest investment managers.

12:00 From wealth management to fintech founder

Jacqui spent a decade running a wealth management firm and previously worked in telco and technology. She noticed the industry’s chronic lack of innovation, stepped away from the firm during a personally difficult period including a divorce and two young children, and founded Advice Intelligence to build the technology she had always wished existed for her own business.

15:00 The challenge of being a female founder in finance and technology

Jacqui describes the statistical near-impossibility of securing funding as a female founder at the intersection of finance and technology. With 95 percent of VC funds run by men, 90 percent of private equity run by men, and less than 2.3 percent of global capital going to female founders, she frames her achievement as beating extraordinary odds. She is joined by a female CTO and female head of operations.

18:00 Lessons for female founders and the role of naivety

Jacqui’s advice to founders considering a difficult path: be personally aligned to your higher purpose, embrace naivety as a feature rather than a bug, back yourself, and never stop. She describes the founder experience as an emotional market: constant ups and downs that do not get easier but do become more familiar. The only sustainable competitive advantage is not quitting.

23:00 Growing to 45 staff, remote onboarding, and Slack

Advice Intelligence had grown to 45 staff at the time of this episode, mostly during the COVID period. Jacqui describes the challenge of onboarding people she has never physically met, including her head of onboarding who was much taller in person than on video. She credits Slack as a collaboration tool that works exceptionally well for geographically distributed teams.

25:00 Books, habits, and why join Advice Intelligence

Jacqui recommends Love Money Money Loves You by Sarah McRoom as a guide to the behavioral relationship between people and their finances, and Economics for the Common Good for its challenge to conventional economic measurement. She closes by describing Advice Intelligence as a mission-aligned workplace where everyone is personally invested in transforming financial services for the benefit of everyday Australians.