There is something that all my fellow women out there can relate to, and that is always having to queue for the ladies toilet.
Theatres, shopping centres, even the supermarket – these are all places I have waited 10-plus minutes in a queue.
Therefore I always notice places where I do not have a long wait: football stadiums and adviser conferences being the main standouts, until this month.
I attended the Consumer Duty Alliance's inaugural financial planning conference in Birmingham on October 11 where I was told small advisers with less than 20 staff would fill the room.
Now seeing as the CDA was only launched in March 2023 I have to admit I was expecting around 100 delegates, but I was very wrong.
My first surprise was at how much space the conference was occupying at the National Motorcycle Museum, there were two rooms filled with people as well as a huge main auditorium – this was my first indication at how much I had underestimated the size of this event.
Secondly, the two rooms where people were picking up their breakfast pastries were filled with exhibitors from the Financial Conduct Authority and Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment, through to M&G Wealth, Threesixty Services and MoneyAlive.
And finally, as the room filled up for opening remarks, I was able to see, and confirm later with chief executive of the CDA, Keith Richards himself, that there were easily 500 people in attendance.
But it was the diversity of people in the room that resonated with me the most.
There were young advisers in their twenties present, and notably the female representation at the event was very good.
So good that as I went to seek out the restrooms in the first coffee break, I noticed a queue out of the door for the female toilets, something I have never experienced before at an adviser event.
A collaborative attitude
While the representation at the event was brilliant there was also a different atmosphere in the air.
It felt to me as though the advisers attending had a new-found attitude of working collaboratively with each other and the regulator to promote and evolve the profession.
It helped that the FCA was present at the event and Nick Hulme, head of department – advisers, wealth and pensions at the FCA, used his keynote to push how the regulator was looking to work better with the profession.
He explained the FCA was trying to become more accessible, open and human and was trying to get out to more events to talk directly to advisers.
This was apparent by the fact that Hulme stayed for the whole event, despite his keynote being in the morning.
He was also joined by some of his colleagues at the regulator who demonstrated how advisers should be using the retirement income advice assessment tool (RIAAT), something only a handful in the room had tested before.
