Culture and Leadership

Online masterclass

Friday 11 September 2026
11:00am - 12:00pm AEST (60 minutes)
Online

1 CPD point available

Culture and leadership play a central role in shaping how organisations operate, make decisions and respond to change. Across the financial services industry, increasing complexity, heightened expectations and ongoing transformation have brought renewed focus to leadership capability and organisational culture.

Approaches to culture and leadership vary widely and are influenced by organisational structure, governance frameworks and the broader operating environment. Understanding how leadership behaviours, values and decision-making practices interact with organisational culture remains an ongoing consideration.

In the September edition of INPractice Online, The Inside Network will explore contemporary perspectives on culture and leadership within financial services. The session will provide an opportunity to reflect on how organisations approach leadership and how culture supports resilience, accountability and long-term sustainability.

This session will cover:

Key considerations shaping culture and leadership in financial services.
The relationship between leadership behaviours, values and organisational culture.
How culture and leadership support resilience, governance and continuity.

This session is designed for professionals across financial services with an interest in leadership, culture and organisational capability.

Supported by

Foundation partner

Thought Leader

Tony Beavan
Managing Director

Tony Beaven has built a career on turning around the worst-performing parts of financial services businesses, not through sales pressure, but through emotional intelligence. He rose through Lloyds Bank in the UK before moving to Australia, where at Suncorp he took the company's worst-performing advice channels to number two in the country within six months. At AMP he built a division from zero clients into a functioning business, and at ANZ he developed "neuroplasticity," a training program built on the idea that if advisers genuinely understand the person across the desk, sales outcomes follow.

That philosophy was tested hardest at Elders Financial Planning, which he joined in 2016 facing a toxic culture and a forecast $1.3 million loss. Within twelve months, NPS rose from 35% to 91% and the business swung to a $300,000 profit; the following year Elders became the only financial services licensee in Australia to win the GRCI Compliance Professional and Team of the Year award. That experience led Beaven to found the Guild of Ethics, Culture and Leadership, home to the CPD-accredited Transforming Leadership & Culture Program, now running in Australia, the UK, Canada and Somalia.

Now based back in the UK as a director within a private-equity-backed wealth management business, Beaven still mentors around ten Australian advisers informally. He's outspoken on the profession's direction, contrasting the FCA's habit of consulting professional bodies quarterly with a more reactive adviser-government relationship in Australia, and flagging an ageing adviser population alongside shrinking adviser numbers. He was recently nominated for Charles Sturt University's 2026 Alumni of the Year for Social Impact award, recognition he says has made him reflect on what "impact" really means.