What happens when 13 of the most successful independent advice firms in Australia decide to put their egos aside and build something together? That's the modern origin story of Shadforth Financial Group — and it's the backdrop for one of the most compelling conversations we've had on this show.

Terry Dillon has been with Shadforth for 34 years. He spent the first two decades as an adviser before stepping into the CEO role in 2018 — right in the middle of the Royal Commission. Rather than retreating from the scrutiny that came with institutional ownership, he walked into the boardroom and told the parent company: if we can't make each other better every day, you should probably sell us.

That moment set the tone for everything that followed.

In this episode, Terry and Rob cover the decisions that transformed Shadforth from a business built for sale into one built to lead — now close to 100 advisers, 270 staff, 11,000 families, and around $20 billion under stewardship. They get into Shadforth's evidence-based investment philosophy, the family advice guarantee that addresses intergenerational wealth transfer in a way Rob hadn't heard before, and their technology roadmap — including a client app that takes advice from a static document to something closer to a live financial plan on your phone.

They also talk acquisitions. Shadforth is growing strongly — double digits, organically — and now has its sights set on inorganic growth to match. But it's the way Terry frames the ambition that really lands. He's not talking about incremental targets. He's asked his leadership team to think about what Shadforth looks like at ten times its current size — and what that forces you to do differently today.

Stick around for the moment near the end where Terry names the kind of firm he believes Shadforth can become — and the professional services names he wants spoken in the same breath. It's the kind of ambition that reframes how you think about what's possible in advice.

Building a Modern Advice Firm: Terry Dillon on the Evolution of Shadforth Financial Group