In the last quarter of 2025, Quilter, Aviva and Transact took more than double the net flows of every other platform combined. The money has concentrated. Service hasn't, and on a platform service is mostly people: the BDM an adviser trusts and the account manager who picks up the phone when a transfer goes wrong.
That's where platforms still win and lose share, and it's where I spend my time.
The work is changing as well. Platforms can now be the rails behind banks, neobanks and comparison sites launching their own investment offers. That needs commercial people who can sit with an IFA in the morning and a bank's product team in the afternoon, and there aren't many of them. Most of them aren't looking.
The roles I place on platforms
- Business Development Managers and Business Development Directors
- National and key account managers
- Heads of Distribution and Sales Directors
- Chief Commercial Officers
- Growth, partnerships and proposition leads
Who I've worked with
I placed Seccl's Head of Growth, the platform behind the Moneysupermarket deal. Parmenion have been a client for some time; their Head of Intermediary Distribution describes me as "as much a trusted sounding board as a recruiter."
How I work
Exclusive or retained, one brief at a time. That means a proper look across the whole market rather than the first ten CVs on a database, and a shortlist of people I've actually spoken to. Usually four, not forty.
If you're building or rebuilding a platform sales team, I'd like to hear about it.