About us
Platforum is widely recognised as the key source of valuable insights and data about retail investment in UK and the rest of Europe. Our reports are essential resources for all product and service providers in the core markets of wealth managers, financial advisers and D2C investors.
We are a strategic partner for asset managers, platforms, banks, insurance companies and technology providers. For more than a decade we’ve been helping our clients to understand how the landscape is evolving.
Our research is made available through the periodic publication of reports, accompanying analyst briefings and on a bespoke consultancy basis.
Jeremy Fawcett
Interested in helping to build the next generation of investment propositions for digital consumers. He comments regularly in the consumer and trade press about direct platforms and the evolving digital investor. Previously he specialised in developing online marketing for financial services in the early days of social media and mobile, and at that time he picked out personal investing as an area that would be transformed by digital technology.
Richard Bradley
Deputy Head and Research Director
Responsible for Platforum’s research programme, he has been researching investment distribution and commenting on industry developments for the last decade. His work has covered global retail and institutional investment distribution – both B2B and B2C. He holds a BEng and PhD in engineering from the University of Southampton, with a focus on control systems and artificial intelligence.
Danby Bloch
Head of Editorial Strategy
Consultant to the Platforum team, with a focus on general platform and investment policy and industry issues. Until 2023 Danby was Chairman of London independent financial advisers, wealth managers and employee benefit consultants Helm Godfrey and was a non-executive director of the platform Nucleus. He was for many years a practising financial adviser. He is co-founder of Taxbriefs Financial Publishing where he still edits a specialist monthly newsletter for financial advisers. He has been a regular contributor to the national and trade press and has written and edited several books on financial planning. Danby was Chair of Governors of Oxford Brookes University and subsequently its Pro-Chancellor, and read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University.
Annalise Toberman
Associate Research Director
Senior researcher and consultant with experience across the UK and European investment landscapes, both retail and institutional. Annalise has worked extensively with asset managers, wealth managers, fintech firms and industry bodies to help them fulfil an array of business objectives, from improving marcomms effectiveness to assessing market opportunities and peer group analysis. She has interviewed thousands of financial intermediaries and asset owners across her career. Annalise holds a Government BSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science and the Market Research Society’s Advanced Certificate.
Mariam Pourshoushtari
Specialising in qualitative research at Platforum, which involves conducting in-depth interviews, face-to-face meetings and roundtable discussions with financial advisers from across the UK. This research informs Platforum’s financial adviser, platform and fund distribution reports in the UK, as well as adviser-focused consultancy projects. Previously, Mariam was Editorial Manager at Taxbriefs and managed the technical updates for the CII’s financial planning diploma study texts, as well its online CPD programme. She has an MA in English Literature from the School of Advanced Studies, University of London.
William Moss
Analyst
Providing quantitative research support across all Platforum reports. William has a BSc in Mathematics and Economics and an MSc in Behavioural Science from the London School of Economics, where his dissertation consisted of conducting initial scale development processes to enable the quantification of British exceptionalism. He is also a certified member of the Global Association of Applied Behavioural Scientists (GAABS).
Callum Lawson-Gallagher
Associate Analyst
Providing qualitative and quantitative analysis, predominantly across Platforum’s UK Wealth Management and UK D2C research streams. His research assesses the structure and trends of firms managing client investment assets and the nature of self-directed services. Callum has worked on strategic bespoke projects for leading firms and extensively interviewed stakeholders focused on creating, distributing and managing retail investments. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce from University College Dublin.
Lottie Bussell-Ahern
Working across Platforum’s quantitative and qualitative research. She primarily focuses on adviser platform and financial adviser research, analysing market and adviser survey data. Lottie has a BSc in Mathematics from the University of Liverpool where she studied a range of disciplines, from complex analysis to statistical modelling, and was trained in MATLAB and R.
Millie Bertola
Associate Analyst
Supporting primary and secondary research efforts across the wholesale and retail channels. With a BSc in Accounting and Business from the University of Nottingham and part qualification in ACA exams, Millie has a solid background in financial data analysis and an aptitude for interpreting technical information.