The Chartered Insurance Institute and Personal Finance Society's New Generation Programme cohort marked the end of its 2025/26 year with a showcase event, presenting five projects developed over the course of the programme to address challenges facing financial services.
Mentors, senior leaders and professionals from across insurance and financial planning attended to hear the results.
The programme gave 60 CII and PFS members the chance to work collaboratively on real-world sector challenges, producing reports and materials for peers and the wider public while building leadership skills, professional networks and confidence along the way.
This marks a structural change for the scheme. The CII's New Generation Programme was established in 2010 and had run for 15 years as an insurance-only initiative before opening to financial planning professionals for the first time in 2025, following its expansion under then-CII president Ian Callaghan, who described nurturing new talent as one of his great passions.
That expansion brought PFS members into the programme for the first time, working in cohorts alongside their insurance counterparts, which is reflected in this year's mixed group of 60 participants spanning both professions.
The cohort split into groups tackling five distinct challenges.
One group developed a detailed farming risk report and educational resources aimed at supporting people affected by farming risks and improving wider understanding of the challenges they face. A second created a white paper and prototype database designed to capture insight and experience from professionals leaving the sector through retirement, aiming to preserve institutional knowledge that might otherwise be lost. A third developed a tool called SIFT, designed to support claims handlers by combining technology with human judgement when identifying potential fraud. A fourth carried out research into domestic abuse and its impact within the workplace. The fifth focused on opening up careers in financial planning, producing video content, social media campaigns, school careers sessions and a digital toolkit to showcase the range of career paths available in the profession.
Delegates presented their work to a panel of senior leaders from across insurance and financial planning, testing their ideas against experienced industry challenge. All five projects are expected to be made publicly available in the coming months.
Alex Spicer, a broking delegate, received the programme's first-ever New Generation Impact Award, nominated by EDII, which supported this year's cohorts in exploring new approaches to sector challenges.
Spicer said the programme gave him space to engage differently after years focused on exams and achieving chartered status, and that the cohort's mix of ages, experience levels and locations exposed him to how others across the industry actually work and think. He said the experience had given him connections within his own and other cohorts, and with senior leaders he would likely never have met otherwise, putting him in a position to lead while continuing to learn himself.
Nadia Johnstone-Smith, a financial planning delegate, said the programme demonstrated the value of bringing together people from different backgrounds to learn from one another and create positive change within financial planning, and that building relationships with planners across the UK had expanded her perspective and inspired her to champion financial education for young people. She said the programme introduced her to Disability & Access Ambassador Eddie Grant, whom she is now supporting on an upcoming Disability Symposium focused on improving accessibility and inclusion across financial services.
Laura Bailey, head of career and talent at the CII, said the programme is about more than developing future leaders' careers, giving emerging talent a platform to have a voice and contribute to the sector's future. She said this year's cohorts showed real ambition, creativity and commitment, and that the projects demonstrate what's possible when talented people from different areas of financial services are given space to collaborate and challenge the status quo, adding that the next cohort is due to join in October.
