The Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) and Personal Finance Society (PFS) New Generation Programme 2025/26 cohort celebrated innovation, collaboration and industry impact at an end of year showcase event on Friday, where the groups presented five projects designed to address challenges facing the financial services sector.
Mentors, senior leaders, and professionals from across insurance and financial planning heard about the work carried out over the course of the year and celebrated their achievements.
The programme has given 60 CII and PFS members the opportunity to work collaboratively to identify and explore real-world challenges facing the professions. Their outputs include reports and materials that peers and the wider public can use, while building their leadership skills, professional networks and confidence.
The five projects included:
- Supporting those affected by farming risks – developing a detailed farming risk report and educational resources to support people affected by farming risks and improve understanding of the challenges they face.
- Protecting valuable industry knowledge – creating a white paper and prototype database designed to capture insight and experience from professionals leaving the sector through retirement, helping to preserve valuable knowledge for future generations.
- Combining technology and human judgement to tackle fraud – developing the SIFT tool designed to support claims handlers by combining technology with human judgement when identifying potential fraud.
- Raising awareness of domestic abuse in the workplace – research into domestic abuse and its impact within the workplace.
- Opening up careers in financial planning – creating video content, social media campaigns, school careers sessions and a digital toolkit designed to showcase the breadth of career pathways available within financial planning.
Delegates presented their projects to a panel of experienced senior leaders from across insurance and financial planning, giving them the opportunity to test their ideas, receive challenge and gain insight from established industry professionals. All projects are set to be publicly available within the coming months.
Alex Spicer, Broking delegate and winner of the New Generation Impact Award, said: "After years of focusing on my exams, with the goal of becoming chartered successfully achieved, the New Generation Programme gave me the space to engage differently. The cohort's varied ages, levels of experience and team gathering from all over the UK exposed me to how others across the industry actually work and think. It's given me connections within my own (and the other) cohorts and with senior leaders across the industry I'd likely never have had otherwise.
Blending all of that with what I'd learned along the way was genuinely valuable. Without really setting out to, it put me in a position to lead and show the way for others, whilst learning along the way myself, and perhaps a little about myself too! Having knowledge retention as a theme running through the year felt hugely relevant to me, and it affirmed what the whole programme was about. I'm proud to have played a part in it, and genuinely honoured to receive this award."
The inaugural New Generation Impact Award was presented to Alex in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the programme. He was nominated by EDII, which has supported this year’s cohorts in exploring new ways of thinking, and developing innovative solutions to sector challenges.
Nadia Johnstone-Smith, a Financial Planning delegate, said: “The programme has shown the value of bringing together people from different backgrounds, experiences and professions to learn from one another to create positive change within financial planning. Building relationships with planners across the UK has not only expanded my perspective, but inspired me to champion financial education for young people and encourage more school leavers to consider careers in our profession.
Through the programme, I was introduced to Eddie Grant who is an inspirational Disability & Access Ambassador, and I am proud to be supporting him on the upcoming Disability Symposium, helping to improve accessibility and inclusion across the financial services sector.”
Laura Bailey, Head of Career & Talent at the CII, said: “The New Generation Programme is about much more than developing the careers of our future leaders. It gives emerging talent a platform to have a voice, tackle the challenges facing our sectors and contribute to its future.
This year our cohorts have shown incredible ambition, creativity and commitment. The projects they have developed demonstrate what can happen when you bring together talented people from different areas of financial services and give them the space to collaborate, challenge the status quo and think differently.
They should be incredibly proud of what they have achieved, and we’re really excited to welcome our next cohort in October and see what they go on to achieve.”