After a distinguished AFL career including several premiership titles, Warren Jones has taken the same competitive drive and team-first mentality that defined him on the field into the world of wealth management. Now Head of Financial Adviser Distribution at Private Portfolio Managers (PPM), Warren is on a mission to grow PPM’s presence among Australia’s financial adviser and wealth management community -connecting advisers with a fund manager defined by its disciplined, hands-on approach to portfolio construction. I caught up with Warren to find out how his football background shapes the way he approaches that challenge.
1. How has your AFL career influenced the way you build relationships with financial advisers?
Football taught me that trust is everything. It doesn’t matter how talented individuals are – if there’s no trust between teammates, the team under performs. That translates directly into how I work with financial advisers and wealth managers. They’re not just distribution partners; they’re professionals who are putting their clients’ financial future in the hands of PPM’s investment team. That’s a significant act of trust, and I never take it lightly.
In the AFL, you earn trust through consistency – showing up when it’s tough and doing what you say you’ll do. I bring exactly that approach to my adviser relationships. When a financial adviser recommends a PPM managed portfolio to their client, they’re staking their own professional reputation on our performance and our service. My job is to make sure they feel completely confident in that decision, from the first conversation through to how we behave in difficult markets.
2. Growing a fund manager’s adviser distribution channel is competitive. What’s your game plan?
In football, you study the opposition, you know your own strengths, and you execute your game plan with discipline. The investment management landscape is no different – there are a lot of capable fund managers competing for space on an adviser’s approved product list and, ultimately, for their clients’ assets.
Our edge at PPM is genuine personalisation and a disciplined, low volatility, active approach to portfolio management. We’re not offering advisers just another shelf product that looks like everything else. We’re offering a partnership where their clients’ money is managed with real accountability by people they can actually talk to. That quality of investment management doesn’t go unnoticed – being named as a five-time IMAP finalist is something the whole PPM team is proud of, and it gives advisers an independent reference point when evaluating us against the field. My role is to make sure advisers and wealth managers understand that difference – and to build relationships deep enough that when markets get uncomfortable, they’re calling us rather than second-guessing the strategy.
I’m also focused on the quality of the channel rather than just the size. A sustainable adviser network built on genuine alignment will always outperform one built on transactions. That’s as true in investment management as it is in football.
3. What have you learned transitioning from elite sport into financial services?
The biggest lesson was that the fundamentals of high performance are universal. Discipline, preparation, resilience, learning from losses – those aren’t football concepts, they’re life concepts. Walking into financial services, I knew straight away that if I wanted to truly understand financial planners and add meaningful value – not just show up and shake hands – I needed to do the work. In football, preparation separated the good from the great, so I applied that same mindset and completed a Masters in Entrepreneurship & Innovation and an Advanced Diploma in Financial Services. The habits were already there; I just needed to build the knowledge around them.
What I’ve had to develop alongside that is patience with complexity. In football, the scoreboard tells you where you stand every minute. In fund manager distribution, particularly building an adviser network, results compound over time. You plant seeds in relationships that might not convert for twelve or eighteen months, and in the meantime, you’re educating advisers on your investment approach, building familiarity with the team, and demonstrating that PPM is a manager worth trusting with their clients’ wealth.
The AFL also gave me a network of people who understand discipline and long-term thinking. Some of my best adviser introductions have come through that community.
4. What does PPM’s proposition for financial advisers look like going forward?
PPM has been managing listed equities portfolios for over three decades, and that heritage matters. We’re an established, independent investment manager with a strong track record – not a startup chasing flows. For financial advisers and wealth managers, that stability is genuinely important. They need to know the fund manager they’re recommending to clients will still be around and still be performing in five or ten years.
The proposition for advisers is really threefold. First, genuinely active portfolio management – PPM is not closet indexing, and advisers can explain that clearly to their clients. Second, direct access to the investment team and a level of transparency that much larger fund managers simply can’t offer. And third, a distribution relationship built on responsiveness – when an adviser calls me or needs support, they get it quickly.
My goal is to significantly grow the number of financial advisers and wealth managers who know and trust PPM’s approach. The best way I know how to do that is the same way I built trust in the changerooms – show up, do the work, and never let your teammates down. To take the channel to the next level, I’m also actively looking for a BDM to second me in that mission – someone with a genuine passion for financial services, a relationship-first mindset, and the work ethic to match. The opportunity is real and the timing is right.
Warren Jones
Head of Financial Adviser Distribution, PPM (Private Portfolio Managers)
Mobile: 0422 819 116
Email: wjones@ppmfunds.com