PA Awards: all the excitement with none of the hangover

With my dinner jacket hanging forlornly in the wardrobe, as it has for the past year, I did manage to attend a terrific event recently (via my computer at home) – the Professional Adviser Awards 2021.

The way Tom Ellis and his team organised the awards was first class. Obviously holding a virtual ceremony lacks some of the thrill of sitting in a room full of peers all dolled up in their glad rags but I did enjoy the experience…and not just because we did well in the gong department.

The whole structure of these awards is impressive from start to finish. It’s a mammoth task, with multiple categories and 21 high calibre judges from across the industry giving up their time to sift out those most deserving of the accolades.

The awards attracted a huge number of entries, from giant brands running traditional models to smaller challenger firms offering new ideas that disrupt the old order.

In 2019 we won the Best DFM category and this year we picked up Best Model Portfolio Service – both fantastic wins for PortfolioMetrix, particularly when you see some of the firms we were up against. It was also great to be highly commended in the Best Client Engagement category – a category that we won last year, so knowing our team is still industry-leading is very satisfying.

I was also delighted to see that Praemium picked up Best Platform for Discretionary Management. We are closely integrated with them so great to see they are acknowledged as being at the top of their game. Many congratulations to Mark Sanderson and his team.

It was clear a lot of preparation had gone into making the virtual ceremony as engaging as possible and it definitely paid off.

I expect that Tom and the rest of the team at PA will be keen to return to a more traditional format once they can but I do hope they keep some of the benefits offered by the online experience. There’s a lot to be said for waking up at home the next day basking in the glow of success and without a hint of a hangover!