• Advocacy and Media

LEAD GENERATION

  • April 14, 2026

By Scott Heathwood,
President of the Institute of Financial Professionals Australia

There’s been a lot of commentary over the weekend linking “lead generation” to the failures of Shield and First Guardian. Let’s be clear: that narrative is both convenient and wrong.

What happened in those cases was not a failure of advertising or client acquisition. It was an integrated scam—a closed loop where lead generation, advice, product manufacturing and capital flows were all aligned to serve one outcome: moving client money into a predetermined destination.

Read the media release here.