Kiwi adviser shares take on US mega-conference

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First-time MDRT conference attendee, Lewis Price-Milne, sits down with GRTV to share his experience.

Tuesday, September 23rd 2025, 8:36PM 1 Comment

In June 2025, 33 Kiwi advisers made the journey to Miami, Florida for the MDRT Annual Meeting - one of the financial services industry’s biggest and most prestigious gatherings.

Among them was Lewis Price-Milne, financial adviser at Price-Milne Financial Services. He was a first-time attendee at the conference, and he sat down with GRTV to share his experience.

"MDRT is massive, it's larger than life, you'd see nothing like it in New Zealand," Price-Milne says. "It felt a bit like the financial services olympics in some ways. It's a really good community.

"You're constantly catching up with people from every territory around the world. It was really cool to meet a bunch of new Kiwis that I'd never met before."

The conference sessions covered everything from global trends to business growth, sales strategy, effective mentorship, and AI. Price-Milne said the conference really delivered on the practical insights.

One of the most interesting panels for him was about client communication and the language that advisers use. A key insight was that sometimes, it’s just about putting a positive spin on something - for example, calling it a ‘strategy session’ rather than a ‘presentation meeting.’

"One of the best things I learned was just about removing all the jargon from anything I talk about with clients," he says.

“I didn’t realise I was using so much until I sat down and forced myself to confront it. Then you go, hang on, that might actually be confusing for somebody. I wouldn’t call anything a fact-find anymore.”

The conference also introduced him to MDRT's whole-person concept - an approach to work-life balance that examines "every aspect of your life, whether it's business, family, friends, health,” and trying to find balance among them.

Perhaps most surprisingly, he found that despite different regulations worldwide, the nuts and bolts of operating a business were pretty similar. These are some of the things he’s taken back to New Zealand, along with plenty of new connections.

“I’ve been in business for a couple of years now, so meeting advisers from the South Island and other cities around the country was awesome,” Price-Milne says.

“Typically you come back from MDRT and you have little catch-ups with each other about what you’ve learned, and you set up little accountability partnerships.”

MDRT’s 2026 Annual Meeting is already set to take place in Anaheim, California.

Check out the full interview on GRTV here

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