The company says the school is being launched to help meet the demand for “high quality financial advisers.”

The school will extend services beyond traditional technical and professional qualification training to include commercial and management development.

It will support career pathways for advisers, from new entrants to those building and running successful businesses of their own. 

Openwork says The Business School will build on its existing Openwork Academy and its curriculum will draw in best training practice from professional service firms and academia, as well as utilising Openwork’s internal expertise. 

The emphasis will be on a “practical, career-long development” utilising digital and face-to-face learning. Participants will share access to ‘any time – anywhere’ personal development, the firm says.

Advisers and colleagues can follow one of the Business School’s pre-developed Learning Pathways or tailor their own development programme from a range of training modules. These will be augmented by senior practitioners from within The Openwork Partnership sharing their experience and best practice. The objective is to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to follow their own development plan. 

Philip Howell, chief executive of Openwork said:  “This is an exciting initiative. The Openwork Partnership has long been known for the quality of its technical training and for its outstanding record in consistently producing some of the best professional qualification results in the country.  With the launch of the Openwork Business School, we intend to take professional development in our industry to a new level, both for advisers and colleagues at the centre.

“By enabling advisers and colleagues to share their professional development and business experience together throughout their career journeys, we will enjoy a still higher degree of skills transfer and at the same time be creating an enduring alumnus inside The Openwork Partnership for the benefit of all.” 

The Openwork Partnership has more than 4,300 UK financial advisers operating across the UK and operates as a directly authorised, multi-panel distribution network. It is one of the largest UK networks.