Rob Atherton is Head of International Wealth at Melbourne Capital Group. A Chartered Financial Planner, Certified Financial Planner (CFP) and Chartered MCSI with more than 20 years’ experience, Rob has founded and led financial planning businesses in the UK and now leads an international advice team in which every adviser is qualified to at least Level 4 and around 65% hold qualifications at Level 6 or above.

His approach is simple: clients get better outcomes when advisers are better qualified, better supervised and better supported. Rob leads the company's adviser team across Southeast Asia, overseeing adviser development and supervision, technical guidance and advice standards. He has created a culture where professional development is essential rather than encouraged, with Chartered, Certified and Fellow credentials represented across the team and around 60 hours of structured in-house CPD offered each year, delivered with Melbourne Capital Group's independent panel of investment and financial planning providers.

Rob leads Melbourne Capital Group's Adviser Academy, featured in FT Adviser, and supports the firm’s internship programme, creating pathways into financial planning through structured development, practical experience and one-to-one mentoring for graduates, career changers and UK-qualified professionals moving into international advice. As a member of the New Talent Alliance steering group, he works with firms, educators and professional bodies to close the adviser gap and improve access to the profession.

He also helps build Melbourne Capital Group's commercial and professional relationships across borders, including partnerships with financial advisers in the UK and overseas looking for a trusted home for clients living in, moving to or holding assets in Asia. Through relationships with the British Chamber of Commerce, lawyers, tax advisers and other specialists, Rob helps clients access joined-up expertise and continuity of advice wherever life takes them through the team of financial planners at Melbourne Capital Group.

Rob is proud to have played a leading role in Melbourne Capital Group becoming a Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) International Professional Partner Firm, an associate member of the Federation of European Independent Financial Advisers (FEIFA) and a signatory to the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI). He represents Melbourne Capital Group in the CII’s Corporate Chartered Firm pilot programme, works with the Consumer Duty Alliance through its involvement in the New Talent Alliancwe, and helped to secure Melbourne Capital Group’s place as one of five founding members of Plannex International. Rob contributes industry commentary to FT Adviser and was a recent panellist at Money Marketing Interactive in London, sharing best practice in financial advice from around the world.

His belief in structured training comes from his own career. After working in local government and founding a consultancy business in Japan, Rob moved into financial services through the Bank of Scotland Investment Service (BoSIS) Financial Planning Academy, which showed him first-hand what structured adviser training can achieve. He went on to join St. James’s Place before founding Atherton & Associates Wealth Management Ltd and RWA Financial Planning Ltd. One of the UK’s early Chartered Financial Planners, he led Atherton & Associates to become one of the country’s earliest corporate Chartered financial planning firms.

Rob’s article ‘Professionalism Without Borders’ appeared in the CII’s Asia-Pacific Journal (August–September 2025), exploring how to raise standards in cross-border advice. He holds a BA (Hons) in Japanese Studies and Politics from the University of Sheffield and attended the Law department of University of Kanazawa on a Japanese Ministry of Education Scholarship.

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