Trust is the foundation of every successful client relationship — and few have shaped our understanding of it more than David Maister, whose work on the trusted advisor remains essential reading for professional services today. In this session, Morgan Rigby and Annika Lehmann revisit Maister's core principles and explore what they still teach us about earning and keeping client trust.
Alongside this, Morgan and Annika will introduce adaptive learning — a modern approach to skills development that meets individual learners where they are, rather than delivering one-size-fits-all training — and discuss why the two ideas, trust and adaptive learning, belong in the same conversation.
Expect a thoughtful, practical session with enough time for your questions.
Speakers:
Morgan Rigby, Chair Denken
Morgan Rigby has been involved in continuing professional development since 1988, founding and leading two training businesses that became recognised market leaders in their field before being successfully sold. This deep, long-standing expertise in the sector gave rise to a growing fascination with AI's impact on training — a curiosity that led him to co-found Denken, where he now serves as Chair.
Find Morgan on LinkedIn
Annika Lehmann, Managing Director Denken
Annika Lehmann brings over 20 years of expertise in professional development and the digitisation of corporate learning. She has developed her expertise through roles at leading institutions including DEKRA, the German Institute for Adult Education (Leibniz Centre for Lifelong Learning), and Heidelberg and Bonn Universities (Germany), where she researched and taught on digital learning and intercultural competence. Her work has been presented at academic conferences worldwide, including at Columbia University's Teachers College. Annika co-founded Denken to bring this crosssector experience to bear on a more effective, adaptive approach to professional learning.
Find Annika on LinkedIn
Event Details:
Date: Tuesday, 25 August 2026
Times:
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane 11:30 pm - 12:30 pm: Adelaide 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm: New Zealand 10:00 am - 11:00 am: Perth, Hong Kong, Singapore
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane
11:30 pm - 12:30 pm: Adelaide
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm: New Zealand
10:00 am - 11:00 am: Perth, Hong Kong, Singapore
Price:
Members: Free | Non-Members: AUD90.00 Please note you must be registered for the login link to work.
PM Forum Members: Activate your reciprocal membership. Once confirmed (usually within 2 business days), you’ll be able to register for ICON events.
Challenge conventional thinking and explore new paths to growth at our Hong Kong ICON Conference 2026: Uncharted. Designed for BD, marketing and communications professionals, the conference will explore how firms are responding to changing client expectations, economic pressure, evolving buyer behaviour and the rapid impact of AI and technology.
Across the day, speakers and panels will share practical ideas, real examples and honest conversations about what is working, what is changing and where firms are finding growth opportunities. From client experience and reputation to commercial decision-making, strategic marketing and business development, the program is designed to help BDMC teams think differently about the road ahead.
ICON Member Early Bird*
ICON Member Group Pricing (5 or more delegates)
ICON Member Single Ticket
Early Bird
Single Ticket
^Tickets charged in AUD.
*Ticket is for individual use only and cannot be shared amongst team members.
**Available 3 weeks before the conference. Contact events@iconapac.com
ICON thanks our Hong Kong conference sponsors
The Thinking Behind the World's Best Professional Firms. Now Yours to Learn
For decades, the most successful law firms, consulting practices, accounting firms, and advisory businesses have been shaped by one person's ideas. Now, with David Maister's permission, those ideas are available to you in a learning experience built for the way professionals actually work today.
The Authority Behind the Course
David Maister isn't just an academic voice. As a former Harvard Business School professor who spent decades consulting to professional partnerships across six continents, he built his frameworks inside real firms facing real challenges — growth, culture, client trust, profitability, and the relentless pressure to perform.
His books — Managing the Professional Service Firm, True Professionalism, and The Trusted Advisor — aren't just well-regarded. They're dog-eared, underlined, and sitting on the desks of partners and leaders who built careers around his thinking.
Who This Is For
If your work lives at the intersection of expertise and relationships, you'll find this course immediately useful. That means fee earners like lawyers, accountants, consultants, engineers, architects, financial advisors, and bankers — but equally, the business development managers, marketers, client relationship leads, and growth strategists who make professional firms competitive.
Great BD and marketing in professional services isn't just campaigns and collateral. It's trust, positioning, and understanding how clients buy expertise. Maister understood this better than anyone.
You can register for the complete eleven-module series, or choose the individual modules most relevant to you.
in partnership with
The BD to Bottom Line Series is built on a single, practical insight: most damage to profitability does not come from poor work or bad decisions. It comes from good work that quietly drifts beyond what was agreed, from habits that were never examined, and from economics that were never fully explained. Together, these courses give professionals a clear understanding of how firms actually make money, what sits between the hours recorded and the fees collected, and why everyday choices around scope, time, billing, and client communication have a far greater impact on margin than most people realise. Rather than focusing on theory, the series develops the commercial language, habits, and judgment that professionals can apply immediately — helping them spot problems earlier, respond more confidently to client and partner pressure, protect realization, and start thinking and acting like someone who understands the business behind the work.
Module 1: The Commercial Mindset — From Hours Recorded to Value Created
Many lawyers are taught to measure their contribution in hours, but clients and firms care most about outcomes, value, and profit. This course helps lawyers develop a genuine commercial mindset: understanding how realisation and margin work, seeing how everyday behaviours create or destroy value, and knowing when and how to raise commercial questions with partners and clients.
Through practical concepts and adaptable scenarios, it shows how to think and act more like an owner while still delivering excellent legal work.
Module 2: Law Firm Economics — From Hours to Realisation and Margin
Many lawyers are taught to judge their performance by hours recorded, but firms only earn money from fees that are billed, collected, and aligned with what clients value. This course demystifies the economics that sit between the timesheet and the firm’s profit and loss. Using simple numbers and practical examples, it shows how realisation and margin work, why write-offs and discounts matter so much, and how lawyers can influence commercial outcomes in everyday work.
Module 3: The Real Cost of Write-Offs, Discounting, and Billing Leakage
Write-offs, discounts, and billing leakage often feel like small, routine decisions, but together they can have a major impact on profitability.
This course helps lawyers understand how margin works in practice, why seemingly minor fee reductions have an outsized financial effect, and how better billing habits can protect both matter economics and firm performance.
Feeling overwhelmed by constant algorithm changes and outdated best practices? This essential workshop, led by digital marketing expert George Hawwa of Attention Experts, delivers the foundations and latest understandings you need to execute high-performing campaigns right now.
This session will cover the fundamental changes required to perform in 2026 and beyond, from understanding the newest algorithm shifts to the basic formulas for successful execution across Social, EDM, Google Ads, and AEO/SEO as well as Hyperlocal Advertising. Walk away with the knowledge you can immediately implement in your organisation to gain an uplift in results and finally track the right major metrics.
You will walk away knowing:
Speaker:
George Hawwa, Growth Director & Founder Attention Experts
George Hawwa is the Founder and Growth Director of Attention Experts, Australia's most awarded and highest-rated social media agency. Since launching the business in 2016, he has helped organisations across more than 30 industries use digital marketing to drive growth, strengthen brands and deliver measurable results.
A recognised expert in digital strategy, George has advised government agencies, multinational organisations and not-for-profits, and has delivered presentations to more than 30,000 professionals worldwide. He is also the creator of Unique Placement Advertising, an innovative digital advertising approach adopted by leading global brands.
George has been recognised with multiple industry awards, including the NSW Business Chamber Outstanding Young Entrepreneur Award, and has served as an expert witness in social media and trademark matters before Australian courts. He has also lectured on social media strategy for the Centre for Continuing Education at the University of Sydney.
Find George on LinkedIn.
Who are Attention Experts?
Attention Experts are specialist digital growth experts, a known leader in the industry with a reputation for a unique data-led approach to social media marketing and strategy - and then expanding this knowledge into Programmatic and Unique Placement Advertising, SEM, SEO, Website Optimisation and EDM campaigns. Combining the latest digital tools and capabilities of the world's biggest social media and digital platforms, Attention Experts retains a track record of delivering consistent results for over 1,000 clients in both the B2B and B2C sectors across 30 different industry verticals in Australia, New Zealand, South East Asia and Europe. Attention Experts has offices now in Sydney, Melbourne and Dublin.
Specialising in strategic growth, best practice campaign implementation, consulting and community management, the end product delivered is exponential business growth through social media & digital campaigns designed to drive brand value and accumulate databases of customer engagement. Attention Experts is at the forefront and a highly sought-after agency in the social media & digital marketing industry, having achieved this through exceptional customer service, transparency, specialist expertise, and unparalleled campaign implementation.
Attention Experts is the most 5-star rated and awarded social media agency in Australia and is a recognised Facebook Preferred Partner as well as a Google Partner. Attention Experts are proud to be the official and sole social media partners of the Australian Marketing Institute, Tourism Accommodation Australia, The Australian British Chamber of Commerce, Sydney Hills Business Chamber, and more. Attention Experts have won several awards with the annual Australian Marketing Institute awards since 2020. In 2026, Attention Experts won the Australian Achievers Award with a 96% satisfaction rating from current clients.
Read more about Attention Experts.
Date: Tuesday, 8 September 2026
1:00 pm - 2:00 pm: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane 12:30 pm - 1:30 pm: Adelaide 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm: New Zealand 11:00 am - 12:00 pm: Perth, Hong Kong, Singapore
1:00 pm - 2:00 pm: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane
12:30 pm - 1:30 pm: Adelaide
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm: New Zealand
11:00 am - 12:00 pm: Perth, Hong Kong, Singapore