Why Zurich Advisory Network’s Campus could become the new gateway into financial services careers

Dinesh Mohan Tanikella’s ideal recruitment scenario for 2026 looks something like this: A 24-year-oldgraduate scrolls through job listings, weighing the usual options, such as banking or a corporate trainee program. Then she sees something different.

She doesn't see a job posting, but rather an invitation to explore a profession she'd never considered. She clicks through to something called the Campus, takes a module on assessing retirement needs and realizes she's curious. A few conversations later, she's enrolled in a 100-hour training program with a clear development path and two experienced advisors assigned to guide her. Within a year, she's building her own book of business while working on her own schedule, gaining traction in a new career path.

Tanikella wants this scenario to play out at least 50 times by the end of the year. Whether it happens at that scale remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: it marks a departure from traditional recruitment efforts.

Dinesh Mohan Tanikella

"Typically, companies put out an ad saying, 'We are hiring insurance advisors, please apply,'" Tanikella said. "That wasn't bringing the impact we wanted."

The answer was to stop competing for existing advisors and start creating new ones. To that end, Tanikella's agency has repackaged its existing training infrastructure as a recruiting tool designed to attract people who would never have considered financial services as a career.

"The dearth of good talent is real," said Tanikella. "People doing well tend to have books and want to stay where they are. So, we asked ourselves: If we need to increase the scope of advisors, where do we get them from?"

From idea to action

The agency already had an in-house learning and development team. Classroom inductions, content partnerships and mentorship programs were in place. But these resources were available only to people who had already decided to become advisors. Tanikella thought it had value as a recruiting tool.

"It was restricted to people who were from the industry," Tanikella said. "We never took that as a proposition to people outside the industry. That's the change we're bringing about."

The Campus concept took nine to 12 months to move from ideation to launch. Since it was, in his own words, a "medium-sized” investment, the project required approval of the regional CEO. Tanikella described the pitch as presenting to TV show “Shark Tank.”

"There were questions,” he said. “How is this different? How can we ensure adoption rates are higher? Is there evidence this will work?"

To bolster their claims, Tanikella's team used marketing data from existing lead generation campaigns to model expected outcomes. They could predict, or at least approximate, how many clicks, how many prospects and how many recruits the Campus positioning would bring.

"It was scientifically done based on marketing KPIs," Tanikella said. "That got the game in our favor."

No doubt also working in Tanikella's favor has been his explosive growth since launching the agency in August 2021. In that time, he's grown to150 advisors, with MDRT qualifications practically doubling every year. If Tanikella is successful in adding another 50 advisors through the Campus, it would represent a 33% increase in team size. The Campus targets three groups that traditional recruiting in the region had tended to overlook. First are recent university graduates - Gen Z professionals who value flexibility and recurring income but rarely see financial services as a top choice. Second are women who left the workforce to raise families and now want to restart their careers as their children grow older. The third group consists of advisors already in the industry who never gained traction, often because they lacked proper development early on.

"Nobody thinks of life insurance as the prime profession to get into," Tanikella said. "It always happens by chance. We wanted to make it a profession of choice."

What the Campus offers

Central to the concept is the Campus name itself, which is now how the agency refers to its office. The name is meant to evoke images of creativity, development and community, all recognizable ideals to fresh graduates. The Campus suggests that the financial services professions a lifestyle, and you won't be working alone.

The Campus is also the name for the virtual learning environment, which was the largest resource requirement of the project. A 100-hourtraining induction, which Tanikella says is unique in the market, gives newcomers from outside the industry a rigorous foundation.

Content is curated by cohort. Introductory material is supplied to those new to financial services. Mid-career advisors are trained in breakthrough strategies. Even successful advisors can access advanced modules designed for those ready to lead.

While the foundation was existing internal training programs, additional content was needed. To create that course material, Tanikella's agency partnered with third-party content providers. As the program gains momentum, more courses are being planned. Coaching firms are developing soft skills and neuro-linguistic programming training to help advisors better understand client psychology.

But courses alone don't make the Campus work. Each cohort is assigned two or three experienced advisors who serve as champions throughout the learning journey.

"There is somebody who's already walked that roadmap," Tanikella said. "Anytime you fall back, you can always get connected to them."

New advisors will be further aided when the Campus eventually includes free modules for clients that cover topics like assessing retirement needs or identifying protection gaps. The idea is to warm up prospects before they ever meet an advisor, creating informed clients who already understand the basics.

A pipeline is born

The training is comprehensive, but the point is recruitment. To that end, Tanikella's team pitched the Campus concept directly to universities. They are currently working on developing a partnership with one local college that boasts an enrollment of approximately 6,500 students.

"When we met the counselors and placement officers, they were surprised," he said. "They told us we were one of the few insurance companies that had ever approached them. Usually it's banks, fast-moving consumer goods companies, maybe pharma."

The novelty worked in their favor. The university was receptive to including financial services in its roster of employer partnerships, believing that it could appeal to students, especially if there are specific examples.

"We have a 25-year-old female advisor who's extremely successful," Tanikella said. "When you ask her why, she says the flexibility. She can focus on different aspects of her life while still being successful. Those stories resonate with the new generation."

Stories like these will be front and center in the Campus marketing. While coursework is the substance, the stories are the sizzle. And Tanikella wants to create a lot of them.

His agency has 150 such stories of people from different walks of life who found success in a profession they stumbled into. Tanikella wants to put those stories to work.

"We intend to have storytelling through the Campus, talking about personas," he said. "People who don't know about us or the profession will relate to those personas and come to the Campus."

With enough time, the 24-year-old who stumbled onto a financial services module and decided to explore the profession won't be hypothetical. She'll be another success story.

The article was first published in MDRT - Center for Field Leadership