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As I listen to Mike Kellard, chief executive of Axa Winterthur Wealth Management, talk excitedly about “disruptive innovation” in the investment world, I am so spellbound by his confident oration I almost expect him to surge out of his seat, forefinger stabbing the air and call for us to revolt, there and then. And, for that matter, I might have joined him.

Mr Kellard may have the appearance of a football club manager – complete with jacket and jeans on a Wednesday morning – but the delivery of his impassioned speech and open expressions are worthy of the vaulted halls of Westminster. It is fitting, then, that I find him hunkered with his head of public relations in the bowels of a luxury hotel in Heathrow Terminal five, preparing for the next day’s unveiling of the company’s new business model.

He is in full flow, using repetition to hammer home the “disruptive innovation” evolving in the investment industry. “There has been the disruption of life company business, disrupted by asset manager groups selling Sipps, taking over inhouse management of funds; the disruption by fund supermarkets and wrap platforms; and disruption by IFAs themselves doing more asset management,” he says. “This is going to have a value chain but I’m not going to be precious about it. It’s time for disruptive innovation in this investment management world.”

This is number four on the five-point list of aspects which give Architas, Axa Winterthur’s newly-launched multi-manager business, “its business DNA”. New appointments are still being announced and Architas’s brand logo remains a closely guarded secret. When my eye wanders to the 2001 Space Odyssey style logo accompanying Mr Kellard’s Architas notes for the next day’s presentation, he is at pains to convey this is merely an illustration. Yet he is clear about the five strands that he believes will set Architas apart from the increasingly crowded multi-manager marketplace.

These are the strong international distribution capability, particularly across Europe, the financial strength of parent company Axa, Architas’s ability to create bespoke fund structures using “virtual pooling” technology, and the willingness of Architas to “break down the value chain” and enable advisers to pick and mix from Architas’s investment services, products and processes to best suit their business model and client base - the disruptive innovation Mr Kellard was referring to.

“I’ve heard IFAs talk about wanting bits of the value chain but not wanting to outsource all of it, so partly this concept has come from that,” he says, in his melodic Celtic-hybrid lilt, “but there’s not massive market demand yet. It’s like before the iPod existed, people didn’t run around saying they wished they had an iPod.”

Point five further demonstrates Mr Kellard’s penchant for liberally peppering his speech with colourful metaphors. “When Winterthur was focused on open architecture and elite funds of funds, it really had thought leadership in that space and I think Architas will have that in the MM space. It’s not a guest ale at the counter of the fund manager, that’s all it does, everything focused on just that.”

Providing further clarity, he adds: “It’s like WholeFoods in the US”, referring to the world’s largest retailer of organic produce, which markets itself as a local, trusted grocery for the conscientious shopper. “You get the whole experience of organic produce, you know where it’s come from, that’s their soul, what they are about. Then you go to a mainstream supermarket and there’s just an organic shelf and you know what they are about. I think MM is treated that way by a lot of companies, where it’s just this add-on.”

Architas is bound to have its detractors, launching into the increasingly populated MM space at a time when AIG has folded and concerns are mounting daily about the capitalisation of other insurance behemoths. But Mr Kellard has triumphed in the face of business adversity in the past.

Following stints at Legal & General, investment company Prolific Financial Management and Norwich Union, Mr Kellard was charged with building up the life business of a fledgling Winterthur. “Its main distribution channel was a tied estate agency channel and it mainly sold one Sipp product, which it was struggling to administer and make a profit on,” he explains.

Nine years ago, IFA interest in the Winterthur Sipp was stifled because it didn’t pay commission. “That was a big barrier at first. To me, the wrapper is just something that allows you legal rights to tax exemptions and flexibility, it doesn’t matter where it comes from, it’s the investment that is at the heart of it,” he says. “We focused on the investment side and gradually people warmed to it because the offer was so compelling.”

He adds: “I have continued in my belief that if you keep on with the investment side, you get to the heart of what is there. In today’s world it’s never truer.”

While Mr Kellard is happy to evoke the strength and breadth of Axa & Winterthur to Architas’s benefit, the choice to “ringfence” the new company and use separate branding indicates that he wishes to distance the new venture from negative perceptions of insurance-owned investment divisions and their consequent lacklustre performance histories.

“We want it to be a proper MM investment company, not part of a life company. I think IFAs will see the difference,” he says.

“There is a cultural difference, it’s been set up with a small business culture and that is what is attracting managers like F&C’s Richard Philbin. Architas is focused: it doesn’t manage equities or gilts or bonds, it manages managers. Specialisation gives you an edge.”

From its offices in the Gherkin, to employee remuneration packages, Architas “has its own spirit”, Mr Kellard says, and while it will of course be judged on performance, “we’re not looking to shoot the lights out, take bets with other people’s money and hope they go right”. Instead, he says, AUM combined with performance “better than the pack”, innovation and propositions competitors aim to emulate – all factors that could be applied to the man himself – are better measures of success.