Respected business strategist, Michael Harrison has been appointed Independent Chair of financial advice business, Synchron, effective April 1, 2011.
Mr Harrison, who has worked closely with Synchron since 2007 as Synchron’s business strategy and marketing consultant, has a long and distinguished career in financial services, spanning accountancy, retail sales, insurance and banking.
Synchron Director, Don Trapnell, said he is looking forward to Mr Harrison’s more formal involvement in the business.
“Michael has made an enormous contribution to Synchron and in many ways has helped us reinvent the business to successfully retain our highly valuable senior advisers while also attracting and engaging with younger advisers,” he said. “With his help, we have transformed Synchron into what it is today: one of the largest non-institutionally owned licensees by adviser numbers in the country and the fastest growing.”
Mr Trapnell said the challenge now is to continue to develop and grow Synchron as the preferred dealer group for younger advisers who can learn from some of the best advisers in the business. “With his expert grasp on the changing landscape of financial services marketing and technology we know Michael is the man to help us do this,” he said.
Mr Harrison has consulted to a number of financial services clients including Citibank, the STAR Alliance Network, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and Zurich Financial Services, where, in 1997, he was charged with the responsibility of reinventing Zurichʼs Australian life insurance business.
Mr Harrison is also a popular corporate speaker, the author of three books and served three terms as Deputy Lord Mayor of Adelaide. He has sat on numerous government and private company boards and now spends his time between homes in Adelaide and Melbourne.
