Craig Kouimanis

Financial planning outsourcing specialists, Vital Business Partners (VBP) has appointed Craig Kouimanis to the newly created position of Chief Growth Officer, as the group sharpens its focus on expanding existing relationships, winning new clients and enhancing its value proposition to advice businesses and licensees.

Kouimanis, who joins VBP from licensee services company Paragem, will report to VBP Chief Executive Officer, Mark Fisher.

Previously, Kouimanis has held senior positions at Securitor, Commonwealth Financial Planning and Colonial First State.

“Craig is a highly respected leader with decades of experience supporting advisers to run successful businesses,” Fisher said.

“He intimately understands the challenges and opportunities facing advice businesses and the services and support they need to achieve their goals and grow.”

“VBP exists to help businesses scale sustainably, improve performance and focus on what matters most, and Craig is the ideal person to help shape our growth strategy and drive initiatives across the IFA and licensee segments.”

In his role, Kouimanis will be responsible for building and maintaining client and stakeholder relationships, ensuring that clients’ needs are met, and strengthening VBP’s position as Australia’s leading specialist outsourcing partner to the advice profession.

He will also support initiatives that drive product and service innovation, including the expansion of VBP’s agentic AI and automation services.

Kouimanis said VBP’s value proposition, which centred on people and technology, aligned with his own beliefs on what small-to-medium enterprises needed to succeed in today’s complex, fast-paced operating and regulatory environment.

“In advice and professional services, people are critical to success, but technology is also extremely important, and they lie at the heart of what VBP does,” he said.

“I believe that systems run businesses and people run systems, and VBP has the right combination of people and tech to drive efficiencies, productivity and performance.”

“VBP strives to bring institutional-grade services and resources to advice SMEs in order to solve their problems and support them to achieve their growth ambitions, and I am excited to work with Mark and his team to execute the group’s mission and strategy.”

Kouimanis will join VBP on October 14, 2026.

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Sue Viskovic

Fixed advice fees have replaced models that include asset-based fees as the most common pricing model for ongoing service, reflecting the profession’s increasing focus on non-investment related matters such as guiding clients through challenging situations and acting as a sounding board to help them avoid costly mistakes, according to new research by Vital Business Partners (VBP).

The 2026 VBP Advice Fee Benchmarking Report found 49 per cent of advice firms charge fixed fees while 38 per cent charge a combination of fixed and percentage-based fees. Only 10 per cent charge asset-based fees, down from 18 per cent in 2023.

The data highlights the demise of percentage-based fees as an accurate measure of the value delivered by the advice profession, with pricing decisions increasingly based on scope of work and complexity.

The report also found that only 38 per cent of advice firms factor a client’s investable assets into their pricing methodology. Almost a quarter did not consider investable assets at all and 39 per cent only consider a client’s wealth if there is considerable complexity such as multiple entities, trust structures and tax considerations.

Sue Viskovic, Head of Consulting at VBP, said the introduction of new ongoing fee arrangement (OFA) rules in 2025 placed greater onus on advisers to continuously demonstrate value and earn the right to continue the relationship.

“Advice firms have been required to think more carefully than ever about how they price their services,” she said.

“The challenge is not simply determining how much clients will pay but finding the right balance between charging enough to build a sustainable business while delivering genuine value to the clients.”

The 2026 VBP Advice Fee Benchmarking Report gathered data and insights from 143 financial advice businesses nationally, representing approximately 500 financial advisers.

Other keys findings included:

• Over 60 per cent of advice firms charge a single fee that covers the initial meeting, advice generation and implementation, 31 per cent separate advice and implementation, and 6 per cent charge a monthly retainer.
• Firms onboarded an average of 15 new clients per adviser in the last 12 months.
• Only 5 per cent of advice firms pay referral fees to external organisations.

Viskovic said the report captured several emerging themes including significant fee variation across the profession, even for relatively similar client scenarios; a greater focus on targeted specialisation; and the profession’s increasing role in removing financial and non-financial complexity from people’s lives.

“There is no right or wrong business model or pricing methodology, it depends on a range of factors, including a firm’s target market, service proposition, operating model, cost structure, workflow design and desired profitability,” she said.

“We frequently encounter firms that have not reviewed their pricing for many years and continue to charge fees based on historical precedent rather than current costs, client expectations or the value they deliver. This benchmarking report aims to provide valuable context to help advisers understand where their fees sit relative to other firms and challenge assumptions that may have developed over time.”

Read the report.

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Fisher will join VBP on June 1 as CEO, replacing Nathan Jacobsen, who was appointed Chief Operating Officer of VBP parent company, AZ NGA, in January but continued to oversee the management of VBP.

Fisher’s appointment brings an experienced and dedicated leader to VBP at an important time for the business with advice firms increasingly looking to business partners for support to adopt new technologies like automation and AI, improve cyber security and risk management, and scale sustainably, according to Jacobsen.

“Mark is a highly respected leader with proven experience running successful businesses, driving growth initiatives and leading large teams through periods of change and disruption, and we are very excited to have him on board to take VBP forward,” he said.

“Over the past few years, VBP has expanded its services and offer to advice, accounting and mortgage broking businesses, and opened new offices in Cagayan De Oro, in the Philippines. The business has ambitious plans to continue growing and delivering a broad range of outsourcing services to clients.”

Prior to Godfrey Pembroke, Fisher was Managing Director of Securitor Financial Group. He also previously held senior executive roles at BT Financial Group, Macquarie Private Wealth and AXA.

“I’m excited to join VBP and grow the group’s position as a leading specialist of outsourced services and solutions to financial advisers and accountants,” Fisher said.

“VBP is also passionate about being a great place to work and providing career development opportunities for its people, which I strongly believe in.”

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Nathan Jacobsen

Principal advisers looking to build large, highly profitable businesses must choose between being a great adviser or a great chief executive officer because, at scale, they can’t be both, according to outsourcing specialists, Vital Business Partners (VBP).

In a new paper titled, From cottage industry to professional companies: VBP’s guide to scaling with confidence, the outsourcing firm claims that fast growing firms often encounter significant challenges, including declining earnings, in the initial stages of scaling up because they don’t have the resources and capability to manage the complexity that comes with running a larger business.

However, this trap is avoidable if founders can develop their leadership skills or bring in leaders with the right experience and skillset, the guide claims.

Nathan Jacobsen, VBP chief executive officer, said that businesses focused on accelerating growth through M&A and organic activity needed to remove principal dependency by having clearly defined roles and responsibilities, formal systems and processes for efficiently deliver advice, and a robust risk management framework.

“A declining EBITDA margin is not inevitable, demonstrated by at least some of the many thriving large advice businesses, but scaling a small-to-medium firms requires different choices and skills around operational efficiency, risk management, people leadership and strategy,” he said.

VBP’s guide provides insights into the process of scaling up, based on the group’s experience working with hundreds of advice firms. It aims to help principal advisers determine if that strategy is the right path for them.

Jacobsen, who is also chief operating officer of VBP’s parent company AZ NGA, said scaling up had the potential to deliver many benefits, such as operational and cost efficiencies, better access to capital, and a more structured approach to growth, but it was not for everyone.

“Building and running a successful business of scale requires a lot of hard work and significant ongoing investment in people, systems, processes and technology, which many people do not have the skill, experience or risk appetite to undertake,” he said.

For those that do, size has many advantages and we’re seeing a clear trend of businesses scaling, as heightened regulatory scrutiny and rising compliance costs put pressure on businesses to drive efficiencies and improved client outcomes.”

The VBP guide identifies and defines the two main types of advice businesses and the various challenges, opportunities and risks they face when it comes to scaling. It outlines key considerations for business owners before pursuing an aggressive growth strategy and provides a rough blueprint for scaling up.

Read the report.

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Sue Viskovic

Top advice firms display operational maturity, which is evidenced by ten essential characteristics, leading to EBIT margins of 35-40 per cent and employee and client satisfaction scores of 90+ per cent, according to a new paper produced by Vital Business Partners (VBP), in partnership with Zurich Financial Services Australia (Zurich).

Titled, Optimum Operating Models for Advice Firms, the paper examines how advice firms are redesigning their operations and leveraging AI and automation to address key challenges, namely the requirement to do more with less, due to declining adviser numbers, mounting compliance requirements and rising client expectations.

Leveraging VBP’s experience working with advice businesses of all sizes, the report details the ten foundational building blocks of a high-performance operating model, including clarity of roles, documented processes and measurable service standards, backed by “leadership that leans in”.

According to Sue Viskovic, Head of Consulting at VBP, efficiency alone is no longer enough to guarantee success.

It is how a firm is structured, including its organisational design, team architecture and operational model, that determines its ability to consistently deliver high quality advice and client outcomes at scale.

“The firms that thrive are those that combine structure, systems and leadership to create businesses that are both scalable and sustainable,” Viskovic said.

“At their core, they’re also client obsessed. Client service is cultural not positional, and everyone in the firm, from the front line to back office, shares responsibility for delivering an excellent client experience.”

In addition to qualitative attributes, the VBP report also provides eight quantitative metrics to help readers define a high-performance advice firm and benchmark their own performance.

These factors include EBIT margins of circa 35-40 per cent, high employee and client advocacy, revenue of around $1 million per annum per licensed adviser, and an employee cost ratio of 45 per cent or less.

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Nathan Jacobsen

Outsourcing specialists, Vital Business Partners (VBP) has urged financial advice businesses to review their outsourcing arrangements to ensure adequate governance and risk management, following the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s recent review into the use of offshore service providers by financial services entities.

VBP has also released an 18-page guide detailing how the group is assisting advice businesses to meet their legal obligations in relation to outsourcing.

Last month, ASIC released the findings of its year-long review of offshore outsourcing identifying significant variations in the quality of risk management arrangements in relation to the use of offshore staff and calling on licensees and advice businesses to regularly assess the performance and suitability of their outsourcing arrangements.

Nathan Jacobsen, Chief Executive Officer of VBP, said the ASIC report highlighted the wide discrepancies that can exist between outsourcing models in terms of governance and compliance, reinforcing the value of partnering with an experienced outsourced service provider (OSP) that had proactive oversight and strong risk management capabilities to protect both clients and advice businesses.

“VBP is highly supportive of ASIC’s recommendations and heightened focus on offshore outsourcing to ensure that both consumers and advice businesses are not unnecessarily exposed to harm, such as their data being stolen through cyber incidents,” he said.

“Whether a business has a direct outsourced contracting arrangement or uses an intermediary, the obligations around areas like data, privacy and cyber security are the same. For those that choose to go direct, sole responsibility for assessing and monitoring outsourcing risk can be a significant burden.”

According to ASIC, licensees and advisers are exposed to critical risks associated with the loss of control over key functions to OSPs, disruptions to operational services and conflicting obligations due to foreign laws, requiring them to urgently close governance gaps and address weaknesses in their use of offshore providers.

Jacobsen said the advice and wealth management industry could expect greater scrutiny of offshore outsourcing arrangements, given the large and growing number of businesses outsourcing tasks to enable them to scale sustainably, improve performance and focus on seeing clients. www.virtualbusinesspartners.com.au Commercial in Confidence +61 (0)2 8999 9696 2

“It is in the best interests of consumers, advisers and the broader industry that all parties involved in the provision of advice, including suppliers and contractors, operate with a continuous focus on improving information security practices,” he said.

“The risks are only rising guaranteeing further regulatory scrutiny, and possibly intervention, if the industry cannot effectively and proactively manage these risks.”

VBP maintains a governance and risk management framework that meets the standards set out in Section 912A(1)(h) of the Corporations Act and the group’s internal controls, compliance programs and risk assessment processes are aligned with international standards, ISO 27001:2022 and ISO 31000:2018.

VBP’s frameworks are reviewed annually and actively supported by senior management to ensure ongoing regulatory alignment and operational resilience.

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Nathan Jacobsen

Financial planning business, RI Toowoomba Group, has significantly expanded its relationship with outsourcing specialists, Vital Business Partners (VBP), by adding four financial planning assistants and upskilling existing senior financial planning assistants to provide paraplanning services.

Steve Browning, Chief Operating Officer, RI Toowoomba Group, said the business had grown quickly over the past year, primarily through M&A, creating a relatively urgent need for capable back-office resources to support the group’s advice team, which is spread across five locations including Brisbane, Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast.

This led RI Toowoomba Group to engage VBP to increase its number of outsourced staff based in the Philippines to nine, up from five previously.

Locally, the business has 35 employees including thirteen advisers.

“We’ve had a strong partnership with VBP since 2018. Over that time, we had a stable team of five in Cebu but as a result of recent acquisitions, our VBP resources have almost doubled to ensure we continue to deliver reliable service and operational excellence,” Browning said.

“VBP gives us the confidence to focus on M&A opportunities and continue growing because we know they are there to support us to scale our back-office, and build and manage our offshore team.”

Nathan Jacobsen, Chief Executive Officer of VBP said advice businesses, particularly those growing quickly, needed access to a large, qualified pool of talent to perform back-office functions and free business leaders to focus on value creation and strategic initiatives.

“Advisers are time-poor and many have ambitious goals and targets so they shouldn’t be distracted by day-to-day administration,” he said.

“Demand for advice has never been higher, due to demographic changes, the increasing complexities of life, and heightened global economic and geopolitical uncertainty.”

“Advisers are working extremely hard to help clients understand their position and manage their affairs. They need a trusted, experienced partner to come alongside them to help recruit, train and manage teams, so they can focus on helping people and growing their business.”

Established in 1992, RI Toowoomba Group specialises in financial planning and retirement advice to mass affluent people living in regional Queensland.

The group’s business strategy focuses on achieving the necessary scale in key markets, expanding into new regions, and enhancing operational efficiency by streamlining processes and digitising the client experience.

“We’ve had some challenges in recent years, namely too many clients and not enough advisers, so we set out to solve that problem by acquiring like-minded businesses in areas where we had existing clients but not a local presence,” Browning said.

“We identified areas where we had large cohorts of clients and found quality businesses and people that had capacity to take care of existing clients, look after our clients in the area, and continue growing too. With VBP, we’ve been able to support those businesses and focus on executing our strategy.”

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Jacobsen’s appointment follows the recent decision by David Carney, VBP Co-founder and longstanding CEO, to step back from day-to-day management to focus on business development, marketing and innovation.

Paul Barrett, Chairman of VBP and CEO of AZ NGA, said Jacobsen’s track record of successfully transforming wealth management businesses and his experience in strategy, technology and M&A strongly positioned him to lead VBP into its next phase of growth.

“Nathan is a highly respected financial services executive and we are extremely fortunate to have him on board to lead this dynamic business. VBP’s vision and purpose is to support professional advisory firms to grow and deliver generational change for their clients and, over the last decade, it has become an invaluable business partner to some of Australia’s best advice businesses,” Barrett said.

“David Carney has done an incredible job of turning VBP into Australia’s leading adviser services utility and we are pleased that he will remain with the business to facilitate a smooth leadership transition and play a key role in the group’s ongoing success.”

In his new role as Head of Growth, Carney will report to Jacobsen.

VBP was established in 2013 by David Carney and David Deegan to deliver a range of outsourced business solutions including financial planning administration, accounting and bookkeeping, paraplanning and mortgage broking support.

In 2023, the group acquired Elixir Consulting, significantly expanding its capability and capacity to provide business coaching, strategy and consulting.

The Australian-owned, Sydney and Philippines-based group, which has over 1250 team members and 260 clients, is a Certified B Corporation (B Corp) and has consistently been recognised by Great Place to Work.

According to Jacobsen, the skills shortage in Australia was holding businesses back from helping more people, which increased the need and relevance of VBP’s proposition.

“One of the biggest challenges facing businesses is finding and maintaining talent, and VBP is ideally positioned to help advisers solve that problem. There is also an exciting opportunity to help advisers achieve scale and efficiency benefits through process optimization and the effective use of technology,” he said.

“I am excited to lead this fantastic business, as we continue investing in people, products and solutions.”

Jacobsen departed Diverger in March, following the group’s merger with Count. Prior to his role at Diverger, he held a number of senior positions including Managing Director of Paragem and General Manager of Perpetual Private.

He was also formerly an officer in the Australian Navy.

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Sue Viskovic

VBP has created three new roles in its leadership team to assist the firm’s continued expansion in the financial advice industry.

The appointments follow VBP’s recent acquisition of specialist financial planning consulting and coaching firm Elixir Consulting.

Amanda Yun joins VBP as chief growth officer and Shaun Nesbitt has been appointed chief information and digital officer. In addition, Elixir founder Sue Viskovic will become VBP’s general manager consulting.

David Carney, VBP’s chief executive officer, says the appointments as well as the acquisition will help take VBP’s evolution to the next level.

“We are significantly expanding our service offering to continue supporting our clients with their growth at a time of continuing change in the financial planning landscape.

“VBP has a 10-year track record of providing this support and with the addition of Amanda and Shaun to the business, as well as the expertise of the Elixir team, we have significantly deepened the level of assistance we can provide,” he says.

He added that the combined business of VBP and Elixir will position the business as the ‘go to’ growth partner for advice firms looking to innovate and scale.

“Harnessing the experience of Elixir and boosting it with the scale and expertise of VBP means we are better positioned to provide the specialist support and assistance that advice practices need.

“VBP now has the resources to deploy a bespoke team on a project basis to assist clients in executing the priority projects from their strategic planning, and to take full advantage of opportunities in the current environment.

“Over the next year, VBP will focus on helping firms innovate by investing in intelligent automation solutions, cyber and governance security as well as new coaching programs.”

VBP has also recently rebranded from Virtual Business Partners to Vital Business Partners, reflecting its role within the financial advice community and its 10 year track record.

Mr Carney says that while the business will still be widely known as VBP, it was important to make the subtle name change to Vital Business Partners.

“The new name is more reflective of our future direction and desire to be a vital partner in our clients’ future success. Dropping the word Virtual allows us to move away from a traditional outsourcing business and recognises the human connections that are very much the core of each and every client relationship.”

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Founded in 2013, VBP provides off-shore specialist assistance and support to Australian-based financial planning firms, and has recently expanded its services into bookkeeping and accounting.

As part of this expansion, Daniel Harrison has joined VBP as its technical lead – accounting. Reporting to the head of client experience Sarah Matthews, he will be responsible for the development and enhancement of VBP’s accounting offering.

Mr Harrison has worked in the accounting industry in Australia for over 20 years, predominantly in public practice. He has previously run his own accounting practice as well as held management roles in mid-tier accounting firms in NSW.

He has also worked for the Australian Tax Office, is a member of the Institute of Public Accountants and sits on the tax working group for Blockchain Australia.

VBP chief executive officer David Carney said the firm has already begun offering bookkeeping services to clients, and is the first stage of a broader accounting offering that will be ready in the coming months.

“Increasingly our clients are multi-disciplined firms. To date, VBP has been able to provide services to the wealth management and mortgage broking divisions of our clients, but not to their accounting and bookkeeping divisions at the same level of operational excellence,” Mr Carney said.

“With the support of Daniel, we are now realising the opportunity to support their accounting and bookkeeping divisions. It will also support pure financial planning firms to benefit from in-house bookkeeping support around internal payroll functions.”

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