In this role Mr Kraemer will also work with two related businesses of Schroders RF – Schroders Capital and RF CorVal – to provide strategic input into developing product and sales strategies. He will directly assist the CEO of Schroders Australia, Sam Hallinan and the CEO of RF CorVal, Rob Rayner in this additional capacity.

Sam Hallinan said the appointment comes as Schroders continues to expand its private credit business in Australia. “Having acquired a 50.1 per cent stake of Schroders RF in July 2021 and now with almost $500 million AUM, Schroders RF is a core element of Schroders Australia’s Private Credit strategy. Hiring Yossi brings dedicated experience to the group to create new funds and drive the growth of our private debt businesses”.

Andrew Roberts, Founder of RF Capital, said: “We welcome Yossi to the team as we continue to see strong growth in real estate debt and increasing investor interest in this asset class. Yossi’s experience will equip us to deliver the right products and service to our clients”.

Rob Rayner, CEO of RF CorVal said: “Having recently added key institutional and private client sales individuals to our group, Yossi joins our broader distribution management team to further develop our sales strategy and strengthen relationships with both institutional and wholesale clients in Australia and globally”.

Mr Kraemer has over 25 years’ experience in global real estate finance and capital markets with extensive experience in real estate structured products and capital raising. He most recently worked at Qualitas where he led the group’s Institutional Capital strategy and fund creation role for almost a decade. He previously worked for the Royal Bank of Scotland in London as Head of Real Estate Capital Markets and Syndications in Europe and prior to that, he held senior roles at Credit Suisse and BNP Paribas.

The post Schroders RF bolsters its distribution capabilities appeared first on AdviserVoice.

Wayne Wilson

knowIT Group has rebranded Strategy Steps’ Desk Caddie as wealthdigital and enhanced and refreshed the website in order to deliver better work solutions for advisers.

“The new features will help improve practice efficiency and help achieve compliance with regulatory requirements. wealthdigital provides an essential integrated business solution that’s easier for advisers to use, allowing them more time to increase the profitability of their business,” said Wayne Wilson, CEO of knowIT Group.

“wealthdigital will still be powered by Desk Caddie, and Desk Caddie’s content will remain as up-to-date and dependable as ever, including delivering ongoing analysis of legislative changes and their impacts on financial planning strategies in a timely and accurate way.

“Over time, users will notice that Desk Caddie becomes progressively superior as we implement the improvements that advisers have said they need in order to run efficient and profitable practices,” Mr Wilson said.

wealthdigital will combine research, planning and strategy features as well as workflow and management tools. These include:

• A solution that is flexible, efficient and simple
• An integrated technology platform
• A solution based on advice and client goals, not products.

The wealthdigital refresh has seen the Desk Caddie content reorganised and re-labelled in a few places – Latest News becomes Updates and there is a new tab called Newsletters. Newsletters will now become key to delivering valuable technical and business insights. Prominent new navigation will help make the transition a smooth one.

“A new home page will outline the changes and inside, the more logically-ordered content will be more easily tracked via clear new menus and beefed up search functionality.

“Over time, these changes will become more intuitive as we broaden and deepen the content and introduce a new taxonomy and labelling system.

“All of these changes are aimed at helping advisers achieve a more profitable practice with better business outcomes,” Mr Wilson said.

Mr Wilson said the flow-on effect will provide a number of benefits including:

Time

“wealthdigitial streamlines the advice process by creating a simpler, faster way to research, compile and present strategy solutions for clients.

“This means advisers will have more time to focus on client needs, work on attracting new business, market the practice or update their professional knowledge,” Mr Wilson said.

Smarter workflow

“The difference with wealthdigital is that it starts before the other tools kick in – with strategy,” said Mr Wilson.

“The Strategy Matrix is a Goals-Based Strategy Planning Tool that supports your strategy modelling before any numbers are included.”

A better focus on relationships

Mr Wilson said that wealthdigital allows advisers to consider strategies that are broader and more diverse.

“This puts the focus back on individual needs, requiring less time crunching numbers.”

Consistency of quality advice and outstanding service

“wealthdigital provides a comprehensive range of tools and calculators – from quick calculators to the Strategy Matrix which is a Goals-Based Strategy Planner that allows advisers to model client scenarios with specific regard to meeting your Best Interests Duty and other compliance requirements.”

Mr Wilson said these changes allow for a more efficiently managed business

“wealthdigital provides more certainty around remaining compliant, allowing advisers more time to focus on maintaining clients and gaining new ones.”Strategy Steps was sold to knowIT Group – owned by Wayne Wilson, Wendy

Strategy Steps was sold to knowIT Group – owned by Wayne Wilson, Wendy Tyberek and Andrew Roberts – in late 2016. The name change and the improved functionality is part of knowIT’s ongoing strategy of redeveloping the relevance and reach of Desk Caddie to better meet adviser demands. The refreshed system will be available to users on 6 March 2017.

The post knowIT Group rebrands Strategy Steps’ Desk Caddie as wealthdigital appeared first on AdviserVoice.

Nathan Taggart has been promoted to the role of Head of Strategic Development and joins the Distribution Leadership team, reporting to Zurich Life and Investments’ Head of Distribution Kristine Brooks.

New appointments include eight Business Development Managers and one Strategic Accounts Manager, based across New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia.

• In New South Wales: Annqua Murray and James O’Dwyer join as Business Development Managers, and Liz Versace joins as a Business Support Officer.
• In Queensland: Tanya Woolnough joins as Business Development Manager.
• In Victoria: Emily Cossignani and Andrew Roberts join as Business Development Managers, while Sarah Nichols has been promoted to the same role.
• Tim Atley joins as Strategic Accounts Manager and Heena Mulchandani joins as a Business Development Associate, both reporting to the Strategic Development team.
• In Western Australia: Richard Burton and Steve Coyle join as Business Development Managers.

Ms Brooks said the appointments follow Zurich’s recent acquisition of Macquarie Life and the securing of several important new distribution relationships.

“This investment in the size of our team allows us to fully support our growing network of IFA and bank-aligned partners. It comes at a point in time when it’s critical that we as an industry educate as many Australians as possible about the important role of life insurance, and do all we can to ensure as many Australians as possible are properly protected,” Ms Brooks said.

“I’m very excited to welcome these talented people to our award-winning BDM team. It’s a reflection ofin the market opportunity we see across the country and means we have more firepower to support our advisers and licensee partners to grow their practices and focus on delivering fantastic financial advice to help protect and grow the wealth of Australians,” Ms Brooks added.

The appointments come prior to Zurich revamping and refreshing its product proposition in 2017, and more fully integrating the products acquired through the Macquarie Life acquisition in October 2016.

Key experience

New South Wales

• Nathan Taggart joined Zurich in 2013 after five years at BT Financial Group and previously Aviva Australia. He has held a range of distribution and advice roles.
• Annqua Murray has worked at TAL and AIA and previously was based in South Africa.
• James O’Dwyer has extensive Advice experience.
• Liz Versace joins from OnePath.

Queensland

• Tanya Woolnough joins from AMP and her financial services career spans 15 years of product and business development management in the QLD market.

Victoria

• Emily Cossignani has over ten years’ experience managing key relationships in Victoria and Tasmania and joins from AIA Australia, where she held BDA and BSO roles.
• Sarah Nichols joined Zurich’s General Insurance division five years ago before moving to Life Risk in early 2014, moving through BDO and BDA roles since.
• Andrew Roberts joins Zurich from the role of National Insurance Manager at NAB Financial Planning. He played an integral role in the expansion of NAB Financial Planning APL and Zurich product accreditation of 480 NAB advisers. He was previously National Training Manager for IRESS.
• Tim Atley has joined from Lifebroker, where he was Head of Sales & Operations. He has previously held roles at ANZ FP, iSelect and NAB. Tim joins Zurich’s national Strategic Accounts team, managing ongoing relationships with current dealer group partners, and is Melbourne-based.
• Heena Mulchandani joins Zurich from a paraplanning role at Salt Financial Group – Securitor

Western Australia

• Richard Burton joins the WA team from Westpac Group’s mortgage broking team and has over 17 years’ finance industry experience.
• Steve Coyle joins the WA team in the role of Business Development Manager, most recently running his own financial planning business. Previously he was State Manager for Guardian Financial Planning dealer group, and held roles with NAB and AMP.

The post Zurich expands life risk distribution team in NSW, QLD, VIC and WA appeared first on AdviserVoice.

Wayne Wilson

With an increasing demand for aged care advice solutions, Louise Biti and Assyat David are pleased to announce the sale of Strategy Steps to knowIT group owned by Wayne Wilson, Wendy Tyberek and Andrew Roberts.

This strategic sale allows Louise and Assyat to fully focus on expanding their Aged Care Steps business and will allow a new direction to be taken with Strategy Steps to support its deeper integration into financial planning processes.

knowIT Group is a software product and services company that specialises in online tools and learning for the financial services industry. The Strategy Steps’ online tool Desk Caddie® will form a central component of this business.

Desk Caddie provides practical support in simple English to help develop financial planning strategies for clients. It is accessed by around 4,000 financial advisers, keeping them up-to-date with the latest legislation and news as well as tips to maximise business opportunities in client reviews.

The sale is effective from 1 October 2016 and the existing Strategy Steps team will maintain the content of Desk Caddie for six months to ensure an easy transition and no disruption to the service.

Ms David said they have developed Strategy Steps to a level of maturity and is excited by the future possibilities for the continued development that can be achieved by knowIT.

“If we are to take Aged Care Steps to a position where it can meet its ever growing potential in supporting aged care advice, it needs our full time attention.

“In selling Strategy Steps to knowIT, we are confident it is in the care of a group that has the experience, knowledge and ability to maintain the high levels of strategic analysis that our clients have come to expect as well as further improve and expand the range of services,” Ms David said.

Wayne Wilson, CEO of knowIT Group, said it had looked at a number of elearning and online management systems for financial planners before deciding on the acquisition of Strategy Steps.

“There is no other product like Desk Caddie in the market, and it has no direct competition. It is used by major financial institutions, with 73 corporate clients. It is already used by 4000 planners in Australia, but there is still opportunity to embed Strategy Steps more deeply into the wealth advice market.”

“knowIT intends to redevelop the technology and reach of Strategy Steps to build deeper penetration into the wealth sector as well as to lead the company into new industry segments,” Mr Wilson said.

knowIT Group is a software product and services company that specializes in online tools and learning in the financial services industry.

Strategy Steps is a financial planning support business. Its Desk Caddie® is an online service for advisers that provides practical support to help develop financial planning strategies for clients, provides up to date news, as well as tips for client reviews.

Aged Care Steps focuses on supporting the financial services and aged care communities in relation to advice to older Australians and their families on options for accessing and funding for aged care, both in the home and in residential services.

The post knowIT Group acquires Strategy Steps appeared first on AdviserVoice.