Richard Dunkerley

Madden & Assoc. has announced the appointment of communications and marketing legend Richard Dunkerley as Senior Content Strategist, bolstering the delivery of high-value thought leadership, narrative-driven content and strategic counsel to clients across the financial, wealth management and corporate sectors.

Richard will work alongside the Madden team to help clients develop industry-leading strategy, creative content, and brand messaging. Richard brings more than two decades of experience across the country’s wealth and finance sector, where he has helped some of Australia’s leading firms strengthen their reputations and grow market share. His career includes senior leadership roles at financial adviser community Ensombl as Chief Marketing Officer & Director of Content, and at Zurich Financial Services as Head of Marketing, Communications and Government Relations.

Bruce Madden, Executive Director, Madden & Assoc. said: “Richard is one of our industry’s sharpest creative minds with deep understanding of the Australian financial services sector. His ability to combine deep technical knowledge with strategy and content in an invaluable asset to our clients.

“Importantly, Richard has worked in senior roles on the buy-side of agency work. His firsthand experience in global corporate marketing and product development makes him an ideal resource for clients seeking strategic cut-though from an agency able to walk in their shoes, juggling competing priorities, multi-channel execution and greater value from their earned and paid campaigns”

Commenting on the role, Richard Dunkerley said, “Over my career, I’ve seen how powerful clear, credible storytelling can be in financial services. The Madden & Assoc. team have built a reputation for delivering quality outcomes and smart strategic thinking. Joining forces in a collaborative capacity provides a valuable opportunity to combine our experience and insight to help businesses connect with their audiences, differentiate in the market and amplify their voice with real impact.”

Richard added, “Now more than ever, authentic storytelling and having a genuine voice set people apart. I’m looking forward to supporting Madden in delivering brand messaging and communications that truly reflect who clients are and what they stand for.”

The partnership reinforces Madden & Assoc.’s focus on delivering intelligent, insight-driven communications and deep financial services expertise to help clients stand out in competitive markets.

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John Hewison speaks about the future of advice in Australia.

Watch the full interview.

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Bruce Madden

Australians can thank Henry Ford for the experience of dealing with a financial adviser who operates under a brand owned by a bank, who recommends a product manufactured by that bank, who administers their portfolio on a software platform owned by the bank, and who in turn is remunerated for making that sale, and for using the platform… by the same bank.

For bankers this kind of vertical integration delivers business synergies, cost efficiencies and the ultimate ticket clipping selling opportunities that Henry Ford might have dared to dream about when he turned the first sod on his now infamous factory site outside Dearborg, Michigan around 90 years ago.

Henry had unlimited market upside to flog his Model T’s to 1920’s America.

But he would never have conceived of the rich growth afforded by a government -mandated market such as modern day Australia’s superannuation guarantee system.

And that is where the vertical integration analogy must stop. For beyond this point the future looks obscene. I argue that vertical integration in wealth management and financial services has a decidedly horizontal, flat-line future.

For, unlike Henry Ford, financial institutions don’t make badged hard commodities (and yes, I include the branded golf umbrellas in this comment).  They operate in the intangible market of promises and pieces of paper.

Put another way: financial institutions are custodians, by and large, of other people’s money. Contracts are forged between institution and financial service client not in the quality of the steel nor the amount of shiny chrome on the bumper. Financial service contracts are forged – or should be – in trust, ethics, fiduciary obligation and empathy with the customer.  Reputation. Brand. Customer affinity. Remember Henry, Emanuel and Mayer Lehman anyone? The original Lehman Brothers.

Yes, of course rationalist economics apply in order to sustain proper functioning commercial systems. And a robust Government and statutory regulation.

But at the end of the day, all of us in the financial services ecosystem are bound by the same truth: we exist at the sole pleasure of the humble customer.

Start treating people with a McKinsey-style zeal for widgetry and numerical order and presenting it as something that it is not (ie: sales dressed as financial advice) and the system starts to creak.  Badly. Add fraud, which is a potent symptom of the internalised volume/reward cycle and you have a recipe for complete disaster. It needs to be fixed. Client centric financial advice has no place in an integrated product world. It is that simple.

Vertical integration works great… for car manufacturers. Consumers go to a Ford dealership when they choose to buy a car. They expect to buy a product designed, manufactured, marketed and sold by Ford. They understand the simple contract of purchase price, taxes, trade-in valuations and drive away prices. Hell, they might even finance the purchase through an affiliated financing company and be happy to pay a disclosed commission to the sales guy. Why is this important?

Because today, July 15 David Murray, chairman of the Financial System Inquiry, will stand to deliver the FSI’s interim report to the National Press Club. I for one will be intently listening to his key messages to determine how the largest elephant in the room might be addressed.

The elephant is the systemically uncompetitive nature of vertical integration (actually, vertical monopoly) embedded within Australia’s largest banking, superannuation and wealth management institutions.

For in the light of recent revelations concerning ASIC and the Commonwealth Bank, and 61 calls by the Australian Senate – including for a Royal Commission – will it really fall to the FSI to flatten out the vertical mess?

These are interesting times.

Bruce Madden is a leading communications strategist and opinion leader with 20-plus years working inside the financial services marketplace. The views expressed are entirely his own.

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