Bruce has over 30 years’ experience in financial services with an extensive track record across investment platforms, superannuation and life insurance.  Bruce has held a number of senior positions spanning finance, operations and strategic development with companies including NAB Wealth, Aviva Australia and Xplore Wealth Limited. Prior to joining Lonsec, Bruce was Group Executive – Xplore Wealth at HUB24 Limited leading the Xplore business whilst assisting in its integration into the broader HUB24 business.

Naomi Christopher was most recently National Manager – Marketing and Communications at Implemented Portfolios (IPL) and joined Lonsec Holdings following the acquisition of IPL. Her career in financial services spans 13 years, where she has worked in similar marketing and communications related roles at other financial services businesses such as Midwinter Financial Services (a Bravura owned company) and SQM Research, the funds research and ratings house.

Lonsec CEO and Managing Director of IPL, Mike Wright says “Over the past six months, both the Lonsec and IPL teams have worked tirelessly to understand each business and client groups. I am excited about the growth plans we have for the coming year and the integration of our services to all clients.  Bruce has led this integration project and I am delighted that he is joining in a permanent capacity.”

“I am equally delighted that Naomi is taking on the broader Head of Marketing and PR role across the group as she built IPL’s formidable marketing presence” continues Mike.

As part of the integration of the businesses, key Lonsec portfolio managers have been appointed to the IPL Asset Allocation and Investment Committee (AAIC), which is responsible for the investment decisions relating to the IPL portfolios. Lukasz de Pourbaix joined long-standing independent members of the committee post the acquisition of the business by Lonsec in 2022 and will be joined by Nick Field, Associate Portfolio Manager for Lonsec’s listed suite of portfolios.  Nick has extensive portfolio management and investment research experience having held various investment research and portfolio management roles for the past 20 years. Nick will provide additional insights and rigour to the AAIC governance process.

Finally, Lonsec has also bolstered its internal portfolio governance framework with the establishment of a group Product Investment Oversight Committee (PIOC). The PIOC is a sub board committee to the Lonsec Board and is responsible for ensuring that the IPL and Lonsec portfolios have the necessary personnel, processes and risk management frameworks in place. Lonsec has appointed Dr Steve Garth as independent chair of the PIOC. Dr Garth brings to the PIOC two decades of experience in key Financial Services roles, including a broad career managing Australian and Global portfolios.

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Naomi Christopher and David Plumb.

Australian based Managed Discretionary Accounts provider, Implemented Portfolios Limited (Implemented Portfolios) has announced the strategic appointments of Naomi Christopher to National Manager – Marketing and Communications, and David Plumb as independent non-executive director.

The company celebrated reaching $1Billion in Funds Under Management, as well as bolstering its senior management team back in March of this year. It has since experienced further accelerated growth – recording $1.19Billion in Funds Under Management as of this week. With the appointment of Naomi and David the company aims to continue this momentum as it prepares for some major upcoming projects and potential announcements.

Naomi brings to the Implemented Portfolios team a diverse range of Marketing, Communications and Public Relations experience and a career in Financial Services spanning over ten years. She has previously held similar roles at companies – Midwinter Financial Services (now owned by Bravura Solutions) and Funds Ratings Research house – SQM Research.

David joins the Board with extensive experience in similar roles also – holding Board positions across the financial services industry. Examples of these include Chairman of the superannuation trustee board at Westpac / BT Westpac and Chairman of Allianz Retire+ (a joint venture company between Allianz and Pimco issuing specialist retirement products). David also sits on the Board of a major NSW government body – iCare.

Naomi is delighted to be joining Implemented Portfolios, saying “It’s exciting to be entering such an innovative organisation amidst a time of significant change in the financial services industry.

“I have a firm belief in the leadership and the whole team at Implemented Portfolios, as well as their philosophy towards the present and future of investment management and financial advice. Most importantly I’m a big believer the positive outcomes their unique service is bringing to advisers and their clients.”

Chief Executive and Chairman of the Board at Implemented Portfolios – Greg Kirk is extremely pleased to make this announcement, saying “Both appointments will add significant specialist skills to the Board and the Executive, at a critical time in the evolution of our business.”

“Importantly, Naomi and David do not only bring successful career experience – they share an unrelenting conviction for ensuring that our clients end up living their one best life though the services that Implemented Portfolio delivers.”

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Virtual advice disruption: is your business ready?

The new digital era charging through our industry brings with it a collision of sales, marketing, social interaction, technology and human behaviour that is truly fascinating.  This collision can also be dangerous for businesses that are unprepared, particularly service businesses.

It’s no secret that we are changing the way we use technology and why we use technology – particularly when it comes to engaging with our service providers. One need only to look at this advertisement for eBay to realise that times are a changing.

It’s not just the new wave of consumers that are recoil from traditional engagement tactics, it’s the quickly becoming the majority of consumers. These consumers shun an elongated process that has multiple friction points – they desire genuine engagement rather than cold sales techniques, look for third-party reassurance through product reviews of previous buyers, value visual aids and relate to a language that conversational rather than intricate and detailed.

If we want to retain these consumers (as well as pick up the up-and-coming ones) we need to be responding positively to this shake up and, to do this, we need to do two things.

• Provide appealing solutions for consumers that are relatable, meaningful, easily understood and communicated.

• Increase businesses efficiency in regards to process, communication and engaging with clients in the ways they feel most comfortable. Every client has different needs, so having a variety of different touch points on offer is where successful businesses will really gain a unique edge.

The need and expectation is clear. We need to be providing service options to clients that reflect our client’s current day to day operations. And it’s clear that everyday life is rapidly becoming digital.

So what are the solutions?

Those who have up-to-date tools and processes are not only more productive, but also more likely to succeed during the era of digital transformation. The good news is that technology providers are well onto the mission already, understanding that there is a great need from the consumer – and much of the industry has already began to catch on.

Even more importantly, these technology providers understand that they can’t all provide everything in one solution. Providers are moving toward a “collaborative co-opetition” approach where they link arms to give advisers the choice to tailor their own service offering, via open API – i.e. software integration.

SuiteBox and Midwinter is a perfect example of this being the case. The two companies have integrated their advice solutions in order to provide advisers with the ability to engage their clients via video, in a seamless compliant process – with no double entry or multiple friction points. Each Virtual Advice meeting can be scheduled, undertaken and saved to the adviser’s CRMs (for compliance purposes) in the one process. The ability to screen share, sign electronic documents and take clients through their total portfolio can all be done easily with both software applications speaking to each other during the entire process and all parts of the meeting saved directly to the client’s file notes for reference at any later point.

We’ll be doing a live demo of this during the AFA National Adviser Conference next week and would love you to check it out. Whether you use either cloud applications or not, it will be a great opportunity for advisers to see in real time a genuine example of what the future of advice is going to look like.

Even more importantly, we will be showcasing how technology is working hard to ensure that advisers will not only be able to meet their clients’ engagement requirements, but when it all boils down to it – be able to generate, provide and deliver advice easier, at lower cost, in less time and at scale.

By Andy Marshall & Naomi Christopher

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The Midwinter / SuiteBox virtual advice live demo can be seen on Thursday 6^th October at 12.45pm at the Midwinter Stand – Exhibition centre – AFA National Adviser Conference 2016

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