In this month’s edition of Movers and Shakers, we look at the latest hires, promotions and personnel changes in financial services across Australia and New Zealand.
Jon Sutton has been announced as Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer for Bank of Queensland, effective immediately. Jon Sutton’s appointment follows the departure of former CEO Stuart Grimshaw in August last year.
John Flavell, Executive General Manager of Wealth Advice at National Australia Bank, has been unveiled as the new Chief Executive Officer of Mortgage Choice and will replace current CEO Michael Russell in April this year.
Kathy Vincent, Head of Product Strategy for Retail Investment Platforms at NAB, has been appointed as acting Executive General Manager of Retail Wealth Platforms following the departure of Dean Thomas to AMP. Thomas was unveiled as AMP’s Director of Product, Strategy and Services earlier this month.
Carole Berndt has been announced as Managing Director of Global Transaction Banking at ANZ and will report to ANZ’s CEO of International and Institutional Banking, Andrew Géczy.
Renae Smith has been announced as AIA Australia’s Chief Marketing Officer, replacing Tim Tez who moved to MetLife in December last year.
Cameron Doig has joined Kinetic Super as Executive Officer for Customer Growth, responsible for leading the fund’s sales teams. He will be joined by fellow incoming Executive Officers Kay Clancy and Chris Green, in charge of Corporate Services and Customer Experience respectively.
Debbie Bennett has been appointed as Chief Operating Officer of BetaShares, having stepped down from her role as Technical Sales Manager at CitiCorp.
Whitney Drayton has been appointed as Managing Director of Artisan Partners to lead their Australian operations, following on from the launch of the investment management firm’s Sydney office in December last year.
Andrew Hewison has been announced as the Managing director of Hewison Private Wealth, taking the reins from his father, John Hewison. John will become the firm’s Non-Executive Chair, replacing Rob Roberts who retired as Chair at the end of 2014 after 30 years in the role.
Notable departures
Anne Fuchs, Chief Commercial Officer of the Association of Financial Advisers, has stepped down to become the National Manager for Retail Distribution and Advice at Sunsuper.
IAG shuffles executive cabinet as part of new technology operating framework
IAG has witnessed a number of high-profile executives reshuffling, as part of IAG’s introduction of a new operating model aimed at increasing efficiency across its technology teams.
The insurer’s new technology unit will sit within a newly-formed Enterprise Operations division to be led by former Chief Operating Officer of Direct Insurance, Alex Harrison.
Ian Frew, CGU’s Chief Information Officer, will become Director of Transformation and IT Integration at IAG and Tony Craddock will take on the reins as Executive General Manager of Program Delivery.
Graham Falzon has been announced as the Executive General Manager of Corporate Services at IAG and is joined by Christine Kennedy, the new Executive General Manager for OneTech Australia.
Julie Batch, formerly the Director of IAG Singapore, has been unveiled as Chief Analytics Officer at IAG, together with Leona Murphy, who has been announced as the Chief Transformation Officer. They are joined by Ram Kumar, Chief Analytics Office for IAG, who will be focusing on data management and advanced analytics.
In addition to this, Brian Schwartz, Chairman of Insurance Australia Group Limited, has appointed Tom Pockett to the IAG Board as a Non-Executive Director.