Kiwi Wealth has hired Gordon Pfeiffer as head of KiwiSaver.
Pfeiffer took up the newly created role in July, joining the Wellington-based operation from the Todd Family Office, where he was head of product and service support for three years.
Pfeiffer fills the spot at Kiwi Wealth that previously fell under the head of product responsibilities handled until recently by Melissa Vasta. Vasta was bumped up to general manager product and retail in April, replacing incumbent, Joe Bishop, who finished his eight-year career at the government-owned investment house this April to assume the CEO position at the Police and Families Credit Union (PFCU).
The old head of product role is now split between, Pfeiffer, and Morne Redgard, who was promoted to head of digital and customer experience.
“As KiwiSaver is such a key focus for us it made sense to bring on someone who was really focussed on that area, rather than spread across all products and getting Gordon onboard was a great win for us,” Vasta said.
Prior to Todd, Pfeiffer spent almost five years at Public Trust as national manager business customer services following stints at the Accident Compensation Corporation and Kiwibank. He also held roles at a string of big-name offshore financial institutions including Allianz Global Investors, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan.
Kiwi Wealth is part of the Kiwi Group Holdings family, owned by the government via associated entities including the ACC, the NZ Superannuation Fund and NZ Post. As at the end of September, the Kiwi Wealth KiwiSaver scheme reported funds under management in excess of $5.3 billion, according to Morningstar figures.
Also last week, a familiar face in the NZ financial services sector, Binu Paul, popped up in another newly established position at the Financial Markets Authority (FMA). Paul, creator of KiwiSaver comparison tool, SavvyKiwi, was named FMA fintech lead specialist.
Paul had been consulting to the FMA for some time in addition to building his own business interests, including NZ’s first fintech conference, Finnotec, which ran for several years until 2019.
Before launching SavvyKiwi he served for several years as head of business strategy and development for Nikko Asset Management NZ. In a previous guise, Paul was head of the NZ research house, FundSource.
The FMA has also promoted Fiona Whyte to specialist lead integrated financial system, tackling the other big industry trend – environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing. After a 23-year career in NZ banking, Whyte has spent the last seven years at the FMA as senior adviser in the conduct assessment team.
Paul and Whyte report to director regulation, Liam Mason, and capital markets director, Sarah Vrede, respectively.
Elsewhere, Mel Hewitson has resigned as director of Sargon NZ, the company formerly known as Heritage Trustees, leaving just two members on the board of the in-limbo firm.
Hewitson, head of governance at Trustees Executors until March 2018, joined Sargon (then still Heritage) later in the same year as the company geared up to challenge the incumbents in the NZ licensed supervisor market.
Heritage was granted a supervisor licence late in 2017, about 12 months before aggressive Australian superannuation administration ‘disruptor’, Sargon, snapped up the NZ operation for a reported $10 million.
However, the Sargon Australian business collapsed under a weight of debt and corporate distress earlier this year with Heritage (renamed Sargon NZ in 2019) caught in the crossfire.
In September, the Financial Markets Authority cancelled the Heritage supervisor licence on request of the new Sargon owner, Pacific Infrastructure Partners (PIP) – a private equity concern held by Matthew Kibble and Teddy Wasserman.
However, PIP chief executive, Marcus Price, said Sargon planned to resurrect its NZ operations at some point, probably in association with an established local player.
With the exit of Hewison, who resigned after Edward Russell (former Heritage managing director) and chair Richard Hanna also left this year, only Auckland-based Harold Titter and Australian Darran Goodger remain on the Sargon NZ board.