NZ Funds chief operating officer (COO), Phil Doak, has joined Auckland-headquartered consultancy firm, Mosaic Financial Services Infrastructure as a partner.
Myles Allan, Mosaic founder, said Doak is the third full partner for the fast-growing financial technology consulting firm, which will celebrate its 10th anniversary later this month.
Allan said Doak’s experience across the full gamut of financial services operations would be a valuable addition to the Mosaic skill-set.
“Phil has a strong pedigree as a chief operating officer and general manager with a thorough understanding of transformational change,” he said.
Doak comes to Mosaic following a 14-year career with NZ Funds – the last eight as COO. Before that he served about 16 years with Westpac NZ in general management, strategic development and wholesale banking roles including 10 years on the executive team
Mosaic now employs a network of about 36 consultants, Allan said, operating across multiple financial services genres.
He said regulation and the increasing scale of the NZ financial industry – epitomised by the $60 billion plus KiwiSaver market – was spurring demand for Mosaic services.
“NZ financial businesses are looking to technology to cope with the long-running regulatory changes,” Allan said. “But greater scale is also pushing the industry to adopt more sophisticated technological solutions.
“It can’t run on legacy technology islands joined up by tactical solutions any more.”
Elsewhere last week another industry veteran, Wayne Stechman, handed in his resignation as Harbour Asset Management independent director.
Stechman will end his more than 10-year stint on the Harbour board – where he also served as chair of the audit and risk committee – on March 31.
The former head of Australasian equities at Tower Asset Management joined as Harbour director when the Wellington firm arose late in 2009 from the ashes of the AllianceBernstein NZ operation.
Stechman left Tower in 2008 following an 18-year career with the seminal NZ investment business, now part of Fisher Funds. He was also a trustee of the National Provident Fund and panel member for Financial Services Complaints Limited (FSCL).
In a statement, Harbour founder, Andrew Bascand said: “I’d like to thank Wayne for his commitment to looking after Harbour’s clients and ensuring that their best interests are at the core of all decisions.
“On a personal note, I’d also like to thank him for sharing his advice with me; as a portfolio manager himself with decades of experience managing equities, his guidance has been instrumental to our work in building Harbour over the past ten years.”
During Stechman’s board tenure Harbour has grown from scratch to manage more than $4 billion across multiple asset classes.
Harbour is expected to name a new independent director later this week.
Meanwhile, Forsyth Barr has taken out another independent financial advisory business with the purchase of Wanaka-based Aspiring Wealth Management last week.
Aspiring (no relation to the Auckland wholesale investment firm, Aspiring Asset Management) will officially join the ForBar family on April 1.
The Aspiring deal follows a similar acquisition of Hastings-based advice firm, SJP Investment Group, by Forsyth Barr last September.
Founded by Ben and Hamish Taylor in 2006, Aspiring has about $150 million under advice with all trading and investment management currently directed via a JBWere platform.
Ben Taylor, who now runs Aspiring, will remain as an investment adviser with the Wanaka Forsyth Barr business – the 22nd office of the national broking chain.
In a release, Forsyth Barr head, Neil Paviour-Smith, said: “… we know his clients will continue to benefit from Ben’s insight and investment management, backed by the expertise and breadth of Forsyth Barr”.
Competition for advisory firms is heating up in the lead-up to the Financial Services Legislation Amendment Act (FSLAA) era – kicking off this June – as increased compliance costs encourage consolidation.
Forsyth Barr, which claims about $20 billion under management or advice, has more than 350 employers including 130 investment advisers (counting its new Wanaka office).