Keri Jenkins, head of investments for the Wealthpoint advisory network, is set to leave the business later this year after joining the group from Fonterra in 2020.
According to a Wealthpoint spokesperson, Jenkins would likely finish up in June “to focus on growing a business she owns outside of the financial services industry”.
She “played an instrumental role in helping Wealthpoint build our investment proposition”, the spokesperson said.
“Aside from Keri’s significant contribution to the leadership team, she has built a very competent team of investment professionals so we’re confident we’ll be well placed when she eventually departs.”
Wealthpoint, which emerged out of the AMP adviser association in 2019, currently boasts more than $3.5 billion in funds under advice across various platforms, KiwiSaver and legacy products.
Jenkins played a key role in building the Wealthpoint-branded discretionary investment management services (DIMS) range that has since grown to about $180 million, the spokesperson said, as well as “leading our close strategic partnership with Consilium”.
Including the DIMS suite, Wealthpoint now holds about $600 million on the Consilium wrap with a further $400 million or so administered via other investment platforms (notably, the AMP-owned WealthView system).
Both Consilium and WealthView operate on FNZ platform technology.
The group also advises on roughly $1.8 billion of KiwiSaver money and $900 million in legacy investment products.
In 2020, Wealthpoint also named Makao Investments as asset consultant.
More than 170 advisers sit under the Wealthpoint financial advice provider licence.
“We will start our search for a new head of investments shortly,” the spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, another Consilium-associated advisory network, Become Wealth, has upgraded its relationship with the platform and advice support business to ‘partner’ status.
Become, headed by Joseph Darby, shifted to the Consilium wrap last year, consolidating about $100 million of funds under advice (FUA) in the platform: the Auckland-headquartered advisory business recently topped the $1 billion threshold for total FUA.
In a release, Consilium says the partner club is open to “independent advisory firms that have achieved a high level of growth and professionalism”. The group currently counts about 25 advisory firms as partners, a Consilium spokesperson said.
Consilium partner firms gain “access to a structured advice process, training and development, discovery sheets, advice templates, and communication tools that support firm growth and development”, the statement says, as well as an invite to the group’s annual conference.
Become was established in 2022 following the merger of Milestone Direct and medical sector advisory firm, Become.nz. Milestone Direct, co-founded by David Greenslade, branched off the wider Milestone network in 2012 and won the key NZ Defence Force financial advice role in 2015.
And elsewhere last month, FNZ notched up another executive-level appointment, hiring Aashish Kamat as chief financial officer to replace incumbent, Stewart Maclean.
Serving as CFO since last January, Maclean returns to a group finance director position.
Kamat has held several board roles in India since finishing a more than one-year stint as managing partner with the GCC Asia Growth Fund in March 2021.
Previously, he held high-ranking positions with a number of financial institutions in India, Singapore and the US including UBS, JP Morgan and Bank of America.
The new CFO will work with chief, Blythe Masters, and the executive committee “to drive the next phase of FNZ’s growth journey as the company continues to scale its platform and execute on its strategic priorities”, according to a release.
Masters took over the top executive role from FNZ founder, Adrian Durham, last September amid a leadership shake-up at the global investment administration behemoth.
She also joined the FNZ group board this February – bringing the director count to 14 of the now NZ-domiciled entity.
Established in Wellington in 2003, FNZ reports about US$1.5 trillion in assets under administration held on behalf of 650 institutions, 12,000 wealth managers and 24 million clients across 30 or so countries. The group employs approximately 6,000 staff.
In January, FNZ also named James Dunne as managing director for client management and business development.
Dunne previously spent about 14 years with the Spanish bank Santander in various positions in Brazil, Spain and the UK.