A new leader

I have spent the last 15 years in financial services and during that time, I have spent a lot of time working with the third party industry. As such, I am now excited to be properly part of the industry.

I really enjoy being in a business where you are a proper challenger.

I like going to work in an environment where you don’t have breakfasts and lunches delivered because you have money coming out of your ears, but where you have to come in and think: ‘What am I going to do today?How can we ensure we are different and better than anyone else?’

I want to continue to enhance the Aussie brand both internally and externally. I want to know what our brokers want, what is going to keep them with Aussie for the long term, and then deliver on that.

Since my appointment in June, I have already visited all of our franchisees because I am keen to know what makes them tick and what more Aussie can do to help them run efficient and successful businesses.
From those preliminary conversations, I understand that our brokers want a software platform that does more than help them lodge loans – a software platform that truly helps them run a more effective business.

We are working towards that now. There is no denying that we have had some teething issues with the implementation of Toolbox over the past few months, but I do believe we have the ability to overcome these and really make Toolbox an industry-leading platform.

Is that the final goal for Toolbox?

Absolutely. We want to have a system that really helps the broker run their business. We want it to be a tool that is effective and efficient. We also want the platform to effectively manage the broker’s back-office administration.

Over time, we will extend our goals for the platform. Once we have it bedded down and running at optimum efficiency, we would like to add further tools to the platform, including commission management.

Why do we want to do that? Partly because we believe brokers will sell more as a result of having ‘state of the art’ technology, but partly because our aim is to retain Aussie brokers. If you have an IT platform that is really strong, then brokers will think twice before moving on.

As an industry, mortgage broking provides me with both intellectual challenges and people challenges, which is one of the reasons I am so excited to be on board – there are so many opportunities.
At Aussie, you have brokers who are passionate about the business of broking and passionate about being successful small business owners.

Better yet, Aussie is a business that is small enough that you have the ability to create change very easily.
I have watched Aussie for seven years, and I have always thought, ‘It would be really good to be the CEO of Aussie’. So, I can’t tell you how excited I am to be here.

Personally, I would like to see this business achieve all of its potential. I believe this business can continue to be the leader in mortgage broking and continue to set the standard. If you look back at the past 20 years, the reason Aussie is so successful is because it has done things differently to its competitors.

Are there any other potential acquisition targets on the radar?

I think the biggest opportunity for us is to continue to grow the business organically. That said, if the right thing came along that we could add capability to, then we would look at it.

nMB was a strong business that we felt we could add value to. Similarly, if another business opportunity was to come along, we would have to look at it through the capability lens as well as the money lens.

Over the last 12 months, we have grown the Aussie book by 8.5 per cent, which we believe is about one per cent higher than the rest of the industry. We are really pleased with that result. To continue at these growth rates, we need to continue to innovate and support our brokers.

If I survey the first few months for this financial year, we are already looking very strong and have settled good volumes. I don’t want to jinx us, but in a market that is very flat, we are looking pretty good.

John Symond has made it clear Aussie will continue to grow in size and scale over the coming years. Do you agree with this?

Definitely. More than 50 per cent of our brokers have now been with Aussie for more than five years, which is a huge achievement.

We have put on 225 brokers across the retail and franchise channels over the last 12 months.
We are no longer seen by the industry as the launch pad for new brokers, and I believe this will only improve moving forward.

I believe the franchise stores have reached a certain level of maturity now that it makes sense for them to deepen their reach. They are now in the ideal position to expand their reach and really achieve some significant settlements.