Pepper confirms new regional, state leadership roles

Included in this development is the appointment of Alessandro Di Toro, who has been named as Pepper’s inaugural regional manager – south, covering Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. 

According to the lender, Mr Di Toro comes to the role from ANZ, where he served as the state manager for Western Australia and South Australia for over six years, leading a team of 10 BDMs.

He will be based in Western Australia. 

Joining Mr Di Toro as the first regional manager – north, which encompasses NSW, the ACT and Queensland, is Drew Clegg. 

Mr Clegg first joined Pepper in 2017 from Bank of Queensland, serving as the senior BDM with the non-bank’s NSW sales team between 2018 to 2022. 

He will be based in NSW. 

Further, Pepper has said Pasquale Caia will be its inaugural Victoria state growth manager – a role said by the lender to partly focus on “identifying new opportunities to gain market share”.

Mr Caia joined Pepper in 2013, with his most recent role being senior business development manager. 

He will be based in Victoria.

As per a spokesperson from Pepper, all three appointees commenced their role on Tuesday (26 April). 

Pepper general manager, mortgages and commercial lending Barry Saoud commented that these appointments strengthen its “commitment to delivering our market leading and innovative broker service proposition, driving an increase in broker utilisation, and reinforcing our relationships with our existing and new business partners”.

Mr Saoud added that these appointments “demonstrate our accelerated growth and the exciting opportunities that come with it”.  

Pepper Money’s head of mortgages – retail broker Siobhan Williams said that was she thrilled to “congratulate our team members on these exciting new appointments and opportunities”, adding that these appointments reflect the lender’s focus on the broker channel.  

“Pepper Money is investing heavily in the broker channel, with a focus on having the right people and leveraging our industry leading digital tools to allow for a more seamless approach between the customer,  broker, and our partners,” she said.

“Our focus is about reducing effort across all interactions with transparency and scale.”

Ms Williams added that Pepper’s team of BDMs and relationship managers is “incredibly important when it comes to ensuring brokers across the country are fully supported now – more than ever”.

[Related: Pepper Money launches ‘Broker Shout Out’ campaign]