The Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) chief executive, Philip Kewin, is stepping down from the role after four years at the helm.
Kewin said with the new president, Michael Nowak, on board and solid foundations for the association’s future now was the right time to depart.
AFA’s general manager policy and professionalism, Phil Anderson, has been appointed acting CEO while the AFA board conducted a search for a new CEO.
“I am extremely proud of my achievements at the AFA, in particular the way we have represented advisers during what is undoubtedly the most challenging period the profession has ever experienced,” Kewin said.
“I would like to thank the AFA team for continuing to deliver outcomes that any large team would be proud of; our volunteer brigade of Communities of Practice, for continuing to build the AFA Community; our AFA Partners for their unwavering support for advice, and of course, our AFA members who continue to demonstrate endurance and resilience in unprecedented times, to deliver great outcomes for their clients.”
Commenting, Nowak said Kewin had advanced the AFA’s reputation as an influential professional body.
“Advisers have had no bigger advocate than Phil. His championing of adviser and member well-being was most significantly demonstrated by the establishment of AFA Care, which he initiated. While we will miss him, we thank him for all his efforts.”
Comments
Good on Phil Anderson. He's the "brains trust" @ the AFA and not many others (if any) know as much about regulation and the issues facing the industry as much as Phil.
The AFA has done nothing to save the destruction of the planning industry, but have allowed the banks and the Government to dictate to our industry and drive us into oblivion, with 30% of advisers left or leaving. Incredibly, ASIC is surprised and concerned that advice will not be affordable for the average Australian, let alone the thousands of planning business that no longer exist and the loss of tax revenue as a result. Clearly the right time to increase ASIC levy fees by 160%. Meanwhile more and more of the population are careering ahead financially unguided and mostly under insured. Even the AFA Sponsored Trowbridge says that the 'reforms' to the industry have gone way too far. Kewin pocketed 300k to 400k per year for 4 years, presiding over the worst period in history for Advisors and clients and now he is deserting the sinking ship without having achieved anything vaguely important and without any plans for charting the future of the industry... if there is a future!
Thank you Phil for your tireless work behind the scenes and best wishes on your future endeavours. Dark Knight... there is a future, and a bright one at that, once the small and noisy, narrow-sighted finger pointing scourge of the industry have had their hand forced. FASEA shenanigans aside, Australian advice clients of the future will unanimously advocate, through their communities, for the invaluable role of the professional financial adviser.
I wouldn't normally comment but seeing there is one passionate punter who has quite a bit to say, I'll add my $0.02.
I agree with the comments of White Knight.
Can you tell me what Mr Kewin and his highly paid AFA colleagues have actually achieved? Any progress on the dozens of issues that are killing our industry. Just on major win or even an advancement of any kind?
Get an actual practitioner into the role not a regulatory and policy guy masquerading as a practitioner like the FPA have.
Leaving aside the emotional aspects of your comments for a moment, you do raise an interesting point around organisational structure.
Both AFA and FPA have experienced practitioners as President, but their primary spokesperson is a CEO with limited, if any, practitioner experience. Ideally the practitioner President should be front and centre of these organistions, not the CEO. However the President has limited time to do so, because they are day to day practitioners!
I believe the AMA has a great model that solves this problem. As I understand it they appoint practising doctors as their full time president, and pay them sufficient salary to enable them to step away from their medical job for a while.
Hopefully the AFA and FPA (or a future combined association) could move towards this model.
Some of the comments are a bit unkind. I would like to extend a heartfelt thank-you to Phil Kewin for his efforts over the past 4 years. The work that the AFA and a core of engaged and invested professional stakeholders have put in to advocate and lobby for the future of all of the good practitioners for the great work they do for their clients everyday in this emerging profession, in an environment which has all too often been hijacked by vested interest and political partisanship, is frankly outstanding. The tireless work that Phil Anderson does, his amazing knowledge and his constant work with government and regulators and a wide variety of industry stakeholders, on our behalf, should be celebrated. The pendulum is slowly swinging back and we should all get on board and be part of the solution. Congratulations to PK and PA and the broader AFA team. Keep up the good work.
Philip Kewin did not achieve anything for this industry. You only have to look at the Mortgage industry associations who actually banded together, campaigned for their members, called out politicians and through determined effort pulled their industry back from the brink. The big end of town retaliated with BID, but the Mortgage industry has fully recovered. The Heads of the IFA and AFA just sat back and let the so-called "reforms" create the "train-smash" that is now our industry. Any front line practitioner who has managed to stay viable will tell you that Australian Public are all the more worse off for the lack of action to bring about true reforms, not reforms that the big end of town prescribed for the Government. By the way did I mention the amount of funding support the IFA and AFA receive from the big end of town through support and sponsorship?
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