Incoming AMP CEO reveals plans
Craig Dunn
The 20th chief executive of AMP, Craig Dunn, plans to focus a lot of attention on growing the company’s financial planning division when he officially steps into the role in January, 2008.
In taking over the reins from AMP’s current head Andrew Mohl, who is resigning for personal reasons, Dunn said he was supportive of the existing strategy and its overarching framework, but identified growth opportunities.
“If I look at AMP Financial Services, for example, there are many opportunities to grow this business … in particular we see substantial opportunity to grow planner productivity while introducing a range of new and exciting initiatives to grow our planner numbers,” he said.
“It is a very interesting time in financial planning at the moment — it’s akin to the Australian mining industry where there is more demand than supply and one of our challenges is to get more planners on the ground and for them to be more productive.”
Dunn revealed a three-pronged approach to achieving this goal, involving a planner academy to train individuals who already have a financial services background, a staff graduate program and the ramping up of AMP’s recruitment activity.
Regarding AMP’s asset management business, AMP Capital Investors, Dunn said he could see opportunities in property, infrastructure and Asia that were worth pursuing.
“My priority going forward is to build on the success and momentum AMP has already achieved under Andrew’s leadership and take the company to the next level of high performance,” he added.
“While I expect that any change that takes place will be more evolutionary than revolutionary I do see opportunities to grow the company and drive the AMP business harder.”
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