Former FPA chair recognised in King’s Birthday Honours

A financial planner and former Financial Planning Association of Australia (FPA) chair has been awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in this year’s King’s Birthday Honours List. 

Queensland-based Neil Kendall was awarded an OAM “for service to the financial planning sector”.

He currently works as a financial planner at Tupicoffs and was a former chair of the FPA and chair of the global Financial Planning Standards Board (FPSB) Council from 2016 to 2018.

He joined the FPA board as a director in 2010 and was appointed chair in November 2014 until November 2018.

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He had previously been nominated for Australian of the Year in 2012 and 2014 for his work providing assistance to victims of rogue financial planners.

Kendall was a previous winner of the Money Management’s Financial Planner of the Year award in 2006.

Kendall was one of two financial planners from Tupicoffs to receive an award as his senior colleague, Ross McConachie, also received an OAM for “service to Australia-Japan relations and to business”. He had worked as an adviser at the Queensland firm since 2003 after more than 20 years at KPMG.

Congratulating Kendall on the achievement, the Financial Advisers Association of Australia (FAAA) said Kendall had "selflessly provided exceptional leadership to the FPA (now FAAA) over the years".

"During Neil’s time as FPA Chair the terms financial planner / financial adviser were enshrined in legislation, the inaugural FAAA 10 Point Plan was created, the Financial Planning Education Council was gifted to the profession, planners were given powers to witness statutory declarations, paraplanner workshops were implemented and many other ideas to support our members were initiated," it stated.

"He was pivotal in the FAAA’s evolution to a professional association and in raising standards for members."

In Fortitude Valley, Queensland, Diane Jameson was awarded an OAM for service to the community. She was a founder and chief executive of Horsey Jameson Bird, a financial planner since 1996 and founding member of the Boutique Financial Planning Principals Association. 

Meanwhile, former Macquarie CEO, Nicholas Moore, was appointed an Officer of Australia (AO) for “distinguished service to the finance, business, and commerce sectors to arts administration, and to education.”

As well as his work at Macquarie where he spent 32 years including 10 as CEO, Moore was also an inaugural member of the Financial Regulator Assessment Authority (FRAA) that had been set up following the Hayne royal commission.

This body is tasked with assessing and reporting on the effectiveness and capability of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA). 

ASX non-executive director, Yasmin Allen, was appointed a member of the order (AO) for significant service to finance and business and to the not-for-profit sector. 

She was acting president of the Takeovers Panel, Department of Treasury for 2019, a non-executive director at QBE Insurance since 2022; a fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD); and a member (and former council member) of Chief Executive Women (CEW). She was vice-president at Deutsche Bank, Sydney from 1999 to 2001.

Additionally, Mercer senior partner, David Knox, was made a member of the order (AO) for significant service to the financial sector.

He served as president of the Actuaries Institute in 2000 and had been named Actuary of the Year in 1996 for his leading role developing internationally accepted standards of actuarial education.

from 1998 – 2003, Knox was an independent board member of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA).

In the superannuation space, former HESTA CEO and chair of TelstraSuper, Anne-Marie O'Loghlin, and Patricia Cross, member of the board of guardians at Future Fund, were appointed a member (AM).

Earlier this year in January’s Australia Day Honours, Jeff Morris, who blew the whistle on Commonwealth Bank’s financial planning malpractice in 2008, was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia. 

After joining Commonwealth Financial Planning, Morris became a whistleblower to the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) in relation to poor practices he observed within the bank’s financial services sector. 

Later in 2013, he blew the whistle again when ASIC mismanaged the information he provided for the case that later led to a Senate inquiry into ASIC in 2014. 

This became a catalyst for the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry in 2017, which Morris had campaigned for.