Iress names interim wealth CEO and bolsters super segment
In a year of restructure and change for the firm, Amara Haqqani, chief operating officer for wealth in Australia and New Zealand, has been promoted to acting chief executive for wealth at Iress.
She joined the firm in August alongside chief customer officer, Kelli Willmer, and has been responsible for the delivery of strategic, operational and financial outcomes for the wealth business.
Haqqani takes up the chief executive role in the interim from Harry Mitchell, who has been named group executive for wealth management and UK.
It follows a slew of changes to Iress’ senior leadership teams announced earlier this year, including the appointment of former Pendal executive Cameron Williamson as new group chief financial officer.
Additionally, the firm named four new chief executives dedicated to each business segment effective 1 July 2023: Jason Hoang as CEO of trading and market data, Paul Giles as CEO of superannuation, John Harris as CEO of managed portfolio, and Harry Mitchell as the then-CEO of wealth management.
Other appointments included Justin Schmitt as chief operating officer, David Hentschke as chief innovation officer, and Ana Smith as chief transformation and strategy officer.
Under this company-wide reorganisation, Iress said it has reappointed some 2,000 people to a new product-led structure to drive performance.
The firm also seeks to build on its superannuation teams as it bolsters this business segment.
“Superannuation at Iress is a growth business,” said Giles.
“We are scaling and optimising our resources and technology, especially our core registry system, Acurity, to meet the growing pipeline of work and scale of demand for our software.
“It’s an exciting time at Iress and we are keen to be able to work with superannuation funds to optimise the use of our digital-first technology to deliver efficiencies that reduce the cost to serve to members and improve retirement outcomes.”
He described the firm as a committed partner to support Australia’s retirement partners, adding: “To do this we need to expand our Australian-based expert-led support team.”
Reflecting on the Quality of Advice Review (QAR), which expands the scope of advice to super funds, Giles noted a promising opportunity for the firm.
“The QAR measures present an opportunity for the superannuation industry to embrace different ways of delivering advice and make it more accessible for superannuation members. We are actively contributing to the consultation process and looking at opportunities to develop new software products that empower superannuation funds to deliver on QAR,” he told Money Management.
In its half-year results, Iress reported underlying EBITDA of $59.5 million. According to chief executive Marcus Price, it was making excellent headway with its transformation initiatives but the results didn’t reflect the firm’s long-term earnings potential.
“We remain acutely focused on completing the next steps with a view to delivering FY24 exit run-rate underlying EBITDA 20–30 per cent higher than FY23,” Price said.
AUTHOR
Rhea Nath
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