New Plant at Asteron Life

Asteron Life has restructured its adviser distribution business as it strives to add 170 new advisers over the next five years.

Former general manager of operations at Aon Hewitt Financial Advice, David Plant, has joined Asteron Life as executive manager of operations and strategy implementation, reporting to executive general manager for adviser distribution, Jordan Hawke.

Plant will manage the shared service functions of Asteron Life’s three adviser distribution businesses: Guardian Advice, Standard Pacific and Suncorp Financial Planning. Shared services include paraplanning, events management and technical services. Previously, Simon Harris, executive manager of Guardian Advice, had absorbed some responsibility for shared services.

Hawke said the new structure gave Asteron Life the best chance of achieving its goal to grow from 330 aligned advisers at present to more than 500 in the next five years by freeing Harris to focus on adviser recruitment and expanding the Guardian Advice proposition.

“In order to do that, we need to have our executive team focused on its core jobs without getting distracted,” he said.