Guardian Advice: the sun rises in the east

Suncorp-owned dealer group Guardian Advice is intensifying its recruitment drive following the addition of 19 new financial advisers in Queensland in the last 12 months and the recent appointment of former MLC practice development manager, Andrew Hammelmann.

Hammelmann has joined the group as Queensland state manager, replacing Hugh McLennan, who remains with Guardian as Queensland practice development manager.

A keen cricketer with more than 17 years’ financial services experience, Hammelmann is responsible for attracting new advice practices, coaching and supervising authorised representatives in Queensland. He reports to Guardian Advice managing director Simon Harris.

Harris described Hammelmann’s brief as multi-faceted, but singled out monitoring and supervision as the main focus.

He said Hammelmann’s experience working for the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and more recently as head of compliance for MLC in Queensland made him the ideal candidate to enforce and drive professional standards across Guardian’s network of 190 advisers.

“ASIC’s recent determinations strongly reinforces that the regulator wants all licensees to appropriately monitor all their authorised representatives, and as an industry we should be doing that anyway as part of good practice if we want to be seen as a profession,” he said.

“Guardian has always been strong across the Eastern seaboard, but there has been a recent flight to security among advisers, which has benefited Guardian, given it has the strong Suncorp brand behind it.