The managing directors of three AMP-owned financial planning licensees – Genesys Wealth Advisers, ipac and Charter Financial Planning – are to quit their roles and leave AMP.
Tim Steele, managing director of the Genesys and ipac, and Kevin Stone (pictured), managing director of Charter, are expected to leave AMP by the end of June.
Steele’s move follows a thorough strategic review of the direction of AMP’s financial planning businesses, with a decision announced in November last year to effectively shut down Genesys.
Professional Planner understands that management of ipac and Charter will be consolidated into a single role, and that AMP plans to launch an executive search to fill the role.
A spokesperson for AMP told Professional Planner that “Tim and Kevin have both decided that now is the time for them to look at new opportunities outside AMP”.
Single manager, multiple licensees
The spokesperson said AMP believes the “single manager for multiple licensees” model had been shown to work, and its extension to ipac and Charter is “ultimately about making sure we have got the best strategy in place to help our customers, and so we can concentrate on the services and support that advisers value”.
The management structure of AMP’s licensees was revamped in January 2014 in moves that saw Steve Helmich elevated to executive director of financial planning.
AMP Financial Planning and Hillross Financial Services were consolidated under the management of Michael Guggenheimer; and former Hillross boss Hugh Humphrey moved into the role of managing director of channel strategy and information.
Steele assumed dual control of ipac and Genesys; former Genesys head Paul Robertson departed; and AMP’s then-director of advice (strategy and development), Andrew Waddell, also departed.
AMP is not alone in reorganising its senior financial planning ranks. The general managers of Apogee and Godfrey Pembroke – Fiona Navarro and Sean Allen, respectively – recently left those organisations, leaving parent company MLC searching for long-term replacements for both.
