Conexus Financial, the publisher of Investment Magazine and Professional Planner, is adding five new staff members across its sales and editorial divisions, as part of a wider expansion of the business.
The most recent recruit, Amanda Field, will join the Sydney-based financial media and events company on February 18 as its new head of business development for domestic institutional conferences.
Prior to joining Conexus, Field was the senior business development manager at the Centre for Investor Education. She also spent more than nine years at investment decision analysis company Inalytics, and was managing director of its Asia-Pacific business.
She has worked in financial services for 25 years and held senior roles at BNY Mellon and State Street.
“I’m delighted to be joining Conexus Financial, which has a great reputation in delivering world-class conferences and strives to keep institutional investors at the forefront of this challenging, volatile market environment,” Field said. “We will continue to connect investors with industry leaders to expand networks, impart knowledge and exchange ideas, so the asset owners can meet their growth objectives.”
Conexus has 11 annual onshore conferences, beginning with the Chair Forum in January, which sets the scene for the year. The events span diverse topics such as equities, retirement and group insurance, among others.
“At Conexus Financial, we live in the continual hope that we can champion progress across the financial system and harness the inherent power of the global financial markets to enrich the social and human world,” Conexus chief executive Colin Tate said. “Ultimately, we hope to leave a lasting legacy that will outlive us all. Our talented new hires are central to these aspirations.”
The institutional editorial team has also been bolstered, with the addition of veteran finance journalist Elizabeth Fry, who started in January as a senior journalist writing for Investment Magazine.
Fry has worked as a financial journalist for more than 25 years, and has also spent time as an investment analyst. Most recently, she was an online editor and writer at Sydney-based publication AB+F. Other publications she has written for include The Financial Times, The Australian Financial Review and the Economist-owned CFO Magazine.
Fry said she was looking forward to covering a sector in transition.
“I’m moving from the debt markets to Australia’s savings scheme [and it] coincides with the release of the Productivity Commission’s report on the superannuation industry and the raging debate on the best way to manage it,” she said.
The Conexus sales team has also grown, with three additions across both the retail and institutional divisions.
George Dagas and Thelis Moral-Abad have both joined as business development managers for Professional Planner, an online and print publication for financial advisers.
Moral-Abad was most recently based in the UK, working as a senior relationship manager at Fidelity International, where he spent 10 years. He is passionate about Australia’s changing financial services sector.
“I have come from a background of providing unbiased and transparent guidance to high-net-worth private investors in the UK in a post-RDR [Retail Distribution Review] world, where the fund management landscape has changed dramatically,” Moral-Abad said.
Dagas also has wide experience in the banking and finance industry across retail, private banking and investments. Over the last five years, he ran his own financial services firm across Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia.
I have a passion for the financial services industry in a global context and my experience working across multiple international markets has instilled in me the importance of having a robust, ethical and professional industry with clients’ best interests at the forefront of what we do,” Dagas said.
Rounding out the sales team additions is Sean Finn, a business development manager for Investment Magazine, whose perspective on the role of Conexus Financial in the institutional market is similar to Dagas’s.
Finn has a background in financial advice and also has been an Army cadet. He joins the company from the Rainmaker Group, where he was a business development manager.
“Superannuation is of vital importance to all Australians and it is my hope that Investment Magazine can contribute to these funds delivering positive outcomes for their members by way of transparent industry intelligence,” he said.
