The process of replacing John McMurdo as head of Hillross will “take as long as it takes” but won’t affect the company’s plans to have all its advisers operating on a fee-for-service basis by July 1 this year, according to a director of AMP Financial Services, Seve Helmich.
Helmich told Professional Planner that while the search has already started, there is no hurry to finalise it. Hillross’s head of growth and mergers and acquisitions Ray Djani, will fill the role until a permanent replacement is identified. Helmich said AMP would not run the risk of making the wrong choice for the sake of filling the role quickly.
“We have a very strong management team there,” Helmich said.
Helmich said McMurdo’s move to Centric Wealth, where he will be managing director, would not interrupt AMP’s drive to raise the standards of financial planners, right across the group.
“I want to find the right person to take over the work that John has done and the great platform he has laid,” Helmich said.
“I am going to look internally and externally. It’s an opportunity to take stock. We have some strong internal candidates, but there may be some strong external candidates as well.
McMurdo joined Hillross as managing director about three years ago. Helmich said McMurdo informed AMP of his decision earlier this week.
“I was very disappointed to lose John, but understand his decision,” Helmich said.
Helmich said both AMP Financial Planning and Hillross aimed to have all planners operating on a fee basis by the beginning of the 1010/11 financial year.
“We have done a diagnostic on all our practices and worked out who needs to move a little bit, who doesn’t have to move at all, and who has to move a lot, and we are working through that,” he said.
“Don’t get me wrong; we do not underestimate the change, and what we have to do, but we are on track.”
Helmich said AMP was serious about raising standards of competence and professionalism across all of its planning businesses and, by extension, across the industry.
“We have put some stakes in the ground,” he said. Some of AMP’s objectives were relatively simple, “like saying that by a certain date every piece of advice will be prepared by a CFP, and checked or vetted by a CFP,” he said.
