The former head of the National Australia Bank-owned financial planning dealer group Godfrey Pembroke, Tom Reddacliff, has joined the Financial Planning Association of Australia (FPA) as general manager of membership growth and marketing.
Reddacliff starts on June 2 with a brief to oversee the FPA’s ongoing drive to professionalise the financial planning industry, and to “develop the FPA’s offer to its members”.
Immediately before leaving MLC, Reddacliff was general manager of customer retention and mature products. He says his background at MLC stands him in good stead to take on the new role.
“At Godfrey Pembroke the the work done in there was leading the industry, I think, in moving towards fee for service, professionalism,” Reddacliff told Professional Planner.
“That was way ahead and is still way ahead of the regulations. I had to work really collaboratively – it’s really challenging doing that – with a large number of advisers.”
Reddacliff joins the FPA at an important juncture in the association’s evolution.
Just over three years ago its members voted overwhelmingly – 94 per cent in favour – to abolish corporate membership, and to turn the association into a body focused solely on individual, practicing financial planners. From July last year, it became a condition of membership to hold a university degree in a relevant discipline. And late last year the FPA declared that it has achieved financial independence, and that all of its activities are now funded solely by income from membership fees – thus severing all financial dependence on product manufacturers.
As the debate about proposed amendments to the Future of Financial Advice (FoFA) regime is set to resume, the spotlight is likely to fall once more on the role of professional associations, and the concept of co-regulation based on a robust and enforceable code of professional conduct. In a statement issued yesterday the chief executive of the FPA, Mark Rantall, noted that “the timing for Tom’s appointment is significant”.
“The combination of consumer demand, regulatory shifts and the FPA’s unique certification and professional framework provides a springboard to truly consolidate professionalism in financial planning,” he said.
A key element of the FPA’s three-year strategic plan is to connect and unite its membership base, which consists of individuals drawn from a wide range of backgrounds and with varying degrees of academic qualifications, industry-based certification (the Certified Financial Planner designation) and experience. this is due largely to the FPA’s creation from a merger of two predecessor industry bodies – the Australian Society of Investment and Financial Advisers (ASIFA), and the International Association for Financial Planning (IAFP) – in the early 1990s, and the subsequent grandfathering of membership of those associations into the FPA.
Reddacliff’s appointment means the role of national sales manager has been abolished, and Paul Barsby will be leaving the FPA. His departure was communicated to FPA staff yesterday.
