What motivates you?

This little space I'm in - fixed income - is all I really know. I'd identified an opportunity after working for a long time in the marketplace. I'm really motivated to build a fixed income business and be the best provider in Australia.

Are people asking you to diversify?

People see that as a natural road, but it's not something I want to do. Fixed income, contrary to popular belief, is a very exciting asset class. What's happened over the last few years makes it even more so.

I'm really excited about the future of the Australian financial markets and where a company like ours can fit in. Things like generic equity broking and financial planning are very interesting areas, but there's a lot of competition for a start and it's not an area in which we have an incredible amount of expertise.

Having been an investment banking employee for most of my former life, one of the traps you can fall into is that it's all about making money now, not later. I'm certainly not of that ilk. I say this to my colleagues and partners - that I'm not essentially motivated by money - and they can't get their mind around it. I obviously covet having more money, but realistically it's not what's driving it.

If you look at our model and how the business has grown, it's a high-volume, low-margin game. That takes a lot of time. It's a marathon, not a sprint. You've got to invest a lot of time, be prepared to sit it out and have a long-term view.

What prompted the career change?

I don't know whether it comes from one day wanting to return to sunny Brisbane, but when I worked overseas, there were good opportunities to look back and compare other global capital markets to Australia.

One glaring opportunity was this sub-wholesale to retail direct fixed income space. There are no service providers in that gap. Obviously the investment banks want to do the big deals. No-one was prepared to step up and build the business and wait the five years in order to try and get a piece of it.

I was retrenched in October 1998 as a result of long-term capital meltdown. There was a cleansing and a shutting down of the debt division of the bank I was working for. I went into partnership with a mutual friend in Queensland where we had a low-cost base.

So I'm sitting out there in professional bond land and talking to people about different [fixed income] markets. A really efficient retail capital market can be developed here.

There are some encouraging signs, but one of the disappointing things is that it's happening at the hybrid end of the spectrum. That's obviously high-risk fixed income, but it would be more appropriate to develop that in low-risk fixed income.

Can you name a career lowlight/highlight?

Having worked for investment banks for 15 years, the lowlight was getting the tap on the shoulder. It had never happened to me before, and at the end of the day it was actually a good thing. You still wake up, you've still got your two arms and your legs and the world still keeps moving. It gives you the opportunity to broaden your thinking.

The highlight of my investment banking career was being a member of a global propriety trading team. That was cutting edge. We were aggressive players in the market. I probably spent my whole career trying to get to that position. I wanted to be judged on my performance and that was as good as it gets.

As far as FIIG goes, the highlight for me was establishing the Driven Group - having launched a product from nothing.

What trends do you see in the fixed income market in the next five years?

The whole thing is changing for the better. One of the interesting developments globally is the intermediation of banks.

What's happening now on a large scale is that fund managers, special purpose vehicles and loan managers are in securitisation markets. There's been this massive migration from the balance sheet to direct investment through securitisation and derivatives. So that speaks volumes for what will happen in Australia.

We've got more of the traditional model here, but I'm absolutely certain these assets will begin to migrate. That's really what Diverseport is. Banks make a lot of money on the margins they have but they have a lot of fixed costs. These vehicles can have billions and billions of dollars in them and 20 employees. So what that means is they can be incredibly competitive and they're not regulated in the same way that a bank is.

What misapprehensions do Australian retail investors hold about this market?

They're familiar with equities, but equities are the highest risk asset you can have. They're not familiar with hedge funds or fixed income structures. I think it's a bit confusing. In terms of making an investment decision, if I can invest at 6 per cent and know what it is, or invest at 7 per cent and I haven't got a clue, I'd much rather invest at 6 per cent. That's the hurdle and that's the opportunity in this space.

What we've done with Diversport is an effort to satisfy that. We'll build a portfolio and you can come and go as you please. If you understand a 90-day investment within a corporate bond or a deposit, then that's what you can have.

How do you distribute your products?

We do go through advisers but it's predominantly direct. We're still in the early stages of moving into the adviser space. The growth from that is still to come. With the growth in global derivatives markets, you can pretty much have exposure to anything.

That's the future of this asset class - de-leveraging through capital guarantees or offering fixed-rate coupons or rated products. It makes equities look pretty old and boring.