The new chief executive of Professional Investment Services (PIS) has been mandated with managing the dealer group’s adviser network, with a particular focus on its top performers, the group’s managing director has said.
Grahame Evans said one of the key objectives for new chief Peter Walther was managing “high-quality relationships” with top advisers who had progressed from being an adviser to running substantial businesses.
“The B2B (business-to-business) relationships are going to be an important one in the future,” Evans said.
“He’s had some good experience in that area and I expect that he will bring some good talents to our business in being able to manage, which was just the adviser relationship, which is now a business-to-business relationship.”
He said another aspect of Walther’s role was to look at the business with “fresh eyes”.
“We see that as an important part of the appointment of Peter in that it gives us an opportunity to have completely fresh eyes to look at the business and from an industry perspective and say ‘why do you guys do it this way? Should we be doing different things?'” he said.
It was too early to predict what potential changes Walther could make to the group, though recruiting new staff and reskilling existing staff could be possible, he said.
Walther, who joined PIS earlier this week from the private equity and M&A services division of Marsh, was appointed chief ahead of three candidates, all with financial services experience, Evans said.
“The primary consideration was with the world of financial advice changing we felt that whilst we had four outstanding candidates, three of them from within the industry, we thought it was time for fresh eyes and a fresh look at what’s going on, particularly considering things are changing dramatically,” he said.
He said the decision to appoint a candidate from outside the industry was on the back of “good feedback” about Hillross Financial Services’ decision to hire Hugh Humphrey.
Humphrey joined Hillross in September 2010 from Singtel Optus, where he was director of mobile and convergence, and responsible for its integrated mobility offerings for corporate and government customers.
