Iress reshuffles wealth team

The advice software provider has shaken up its wealth leadership team and appointed a new regional head in a bid to accelerate growth and boost its flagging share price.

The reshuffle of the wealth business come ahead of an investor day strategy presentation next Thursday where the the firm explains its renewed focus on its core businesses of wealth, trading and market data, and superannuation.

Return on capital employed is low, earnings per share have flatlined, and several strategy shifts have shareholders asking whether a potentially good company has lost its way.

There's a lot riding on the new team and refreshed stategy.

The revamp sees the promotion of Kelli Willmer from from chief customer officer to executive general manager of wealth for Asia Pacific

In this role, she will run the operational and strategic outcomes for the business, reporting to Harry Mitchell who has taken on an expanded role in which he oversees both APAC Wealth and UK operations.

She will be accountable for the wealth business from end-to-end; including customer and commercial, product and technology.

Mitchell is still deeply involved in ensuring the technology trading platform achieves its goals  in APAC, but will be spending more time in the UK to lead a refresh of the firm's strategy there.

Willmer has over 20 years of experience in banking, financial services, wealth and technology.

She joined Iress in 2015 to lead the client account management team before heading up the commercial office and transformation.

Before that, Willmer held leadership roles at BT Financial Group and with several advice practices.

"I've been fortunate to hold a number of leadership roles during my time at Iress and something I'm particularly passionate about is helping our financial advice clients perform at their best," Willmer said.

"We have come together as a new leadership team, and I'm delighted to have the fresh perspective of people relatively new to Iress like Amara Haqqani and Kerry Ong; alongside the deep expertise and knowledge of existing people like our CTO Anthony Gerrits.

"When we created this new structure at Iress the goal was to get us much closer to customers, and I'm confident we have the right team in place to lead our reinvestment into Xplan's performance and functionality; while continuing to improve our customers' overall experience with Iress.".

Meantime, Amara Haqqani has shifted roles again for the third time in as many months.

She joined the firm in August as operating chief.

One month later, she was named interim chief executive of wealth - a temporary measure until Iress finalised its new wealth team.

After her three-month stint as acting chief executive of wealth, Haqqani has landed a role as chief product and operating officer for wealth APAC.

Essentially, she has returned to her earlier role of operating chief but also picked up the head of products job

"This follows a deliberate decision to combine the accountabilities of product and operations under one leader to streamline and uplift our product roadmap development and go-to-market strategy," an Iress spokesperson said.

Haqqani landed from Bennelong Funds Management, where, as chief client strategy officer, she oversaw product development and management, regulatory affairs, and corporate sustainability.

Before that, she held senior roles in financial services, including Milliman, Challenger, Financial Services Council, and Equity Trustees.

Finally, Kerry Ong has been appointed general manager of customer wealth APAC.

Ong has been with the firm for slightly under a year after spending seven years at Insignia Financial as head of advice delivery.

He earlier worked at National Australia Bank as a private wealth advisor.

Speaking of his promotion Iress said: "Customer centricity remains an absolute priority for us, and his immediate focus will be on ensuring we have the right structure and capability to improve our customers' experience with us."

The reshuffle follows a series of earlier changes to Iress' senior leadership team, including the appointment of Marcus Price as chief executive in August.