Focus Partners Australia (FPA) has appointed a new head of wealth advisory.
David Lane joins FPA from Ord Minnett, where he was both a Queensland state manager and a senior private wealth adviser. Before that, he founded Queensland Pitcher Partners’ wealth management division and was a member of the financial advice and services council of the Financial Services Institute of Australasia (FINSIA).
In his new role, he will oversee FPA’s adviser, paraplanner, client service and operations teams.
Commenting on his appointment, Lane said: “I’m excited to be joining Focus Partners Australia at such a pivotal time for the industry.”
“I look forward to partnering with FPA’s expanded capability in technology and operations to continue growing the business, enhancing the client experience and building on the strong foundations already in place to help more Australians achieve their financial goals,” he added.
FPA president Kristen Bell said Lane’s appointment “reflects our long-term commitment to investing in our wealth business and building greater capability to support clients’ evolving needs.”
Bell continued: “The advice landscape is changing rapidly. Clients increasingly want advisers who can help them navigate every aspect of their financial lives through connected, specialist advice rather than fragmented services.
“David brings the leadership, experience and deep understanding of advice businesses that will help us continue to strengthen our wealth offering, support our advisers and deliver the best outcomes for clients.
“His appointment is another important step as we continue building one of Australia’s leading integrated advice businesses bringing boutique individualised services to clients at scale.”
Last month, Bell discussed the increasing importance of integrated advice services in an opinion piece for ifa. She argued that as clients’ advice needs become more complex, they typically “don’t want to repeat their story multiple times across different meetings, complete separate fact-finds or coordinate between several advisers to solve related problems.”
“Clients themselves don’t see wealth, tax, estate planning, lending and family matters as separate issues to be addressed by different professionals in isolation,” Bell said.
Instead, she said, clients want advice “that reflects the way they actually experience their financial lives.”
“Bringing those conversations together in a human-centric but tech-enabled manner is how advice becomes more useful, more relevant and responsive to the decisions clients are trying to make,” Bell said.
