Ignite Advisers look to the future

After breaking the chains of an aligned advice model Ignite Advisers are on the hunt for a new manager to help lead the former Tower financial advisory group into the future.

Wednesday, January 19th 2022, 6:09AM

by Matthew Martin

James King.

Ignite's chairman James King says having moved away from an aligned environment with "...some rigid contractual constraints passed over from the Tower sale to Fidelity," the co-operative adviser association has been looking for a multi-talented and experienced advisory expert to take the reins.

Ignite Advisers was formed out of TFAS, which was taken over by Fidelity Life and rebranded as DNA Advice in 2018 after Tower decided to sell its life and health businesses.

The name DNA Advice was dropped and the new name - Ignite Advisers - was taken up when Fidelity Life and DNA Advice decided to part ways.

"It took five years to negotiate our way out of it and get to a point where everybody felt good about it," says King.

"We still have sound relationships with those fund managers and insurers, but it was hard to get all the parties on the same page. Now we are in a position where any provider earns our business, and that's great for our clients.

"This is where the cottage financial planners will flourish as the world is now open to them and we can now take a holistic view of a client's situation."

King says Ignite offers its members compliance and regulation, professional development and business development support and serves financial advisers operating individually as a non-aligned independent advisory business.

He says that after the untimely death of Ignite's "spiritual leader" Fred Dodds, the board wanted to reach out to the industry to find a new leader.

King says Ignite is in a good place and is looking for new advisers to join them but due to workloads members are unable to take on the extra work required to lead the organisation.

"There's about 30 of us at the moment with more than $1 billion of funds under management within that group.

"We looking for someone to keep up the communication, manage training and planning and keep on top of all the regulations."

King says they are looking for a person familiar with the financial and investment advice sectors to take up a part-time permanent role for 20 to 30 hours a week.

"Someone with industry experience with more of an investment focus and a genuine interest in compliance and regulation who can talk to our regulators as well as the advice network to help us out with our future strategy."

He says this person will be well paid and can work independently from anywhere in New Zealand and can travel freely.

"When we set this all up we didn't want to be a dealer group and wanted to stay as a co-op so everything goes back to the members to keep the subs low.

"But who knows what the future holds, which is why we are looking for someone to help navigate us as we look to the future."

Tags: Financial advice financial advisers Ignite James King recruitment