Business advisory, accounting, and assurance business PKF Sydney has hired a former Mortgage Choice director to build the “largest salaried broker force in the country”.
The Sydney arm of major advisory and accountancy provider PKF has welcomed Mortgage Choice’s former director of national sales David Zammit as the first executive director of its new broking arm PKF Debt Solutions.
While the group already offered broking services in several of its locations, Mr Zammit has been brought in to build and lead the Sydney and Newcastle business’s new broking arm, which has been created to keep up with client demand for mortgage services.
PKF said it wants PKF Debt Solutions to become the “largest salaried broker force in the country”.
In his new role, which he commenced on Monday (15 May), Mr Zammit is responsible for building out structured processes and procedures for the broking arm, onboarding technology providers to complement these processes, and creating a support and development ecosystem for the internal team.
Welcoming the new executive director of PKF Debt Solutions, Andrew Jones, partner at PKF, flagged Mr Zammit’s 17 years of financial services experience, including as head of banking and wealth management distribution at Citi and — more recently — as the director of national sales at REA Group’s broking franchise Mortgage Choice.
Mr Jones said: “David has significant experience empowering teams to empower clients to achieve their dreams, with a proven track record of building out businesses that provide an unrivalled level of support for their clients.
“Here at PKF, we have had significant client demand that we haven’t been able to keep up with. Bringing David onboard, will allow us to scale out the team significantly across the country, which will allow us to meet this demand and continue to deliver what our clients have come to expect from us at PKF…
“David’s experience in training, developing, supporting and motivating highly successful broker teams across Australia will be invaluable to our growth aspirations. He is also very well regarded among many high performers across the financial services industry who are keen to join the exciting journey that we are embarking on.
“We are well placed to be able to build out the largest salaried broker force in the country.”
Speaking to The Adviser about his new position, Mr Zammit said: “As head of the business, ultimately, my role will be to create an environment where our team can thrive and empower our clients to achieve their dreams. This will encompass building out scalable infrastructure and operational support.
“Paramount to our success will be the creation of a high-performance culture, where just delivering what clients have asked for will not be enough. Our aim is to be able to not only provide clients with what they have asked for, but — more importantly — inspire them through insights and education to see opportunities that they may not have even been aware of.
“As Henry Ford famously said: ‘If I had asked them what they wanted, they would have said ‘faster horses’. Our vision is to ensure every client is empowered to achieve the car, not the faster horse.”
When asked why PKF, in particular, was attractive to him, Mr Zammit added: “PKF is a global powerhouse operating in over 150 countries across the world. Having worked at global organisations in my career, I have experienced firsthand the immeasurable impact that global insights, power and reach can have in empowering your clients to better outcomes.
“With interest rate and property market movements at record highs, having access to unrivalled insight into these markets is vital. Making ill-informed or slow decisions in this new market dynamic can be extremely costly.
“It is a privilege and an honour to be entrusted with leading a dynamic team that is investing in Australia to be able to help more clients attain their dreams.”
[Related: Elite Broker Q&A: Janine Leafe, PKF]
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