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Loan Market has announced the appointment of Michael Zavelberg to the role of head of business improvement, in support of growth and productivity in an era of change for the broking industry.
Mr Zavelberg joins Loan Market from Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), in which he held a similar business improvement role, overseeing productivity measures in the bank’s third-party channel.
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Prior to this, he served in a range of other business improvement managerial roles, including at QBE, and spent a number of years as an independent consultant.
For the last decade, Mr Zavelberg has worked specifically in enhancing the productivity of mortgage brokers, with a particular focus on the Kaizen method – a Japanese method of improving efficiency.
According to Loan Market, Mr Zavelberg’s new role will see him support, train and coach the brokerage’s brokers, utilising Kaizen strategies and tools for business improvement, during an era of uncertainty for the industry.
Loan Market’s executive director of network success, Andrea McNaughton, said Mr Zavelberg’s appointment was a “huge boost” for the network and could open up new opportunities for brokers.
“Michael will offer enormous assistance to business owners and brokers, helping them re-engineer processes with client service managers in line with best interests duty and growth in online delivery of services.
“Right now is the best time to look at your processes and ensure your business is running as efficiently as possible while offering customers an excellent service.
“Loan Market is focused on attracting the best talent to help our brokers break through to the next level of business, building stronger and bigger teams,” said Ms McNaughton.
“Mr Zavelberg has helped hundreds of brokers tear down their own business barriers by adopting Kaizen principles.
“Importantly, he’ll be showing our brokers how to adopt accountability in all their business activities and how to engage their teams to get the right support.”
Commenting on his appointment, Mr Zavelberg said: “Excellent brokers are continually seeking out efficiencies in their operations and improving customer service and their team capabilities at the same time.
“The focus on making every activity as productive as possible takes on extra importance once the best interests duty comes in on 1 July.”
“Brokers are also facing the global challenges being dealt by COVID-19, which, in the immediate future, will change how we interact with clients.
“Homing in on daily practices, which produce the most benefit for clients, while achieving efficiencies for the business, will be part of my immediate focus.”
He suggested that his Kaizen techniques would help brokers “make better use of their data” as well as allow them to “track and manage their teams better”.
“What it (Kaizen) means is you consistently improve in small increments together with your team instead of aiming for transformational, drastic improvements that take years,” he said.
Mr Zavelberg said he intends to use these techniques to make compliance and the customer experience more streamlined after 1 July.
“I think broking is very complex. Brokers have to deal with a lot of different people, lenders, products, processes, as well as managing their own business and staff.
“With my experience, I can support brokers to identify improvements across their business faster,” said Mr Zavelberg.
“Through Kaizen, I’ll be helping Loan Market’s brokers establish the environment from which they can introduce more efficiencies that translate into more enquiries, more conversions, more settlements, happier teams and better client experience.”
[Related: Senior NAB exec to step down]
