Lending exec resurfaces at planning firm

Lesley Wood, former general manager at the Centrepoint Alliance-owned ALC, has been recruited by her former boss Robbie Bennetts to take up the role of head of finance at Beacon Financial Group, a financial planning licensee formed by the merger of the Titanium and Financial Link groups in 2012.

Mr Bennetts told Mortgage Business that Ms Wood will help the newly-formed dealer group “attract brokers” as it moves into the mortgage lending space.

The company has also hired former ALC senior business development manager Debbie Wilson to support Ms Wood within Beacon’s mortgage arm, said Mr Bennetts, who was formerly CEO of ALC parent company Professional Investment Services and is now a stakeholder in the Beacon venture and external consultant to the group.

Beacon chief executive Peter Daly – who is a former CEO of the collapsed Australian Financial Services (AFS) Group and chair of the Association of Independently

Owned Financial Professionals – told Mortgage Business sister title ifa in November 2013 that he was serious about the move into the mortgage sector.

Mr Daly struck a deal with mortgage aggregator Connective in 2013 but has also developed its own mortgage products.