Ex-
Mortgage Choice chief executive and industry veteran Michael Russell has been announced as the new CEO and managing director of national mortgage broking business, MoneyQuest.
Russell has been appointed the head of MoneyQuest to spearhead its brand expansion, after his six-year tenure at Mortgage Choice saw franchise numbers lift 20%, monthly settlements increase by 33% and the company value increase by $200 million. He retired from CEO of Mortgage Choice in June 2015.
The appointment reconnects Russell with Ross Begley, the founder of MoneyQuest, whom also jointly founded Choice Aggregation Services (now owned by
NAB Broker) where Russell was the CEO until he left for Mortgage Choice.
Bergely said Russell’s appointment will help take the “challenger” mortgage brand to new heights.
“I’m excited to be working with Michael again as we look to build a fresh and innovative challenger brand in the retail financial services sector.
“In 2007 I saw an opportunity to build MoneyQuest to provide a better service experience for consumers and a more strategically aligned proposition for mortgage brokers. In the past 8 years, we have invested heavily in technology to increase the productivity of our members and enhance the experience for our customers. With Michael coming on board, both our customer and member propositions will be taken to even greater heights.”
Russell says his strategic goal is to build a “contrarian” business model, focussing on enhancing business coaching and processing and capitalising on technology.
“I’ve been privileged to lead two outstanding organisations in the past 15 years and now intend to build a very contrarian business model for our members.
“Elite business coaching, superior process efficiencies, an enterprise wide customer contact solution, digital and social media management and leads from our subsidiary business ratesonline.com.au, will all form the cornerstone of our new business model, that will by its very design be contrarian to all of our competitors.
“We have one goal in mind when it comes to our members and that is to deliver to them unimaginable growth via a range of specialist resources previously unseen in the industry.”
Since 2009, MoneyQuest has been under the leadership of managing director, Julian Mattatia, also the founder of ratesonline.com.au.
In his tenure, Mattatia spearhead the delivery of a range of smart technology solutions to the business and enabled its 50 members to benefit from its operating efficiencies.
