Risk and Investment Advisors Australia (RIAA) has hired state managers Philip Penklis and Paul Longhi to boost the dealer group's business presence in New South Wales and Victoria.
Penklis, who has been appointed as the dealer group's NSW state manager, previously worked at Genesys Wealth Advisers as a regional development manager.
Prior to this position, he worked at Lonsdale Financial Group as a state manager, where he was responsible for practice management across the dealer group's associates in NSW and Queensland.
Penklis has also worked at Wizard Financial Services, Colonial State Bank and GIO Australia.
"He's been in the industry for quite some time and is well known in the NSW market, so we're expecting some big things from Philip," RIAA chief executive Les Mace said.
"His main role at RIAA in NSW is to build our business, so he'll be actively recruiting."
Longhi has been appointed as RIAA's state manager in Victoria. Prior to this, he worked at Suncorp as a practice manager and sales leader for the group's Queensland business, as well as sales manager for Interprac Financial Planning.
"Our Victoria state manager Sam Tarascio is moving into semi-retirement mode and we've appointed Paul to come in and work with him to eventually take over that role," Mace said.
"But at the moment, his role is exclusively is to get out there and build the business in Victoria, so it's mainly a recruiting role."
The independent dealer group has 55 advisers within its network and is focusing on building further growth across the eastern seaboard of Australia.
"We've got two managers in Queensland now so right across the eastern seaboard, that's our focus," Mace said.
"We have our largest presence in Queensland in terms of numbers of advisers. We're a little bit weaker in NSW so that's why we've appointed Philip to work with us to build the business there."
