Head of Financial Advisors

About Us

NMG Benefits provides consulting, actuarial and administration expertise in the healthcare and retirement fund environments, and this extends to financial planning for individuals. This allows NMG to provide an end-to-end solution across the healthcare, retirement fund and financial planning needs of employers and their employees.

We urge our clients to look at their employee benefits through an actuarial lens. Our goal is to ensure that the “common contract” between employer and employee – which sets out expectations of performance - is underpinned by informed policies that encourage productivity, loyalty, and an engaged employee but at the same time protect the future financial security of institutions that employ people.

At NMG, the leadership and staff realise that we have been placed in a position of privilege and trust to manage the well-being of our client’s financial futures. We are proud that more than 50 blue chip South African companies trust our advice and implement our recommendations.

Role Overview

The Head of Financial Advisors is the Executive Head’s key execution partner and the senior day-to-day leader of the Financial Planning practice. The role translates strategy into clear priorities, operating disciplines, performance standards and consistent delivery across the planning team and its support hubs.

The role will lead the Financial Advisors, oversee technical and advice-quality standards, and ensure that the Administration and Paraplanning hubs provide the capacity, service levels and quality required by planners and clients. The role requires a leader who can inspire and develop people, make difficult decisions, enforce standards and remain calm and constructive under pressure.

This is a team leadership role with team-based outcomes. The successful candidate will not build, retain or service a personal client book.

Duties & Responsibilities

Team leadership and performance

• Lead, coach and mentor the financial-planning team across activity, pipeline development, conversion, client engagement, advice delivery, investment flows, recurring revenue, retention, productivity and service quality; set clear standards, objectives and development plans.
• Oversee the Administration and Paraplanning hubs and ensure that their capacity, workflow, quality and service levels support planners and clients effectively.
• Allocate work and manage team capacity, productivity, turnaround times and client-service delivery.
• Conduct performance reviews, case coaching and technical development; support recruitment and onboarding.
• Use management information and evidence to identify performance gaps early, agree corrective action and follow through consistently.
• Partner with HR and relevant leaders through selection, appointment, onboarding, probation, development and, where necessary, exit processes.
• Deploy planners appropriately across client segments, retirement-fund relationships and growth opportunities, taking account of capability, capacity and development needs.

Advice quality and technical oversight

• Build a collaborative, advice-led culture that prioritises client outcomes over product sales.
• Provide technical guidance across retirement planning, investments and asset allocation, risk and insurance, tax-aware planning, estate planning and relevant employee benefits.
• Ensure that advice is personalised, suitable, well documented and consistently aligned with NMG’s advisory philosophy, regulatory obligations and client-outcome standards.
• Work closely with Compliance, technical specialists and quality-assurance colleagues to identify themes, strengthen controls and remediate quality concerns.

Client and internal stakeholder engagement

• Partners with colleagues across investment consulting, retirement, healthcare, fiduciary, legal, compliance and operations to deliver integrated solutions.
• Handle escalated client matters professionally and protect long-term client relationships.
• Represent the function credibly with internal stakeholders and relevant external professional networks.
• Establish clear ownership, hand-offs, turnaround times, escalation routes and service-level measures across advice, paraplanning, administration and implementation processes.
• Remove avoidable bureaucracy and operational friction so that Financial Planners can focus on their strengths: advice, relationships and client-facing activity.
• Ensure that processes remain controlled, repeatable, auditable and scalable as the practice grows.
• Collaborate with operational leads, business analysts and specialist support colleagues to diagnose bottlenecks, resolve root causes and improve end-to-end delivery.
• Balance urgency with accuracy and control, maintaining close attention to detail in a high-volume, fast-changing environment.

Strategy execution, change and scalable growth

• Act as the Executive Head’s principal execution partner: convert strategic intent into practical plans, owners, milestones, measures and sustained delivery.
• Support the continued expansion of the practice by strengthening planner productivity, client retention, quality, capacity and operating leverage.
• Lead change with clarity and energy; explain the rationale, involve the right stakeholders, address resistance and ensure adoption rather than merely launching initiatives.
• Maintain momentum across multiple priorities and adapt plans intelligently as the business, client needs and regulatory environment evolve.
• Contribute practical insight to the Financial Planning leadership agenda and help shape the next phase of the business over the coming years.

Cross-functional collaboration and service delivery

• Build balanced, diplomatic and productive relationships with Retirement Consulting, Investment Consulting, Operations, Human Resources, Finance, Marketing, Technology, Compliance and other shared-service teams.
• Represent planner and client requirements clearly and constructively, agreeing realistic service standards and holding colleagues accountable without creating unproductive friction.
• Act as an effective buffer and translator between senior leadership and the team: provide context, surface risks early, protect focus and ensure that important messages travel in both directions.
• Strengthen collaboration with internal consultants so that appropriate corporate retirement-fund and member opportunities are supported by the right planners and a consistently high-quality client experience.
• Resolve cross-functional conflicts through facts, shared objectives and sound judgement, escalating appropriately when required.

Minimum Qualifications

Relevant degree or recognised financial-planning qualification. CFP® designation preferred, subject to client confirmation.

FAIS fit-and-proper status and relevant regulatory examinations and product-category experience appropriate to the role; exact requirements to be confirmed.

Experience

• Demonstrated leadership of Financial Planners or similarly independent, professionally qualified client-facing teams across different levels of seniority.
• A strong record of performance management, coaching, talent development and taking difficult people decisions, including formal capability or termination processes.
• Experience recruiting advisers or Financial Planners and assessing both technical quality and cultural fit.
• Strong process and operational understanding, including experience improving service delivery across advice, administration, paraplanning or comparable support functions.
• Evidence of leading change, implementing new operating models or technology, and securing sustained adoption in a growing or transforming business.
• Comfort with data-driven performance management, scorecards, management information and commercial/operational metrics.
• Strong stakeholder-management and conflict-resolution skills, including the ability to influence peers and shared-service leaders diplomatically.

Competencies (skills required)

• Technical financial-planning expertise and credibility to oversee complex advice delivered by senior and executive Financial Planners.
• Accountability
• Excellence
• Integrity
• Diversity
• Innovation
• Teamwork
• Attention to detail