Leadership Team

Our leadership team

 

Simon Swanson - Managing Director

B.Ec, B.Bus, ANZIIF (Fellow), CIP, FCPA

Simon is an internationally experienced financial services executive having worked for over 30 years across life insurance, funds management, general insurance and health insurance. He has successfully led the largest life insurer (CommInsure, Sovereign and Colonial) in three countries and spent half of his career in the Asia Pacific region.

Simon was previously a director of the Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation and former Chairman of ANZIIF's Life, Health and Retirement Income Faculty Advisory Board.

Simon was effectively the founder of ClearView in its current form and was appointed as Managing Director on 26 March 2010.

Athol Chiert - Chief Financial Officer and Joint Company Secretary

B.Com, B.Acc, CA (SA)

Athol was appointed Chief Financial Officer on 4 November 2008. Athol has a life insurance and private equity background. Athol was previously the CFO of PrefSure Holdings Limited and PrefSure Life Limited (formerly Lumley Life Limited). Athol also served as part of the Global Capital Group both in Australia and South Africa and has over 15 years’ experience in the finance industry. Athol commenced his professional career as an accountant with Arthur Andersen.

Greg Martin - Chief Actuary and Risk Officer

BA, FIAA, FFin, FAICD, CERA

Greg has more than 30 years’ experience in life insurance and funds management, including in the areas of financial management and reporting, governance, product development, capital and risk management, M&A and business resolution. His current responsibilities include overseeing ClearView’s actuarial team, group risk management and compliance team, and life and wealth product team. Greg is also a director of ClearView’s two financial advice businesses.

Prior to joining ClearView in 2011, he was a Partner of KPMG, where he provided actuarial advice to the industry for 17 years. He has held 10 appointed actuary roles during his career and has been a member of various regulatory, industry and professional committees and Boards, advised regulators, and published a number of industry related papers and articles. His most recent co-authored paper was published in 2015 titled Dark risks versus ERM upside: A collection of risk management thoughts.

Deborah Lowe - General Manager, People and Operations

B.Com (Eco), MBA, AGSM

Deborah joined ClearView in 2013. She has over 25 years' experience in the financial services industry, specialising in both human resources and operations management. Deborah previously held senior human resources and operational roles with Barclays Global Investors. She worked in San Francisco for Barclay Global Investors implementing a global HRIS system and went on to manage the global administration of human resources. Prior to joining ClearView, she held a variety of lending, customer service and account management roles with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

Christopher Blaxland-Walker – General Manager, Distribution

Christopher has over 15 years' experience in financial services. He started his career at Legal and General in the call centre and worked in all areas of the company. In the last 10 years he has been involved in sales at CommInsure where he held the position of NSW State Manager before joining ClearView as the National Sales Manager in 2011.

Chris was appointed General Manager, Distribution in October 2014.

Elizabeth Briggs – General Counsel and Joint Company Secretary

BMedia LLB

Elizabeth has over 10 years' experience working in financial services working across the life insurance, superannuation, wealth management and financial advice sectors. Elizabeth joined ClearView in 2012 and prior to this worked in funds management and in private practice. Her experience extends to advising multinational organisations across Europe and the United States.
 
Elizabeth is a member of the Law Society of NSW and ASFA, a mentor of junior lawyers through the NSW Law Society and supporter and contributor to a number of not for profit organisations.

Louise Hulley – General Manager, Technology

B.Com, Post-graduate diploma in Accounting, CA, CGMA

Louise joined ClearView in 2010 and has over 20 years’ experience in financial services across a wide range of segments. She has built and managed high performing teams consistently delivering and exceeding stated objectives. In 2017, Louise oversaw the successful implementation of a number of technology related projects that reduced IT risk and enhanced capability across the business.

Prior to joining ClearView, Louise worked at Bupa and MBF in various senior management roles.

Todd Kardash - Chief Executive Officer, Matrix Planning Solutions

Todd has over 28 years’ experience in the financial services industry. Prior to joining ClearView, Todd was Head of Adviser Distribution at CommInsure. From 2001 to 2005, he was the State Manager for the NAB Insurance dealer group in NSW. Todd started in the industry as an adviser with National Mutual in 1989 where he built up the business to over 800 clients over a period of five and a half years before selling the practice to move into management with National Mutual (rebranded to AXA Asia Pacific in 1999).
 
Todd joined ClearView Wealth in April 2011 to set up the Life and Wealth Distribution team and in October 2014 was appointed CEO of ClearView Financial Advice and Matrix Planning Solutions dealer groups.

Justin McLaughlin - Chief Investment Officer

B.Eco (Hons)

Justin is the Chief Investment Officer of ClearView. He has 20 years' experience in the industry with a focus on asset allocation and fund manager research. He started his career with the Federal Government Super Scheme (now CSS/PSS) where he had a number of roles in researching fund managers and working in tactical and strategic asset allocation. He has held Chief Economist and Investment Strategy roles with Advance Asset Management and United Funds Management. He has worked for TOWER (now TAL) and was Head of Research at Bridges a financial planning and stockbroking company for 8 years prior to joining ClearView.