Directors Bios
John Hearne
Head of QBE Business Development & Productivity Initiatives, QBE LMI
LIXI involvement: Member since 2003; Director since 2003; Chairman of the Board.
Professional activities and qualifications: MBM (Mgt), UTS Sydney; Diploma from the Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD).
Previous positions include: Organisational strategy, IT strategy, IT management, program/project management, business process re-engineering, facilities management, business continuity management and varied roles within the banking industry.
Being part of a not for profit, volunteer based, organisation requires an extraordinary level of passion and commitment. The challenges faced by LIXI are often not that different to the everyday challenges we have in our full time jobs, yet each of us involved are expected to find the time to make it happen while balancing our full time roles and other external commitments.
My involvement in 2010 has encompassed:
• Chairing and leading the Board ensuring that we stay focused on our goals/ strategy;
• Leading and implementing a Board succession plan initiative;
• Actively involved in the Intellectual Property sub committee and LIXI Annual forum planning; and
• Working with the Board on a repositioning of LIXI which will deliver a change in the way we deliver value to our members in 2011 and beyond.
Mike Thanos
Lending Technology Services
Mike is COO of LTX (formerly LTS), a founding member and instigator of LIXI in 2000. Mike has served as a Director of LIXI since 2003, is the chair of the IP Sub-committee and convenes the Backchannel and Settlement Working Groups. Mike has 10 years experience with technology in the mortgage industry. He previously worked as a solicitor practicing in the areas of Commercial, IT, IP and Property law. He holds a B.Comm. and LLB (Hon).
Mike has been committed to LIXI since its inception and believes that as a Director, he has much to contribute as LIXI goes through its next stage of evolution. In particular Mike will make a strong contribution to LIXI’s Intellectual Property management, and the strategy for the evolution of LIXI’s organisational structure, methodologies and financial foundations.
Phil Naylor
CEO of MFAA
In July 2002, Phil was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Mortgage Industry Association of Australia (MIAA), now the Mortgage & Finance Association of Australia (MFAA) which has 12,500 members. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of NSW. In order to bring about maximum efficiencies to the operations of MFAA members via industry electronic standards Phil is keen to ensure that there are close links between the intermediary sector and the objectives and initiatives of LIXI via the MFAA.
Curtis Brager
Curtis Brager is an experienced technology executive with an extensive background in process improvement and operational efficiency. He brings to the board a strong commercial understanding of the needs of the LIXI membership and how technology and standards act as enablers for business growth across the value chain.
Previous roles in North America and Australia have encompassed process development and re-engineering, technology and sales strategy, business unit integration and procurement excellence.
He is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and has been a director of LIXI Ltd since 2008 where is active on the business, technology and intellectual property sub committees and involved in key initiatives such as NCCP, LIXI 2.0 and the LIXI Forum..
Simon Libbis
Executive Director, National Electronic Conveyancing Office
My background in conveyancing reform enables me to bring a different, but necessary, perspective to the LIXI Board. LIXI’s efforts to facilitate efficiencies in the lending and mortgage industries will be significantly enhanced by complimentary reforms in the conveyancing process. As the developer of the data standards for electronic conveyancing, LIXI is playing a vital role in that reform. I hope to make a valuable contribution in this area as well as other related LIXI activities.
John de la Torre
The Home Loan Centre
John has over 20 years experience in Finance and Banking. Over the past decade John has successfully established and continues to operate firms in mortgage broking, financial planning, real estate sales, property management and conveyancing. As an experienced company director John has served on numerous boards, commercial, industry and not-for-profit. LIXI benefits from John's broad experience and knowledge of all facets of lending and property transactions.
Martyn Beer
Sandstone
Martyn Beer manages Lending Solutions at Sandstone Technology. Sandstone is a leading supplier of loan origination, internet banking and online managed solutions to major banking and financial institutions both here and overseas. For more than thirty years, Martyn has held senior roles within the Australian financial services and technology sectors. As part of his role at Sandstone he is working towards the development of uniform electronic standards for the Australian lending industry.
Martyn’s experience includes: 15 years strategic and operational management experience in the lending operations of organizations such as Midland Bank, Colonial State Bank, BankWest, Liberty Financial and Guardian. In addition to this, Martyn has operated as an independent introducer to several aggregators and funders for both retail and large commercial mortgages. He has also spent over 15 years delivering substantial technology programs to the financial services industry at IBM, Hewlett Packard, Siemens, and Satyam Computer Services.
At Sandstone, Martyn manages a global team of up to 120 lending business and technology specialists – possibly one of the largest dedicated lending solutions centres of expertise in the world. This team has been developing, deploying and supporting Sandstone’s LendFast loan origination system since 2001 and is currently delivering Sandstone’s third generation LendFast system.
John McDonald, BEc, ACA
CFO, Aussie Home Loans
John is the CFO and a Director of Aussie Home Loans, Australia’s leading non-bank retail financial services group and has been with Aussie since 2006. He has broad based experience in the financial services sector – investment banking, retail banking, wealth management and asset management.
John was previously at AMP Limited where he has held roles as Group Treasurer and Finance Director of AMP Financial Services. His interest in LIXI stems from a focus on process inefficiencies across the sector and the opportunity to reduce costs and improve customer pricing.
Qualifications: Bachelor of Economics, University of Sydney. Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia.
Jason Millett
General Manager, Process Excellence and Productivity, Westpac Bank
Jason Millett joined Westpac Banking Corporation in May 2008, as General Manger Strategy in the Consumer Financial Services Division of the Group. Over the past 18 months, Jason has held several positions including joint CIO for Product & Operations and Westpac Retail and Business Banking, more recently focusing on Strategy Executions and Transformation for the Product & Operations Division. During this time he has led the development of the Bank’s consumer and business product strategies to underpin the overall Group strategy of customer centricity. This has focused on simplification, integration of banking and product services across Westpac and St George brands to provide the logical platform for transformation across multi brand financial services offerings. He has overseen the execution of major strategic investment priorities, in particular the consolidation of core banking services for the Group onto a single platform. He leads the transformation agenda for Product & Operations working across the Group on productivity and customer centricity. Most recently he has been a leader in the Bank’s productivity and Process Excellence programme. Jason brings ears of change and transformation leadership through business and IT roles across the Commonwealth Bank and Westpac.
James Sheffield
General Manager, RBS Mortgage Wealth, CBA
After 14 years in the marketing industry in both the UK and Australia, James Sheffield started his career at the Commonwealth Bank as General Manager, Marketing and Information Services in 2000.
James Sheffield has been General Manager, RBS Mortgage Wealth at the Commonwealth Bank since April 2007. In this role, he is responsible for the profitability and growth of the largest Home Loan portfolio in Australia and the end-to-end customer experience.
Prior to that he was General Manager, Wealth Builders where he managed the savings and investment portfolio and the cross sell of Wealth Management products.
