Viridian recruits 27th Westpac adviser

Last week, ifa reported three former Westpac advisers now registered with Viridian Advisory are facing the bank in court for breach of contract.

Following that development, the latest ASIC data shows former Westpac adviser Virginia Tamborini, who was registered to give advice for the bank from April 2007 until January this year, has joined the firm.

Since its launch just under three years ago, Viridian Advisory has attracted 27 Westpac-aligned advisers, 18 of which were employed by Westpac Banking Corporation and another nine of which were licensed by the bank’s Magnitude dealer group.

Speaking to ifa, Viridian Advisory chief executive Glenn Calder (himself a former Westpac adviser) explained the business has close ties with the bank given its history.

“Viridian started around about two and a half years ago with about six senior advisers within the Westpac group, and some other staff – all up we probably had around about 20 staff – who came across,” he said.

“We reached a point where we’d been with Westpac around 10 or 15 years, it was probably time in our careers to make the next progression. We’ve also seen the industry change quite a bit and wanted to put our own stamp on it.”

Mr Calder also said that many of the advisers who have joined the business since then have done so for similar reasons.

“I think we differentiated ourselves in a couple of ways, like we’d prefer to be more innovative and open-minded about change and embracing change in a technological sense, and in the regulatory sense as well,” he said.

Mr Calder added that he is unable to comment on the court cases involving Westpac and the three Viridian advisers, noting it related to those advisers individually and not Viridian Advisory itself.