In 2013 Neal co-founded AVALONFS to provide licensing services to industry professionals that embrace the Best Interest Duty of the FoFa legislation in the practice of the provision of financial advice.

With Experience in Financial Services which spans over 30 years Neal is a recognised specialist in funds management, hedge funds, risk and compliance frameworks. He has written articles on funds compliance and risk management and was asked by Bloomberg to contribute to their Hedge Funds Manual. On these subjects he has lectured at the Governance and Risk Institute.

Neal began his career as an adviser in AMP’s management program and quickly

advanced to Westpac’s Regional Sales Manager for the North Coast. He then joined IFMA as their Superannuation and Investment Technical Specialist responsible for QLD, NSW and ACT. In 1992 he launched Great Pacific Investments, a financial planning firm. Neal later moved to RACV Life where he was in the start-up management team, progressing to CEO the same year.

Since then Neal has held senior positions in HIH Winterthur, TOWER Australia, Challenger, Minter Ellison and CBA, and has consulted to both private and public companies including the Council of Financial Regulators (Federal Treasury, RBA, APRA and ASIC).

Neal holds an MBA (USQ), Diploma Financial Services (FP) (Quantum), and is a PRINCE II Certified Project Manager (UTS).

John Prowse commenced in the Financial Services Industry in 1983 as an adviser with AMP, but he was quickly promoted through management roles in Sales, Marketing, Strategic Planning and Change Management. His last position with AMP was Head of Training.

Following executive roles in operations and adviser support with Sovereign Assurance and Legal & General, John became General Manager of Integratec/Tribeca Ltd, a listed training provider which continues to operate today under the Kaplan brand. John is a director of AVALONFS.

Stephen is a qualified accountant with over 30 years experience in domestic and offshore financial markets.

Stephen’s experience has been obtained in senior roles, the more recent being risk and advisory positions with Australia’s largest fund manager. Stephen’s experience has covered listed and unlisted property and infrastructure, traditional assets, asset funding and derivatives, product development, regulatory reform and reporting.

Stephen’s other skills include financial management and reporting, operations, internal control, project management, strategic analysis and planning.

Stephen provides an analytical perspective to the problem solving process and his ability to think creatively to achieve practical solutions facilitates meeting stakeholder requirements.

Diana began her career in the Financial Services Industry in 2000 working in a boutique Financial Planning Practice.

Following this she worked at ING in the Underwriting Department before moving on to various technical and management roles.

From 2011 to 2014 Diana worked at PATRON Financial Advice in the Operations Department.

She started as Operations Administrator and in 2013 Diana was promoted to Operations Manager and sat on the Senior Management Team.

Diana has been with AVALONFS since August 2014 and is Head of Operations.

Alvin joined AVALON in December 2020 with experience spanning over 15 years. He is a seasoned professional in managing staff, providing adviser support and AFSL compliance.

Alvin began his professional career within the financial service industry with experience in credit & lending which started in the United States selling sub-prime mortgages prior to the GFC. In 2006 he returned to Australia to work for Loan Services Australia then moved to Perpetual within the Corporate Trustee division.

Since 2011 his experience is heavily involved within financial planning, AFSL compliance, paraplanning and running his own paraplanning business.

From 2011 to 2016 Alvin worked at PATRON Financial Advice as the paraplanning team leader reporting directly to senior management.

He was then promoted to the Compliance Officer role where he conducted updating compliance frameworks, assisting in the transition from Reasonable basis to Best Interest Duty and establishing a Risk framework for the AFSL.

From 2016 to 2020 Alvin held Senior positions at BT Financial Group as a Compliance Manager where he reviewed conduct and advice provided by high risk advisers.

Promoted to the Investigations Manager, he managed high risk advisers code of conduct from a regulatory and risk perspective within Westpac/ BT Financial Group. As an Investigations Manager the responsibilities were overlooking adviser behaviour’s, ethics and regulatory breaches which were reportable to ASIC.

He then moved on to manage a high performing team of analysts for AML/CTF at Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

Alvin holds a Diploma Financial Planning (FP), Advanced Diploma in Financial Planning, SMSF Certification.

Joining AVALONFS in 2016 Amy brings with her over 15 years experience in Administration and Operations, spending the past 10 years in the Recruitment industry.

Most recently, Amy has worked as an Executive Assistant in a Boutique Finance

and Accounting Recruitment Agency. In this role she not only worked with the Founding Director of the business dealing with CFO’s of some of Australia’s leading companies, she also worked closely with the CEO in the day to day Operations and Administration of the business.