Young Guns are doing the industry proud

You don't need to look further than this year's MPA Young Guns to convince doubters of the third-party channel. Here's why.

It's much easier to convince doubters of the third-party channel than ever before. There’s brokers’ 51% market share, of course, and the increasing attention even the biggest banks are paying to the channel. But we think the most effective tool by far is simply to introduce the pessimists to one of MPA’s Young Guns, the complete list of which will be revealed on Monday. 

Our long-running annual Young Guns survey is first and foremost about recognising Australia’s top 30 leading brokers aged under 35 with less than two years as accredited brokers and more than $15m settled over the past year. All have been highly recommended by superiors, peers and referral partners. And that’s not all that unites our Young Guns; they also share a very high level of professionalism.

The importance of this can’t be overstated, given increased regulatory monitoring of the broker channel. Whether we like to admit it or not, these Young Guns demonstrate how much more professional the industry has become, as many of their recommendations make clear. They also compare favourably with those in other industries – real estate and perhaps stockbroking come to mind – in which young recruits have been accused of cutting corners in the fight for promotions and other rewards

It also appears that broking is now attracting recruits from a wide range of career backgrounds, beyond banking. Talented and entrepreneurial young people are leaving elite graduate schemes to come to broking – risking all in the process – a situation that was unimaginable a few years ago.  As Theo Chambers, director of Shore Financial, told MPA, it’s that diversity that counts; he’s looking for “young, ambitious, forward-thinking, dynamic, bright, intelligent people from different backgrounds, and I think it makes a difference”.

This rapid change in our industry is why we believe MPA Young Guns 2016 makes for essential reading. Young Guns aren’t ranked, and there’s no ‘winner’, although we have featured some longer interviews with a few Young Guns. To pick Young Guns, we rely on recommendations, and so we’d like to thank all those in the industry who nominated and recommended Young Guns, and all those brokers who applied, whether or not they appear in the list. 

MPA's Young Guns for 2016 will be revealed in our Monday newsletter and is proudly sponsored by Suncorp Bank.