Purposeful progress

Growing up in Mount Isa in the 1980s, there weren't a lot of options on the table for a young Dave Woodall when leaving school. In fact, there were about three: get a job in the mines, the town's lifeblood, learn a trade servicing those mines, or leave.

By this time, Woodall was well versed in embracing opportunities afar due to his father's career in the mining industry, having lived in the UK, Middle East, Africa and Australia by the time he was a teen.

And so Woodall left, first on a gap year and then to study economics at the University of Queensland before taking up a spot within AMP's graduate program in Brisbane working in superannuation.

Since, he's almost exclusively worked for Australia's most well-known three-letter acronyms, he jokes - in addition to AMP, there's been NAB and Australian Retirement Trust, known as ART. Now, he's at MLC, which also incorporates wealth offerings from ANZ, where he landed following its takeover of ING's corporate super business.

For Woodall, it's never been about chasing a title; before taking a role, he needs to feel confident he can make an impact.

"It was always about, whatever happens next you have to make the best of it. Have a crack and try to have some impact," he says.

"My thought process has been, 'Look, I've done this for a while. It's been interesting, I've met some new people, and they've got different views and different perspectives, and now it's time for me to go and do something else'."

It's living this philosophy, he believes, that landed him at Insignia Financial as chief executive of MLC Super; "building a new team, developing a new rhythm, there's a lot to do in terms of simplification, consolidation, transformation."

What makes his role so interesting, with the group having acquired several businesses in the recent past, is that it's now consolidating them into one vehicle with SS&C - one of, if not the biggest overhauls the industry has seen.

"Scott [Hartley, Insignia Financial chief executive] was quite open around where things were at with this business... You don't just arrive and turn a growth tap on, and there's usually a reason why you haven't had that growth previously that needs to change," he says.

"There's risks that come with that, but the opportunity is huge, to take this $130 billion that's spread across different products into one vehicle, but at the same time enhancing the services - particularly the services that are too rare at the moment and really thinking about the services of the future."

Phase one is expected to complete this year, taking the MLC business to its target state, including rolling out a new value proposition, member portal and app, and adviser portal. It's a huge undertaking, and Woodall sits in a relatively unique and favourable position, having worked across all those same businesses back in the day. But, as tempting as it may be, don't call it a transformation.

"People talk about transformation, but it's really saying, 'What we're trying to achieve is this, this is the way we're going to do it because we think it's the best way to do it'. Then how do we get to a place where we can consistently do it that way?" he says.

"Okay, it's transformation, but over time it's about the consistency of best practice... If you want to call that a transformation, it is for a while but eventually the transformation stops and hopefully what you have is a new baseline of consistency."

The SS&C deal earmarked close to 1300 Insignia staff for transition to seed the talent pool, and 100% of permanent employees made the move. For the others who stayed within the business, engagement scores have skyrocketed from the mid-50s to 70-plus.

"It goes to show that people bought into this being a good idea... It's a partnership, it's not outsourcing. And we are reimagining what best practice partnership is in this space because no one has done this before," Woodall says, adding that it's given staff a light on the hill.

And it's all in pursuit of another way in which Woodall is looking to make an impact - optimising retirement outcomes.

"Our system is held in high regard globally in terms of its success, we're on track to become the second-largest retirement system in the world in the next few years... whatever we do in the retirement space has got to be global best practice. If we're going to be the second largest in the world, then by definition we must be doing things at global best practice level," he says.

"I would argue that to do that, funds need certain capabilities, which maybe aren't particularly widespread - that's the challenge we've got.

"It's a pretty rare opportunity to almost rewrite the playbook for the next decade."

Revitalising the iconic MLC golden egg as the group's direct-to-consumer brand last year is part of this, too. Woodall says the latent brand recognition that existed with MLC is very strong; prompted awareness 12 months ago was in the low 70s despite the brand having not been in market for some time.

"If you went to an agency and said, 'I want to build a new brand in financial services', and they told you there was a golden egg available, I reckon you'd pay a lot of money for that... And it's appealing across the age groups," he adds, noting a particular spike in under-35s taking up MLC's direct-to-consumer offering since its launch late last year.

As for what comes next, Woodall is excited to have a new owner in CC Capital, which is invested in the group's forward strategy.

"They're interested because they see the opportunity in the market that we see and the positioning that we can achieve as we go through the transformation," he says.

This strategy, including a renewed focus on the corporate super space, is what Woodall hopes will see MLC Super become a top three fund by 2030, though he concedes that may be slightly aspirational given the massive transformation project underway.

"But therein lies the challenge. We're not going to do this in a linear fashion, do the transformation and then become most trusted later and then start growing. We're doing all these things concurrently because they're all related," he says.

"We're flying a plane and renovating the plane at the same time and we're making sure we have the right flight crew mid-air, too..."

Acknowledging it may well mean further change for the business, come what may, he's confident everything will work out, provided the messaging remains consistent.

"Personally, I think 95% of the world's problems are down to poor communication... You've got to have strong values and principles around the way you do stuff, and you don't change them under pressure or when you're just talking to the boss," Woodall says.

"You stick to a consistency around your principles and values, your decision-making, and then your communication becomes easier, your decision-making style is transparent. And all that counts for nothing if you don't actually follow through." fs