Dean has built a bank from nothing and run distribution at one of the largest. He founded fin.associates on the view that banks undertaking the changes that define them should be advised by people who have delivered those changes themselves.
He led the creation of Islamic Bank Australia — Australia's first Islamic bank — including the engagement with the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority that secured its banking licence in July 2022. Before that he ran home loan distribution at Commonwealth Bank, Australia's largest bank, and spent two years in Hanoi as Chief Digital Officer of Vietnam International Bank.
Dean — confirm before this goes public: your LinkedIn shows Islamic Bank Australia as "April 2018 – Present", but you described yourself to me as a former bank CEO. Tense is a material claim on a live site. Tell me which is right and I will correct it throughout. Achievements below are written in the past tense, which is accurate either way.
Career
Islamic Bank Australia — Chief Executive Officer, from April 2018. Created a new Australian bank from scratch and led the regulatory engagement with APRA that delivered the banking licence in July 2022. Accountable for the whole business: launch, product, distribution, marketing, profitability and risk profile.
Grovelands Consulting & Strategy — London, 2019. Wrote the UK mortgage strategy for a top-three UK bank, across all brands and channels, direct and broker. The strategy was endorsed by the bank's retail leadership group.
Commonwealth Bank — Head of Home Loan Distribution, 2015 to 2017. Responsible for all home loan distribution at Australia's largest bank, with accountability for more than US$50 billion in annual home loan sales across proprietary and broker channels. Also led Residential Mortgage Group, the bank's white-label manufacturing subsidiary.
Vietnam International Bank — Chief Digital Officer and Deputy Head of Retail Banking, Hanoi, 2013 to 2015. Posted offshore by Commonwealth Bank to its investment in Vietnam, working across a network of more than 150 branches to transfer group practice into the business. Led VIB's direct distribution and digital operations.
Bankwest — twelve years to 2013, latterly as Head of Customer Experience and Head of Strategy for the retail bank. As Head of Mortgages for Bankwest and HBOS Australia from 2007, grew the mortgage book from $19.0 billion to $38.8 billion — the fastest growth of any top-ten Australian mortgage business over that period on APRA's published data. Earlier roles covered retail sales management, broker distribution and structured finance credit.
Board
Chair of a United Kingdom air ambulance service, which under his chairmanship grew from a local operation into an international aeromedical service repatriating citizens to NHS care at no cost to the patient.
Add the organisation's registered name and the year you became Chair. I have not named it because it was not in the export, and a board appointment is exactly the detail a client will verify.
Qualifications
- Oxford Executive Leadership Programme, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford
- Master of Applied Finance, Macquarie University
- Bachelor of Economics, University of Sydney