Named one of best places to work, CEO discusses firm's growth and success
Building a great team culture where everyone is successful is one of the key strategies at Infinity Group and this approach is paying dividends in a big way for the Gold Coast-based company.
It has been included in The Australian’s 2024 Best Places to Work list – the only mortgage brokerage to be featured. Infinity Group was recognised in two categories: Top High-Flyers – Medium (50 to 249 employees) and Best Places to Work for 16 to 34-year-olds (Highly Commended).
But that’s not all – there have been several accolades for Infinity Group recently. Chief sales officer Fazilet Goren (pictured above centre) was named in MPA’s Elite Women 2024 list, while finance strategist Zakee Sheriff (pictured above right) is an excellence awardee (finalist) in the 2024 Australian Mortgage Awards FBAA Broker of the Year – Residential category.
Infinity Group is also an Australian Mortgage Awards excellence awardee in the following categories: Bluestone Best Customer Service from an Individual Office; PRPTY 360 Brokerage of the Year – Diversification; and Resimac Brokerage of the Year (6-20 Staff).
To top it all off, Infinity Group will also be featured in The Commonwealth at 75, a prestigious publication celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Commonwealth and its global impact, which will be released in October.
Infinity Group has been undergoing a period of rapid growth in loan settlements and staff numbers over the last 12 months and MPA caught up with CEO Boban Jurisic (pictured above left) to talk about why people love working at the brokerage and how it is achieving success.
Exponential growth at Infinity Group
Jurisic joined Infinity Group as CEO in November 2023 and made the move from Sydney to the Gold Coast.
“I’m enjoying the role and it’s an exciting place to work,” said Jurisic. “We’ve invested significantly in the culture here.”
“When I started there were about 40 staff in the business. There’s over 100 now just in the Gold Coast office and 250 staff in total including 30 in Sydney and 30 in Melbourne … we’ve had a 96% growth in staff numbers. It’s been absolutely tremendous.
“We’ve built a great culture here across different departments. We’ve become a fairly sizeable organisation.”
Infinity Group also has offshore support centres in Fiji and the Philippines.
Jurisic said the staff growth hadn’t just been focused on brokers, but also relationship managers, who help look after clients’ finances under a private banking-style subscription-fee arrangement.
Jurisic said the main reason for the rapid growth was the loan settlement numbers.
Growth has also been driven by Infinity Group founder and director Graeme Holm “getting out there and doing what he does best”, said Jurisic.
Holm is a major presence on social media. Infinity Group reaches more than in one in two Australians (meta verified) annually. He leads a series of live education monthly seminars, webinars and major event experiences working with master class clients, guiding people on how to pay off their mortgages faster.
“He’s very vocal about a number of different things and for us it’s all about wealth creation and debt minimisation,” Jurisic said. “It’s about financial education and helping clients alleviate a lot of their stresses moving forward.”
“We have close to 3,000 paying clients on our books right now that we look after – this has grown tremendously and we brought on about 1,900 clients in the last financial year.”
A great place to work
Jurisic said it was a great honour for Infinity Group to be featured in The Australian’s 2024 Great Places to Work and it had been achieved through hard work.
“I sit in on every single first interview for every single staff member that's been hired. When I started here I sat down with every employee and got to know them – it doesn’t matter whether it’s a broker, broker support or a senior manager.
“I made it my mission to connect with every person when I first started.”
The second strategy had been to establish a strategic marketing and people team to help drive and position a highly brand culture to market.
Jurisic said this included “celebrating moments that matter to our people: their milestones, coupled with and an engaging rewards system”.
Jurisic said Holm and his wife Rebecca, the co-founder of Infinity Group, had established a strong foundation for a great culture, which he embraced and is now further evolving to enhance organisational growth.
“It’s a pretty cool place to work, everybody’s pretty happy and there’s many different things we do to motivate our staff.”
Jurisic has also simplified the company’s 11 pillars of activity down to just six, with eight senior managers looking after each pillar: finance and distribution; marketing and brand; people and technology; customer care, and asset finance.
“I wanted us to concentrate on our core business … we provide a holistic approach.”
Jurisic said a key strategic driver behind Infinity Group’s success as a great place workplace was its strong focus on continuous learning and development, fostering both individual and organisational growth.
L&D was identified as the number one priority for staff at the firm’s annual national team off-site get together in Kingscliff NSW a few months ago.
“Our national L&D manager Lexi Todorova has been amazing. Our inductions range from one week to six weeks depending on which part of the business you’re from. But we also do a lot of continuous improvement and specific role fundamentals training – skill mastery is critical in our business.”
Jurisic said a training manager had been brought in to help broker support and relationship managers achieve a Certificate IV in Finance and Mortgage Broking.
“We’re investing heavily in our people to make sure they are skilled but also happy in their roles.”
Commonwealth at 75 partnership
Jurisic said it was a privilege to be featured in The Commonwealth at 75 book, marking an historic milestone. “Especially as Infinity is featured as a partner recognised for debt reduction and wealth creation across enterprise, industry, and innovation in the Commonwealth.”
“We remain dedicated to fostering leadership and driving positive change within our community and beyond.”
Honours for Fazilet Goren, Zakee Sheriff
Jurisic said the company was very proud of chief sales officer Fazilet Goren, who has been recognised in Elite Women 2024.
“Faz has a long history of executive management roles in the industry, working at NAB, Westpac Group, Suncorp and Bendigo Bank. She’s done some amazing things and has always been an advocate of women in finance … we’re very blessed to have her in the business.”
Jurisic also had high praise for broker and finance strategist Zakee Sheriff, who has made it to the finalists’ list for Broker of the Year Residential at the Australian Mortgage Awards 2024.
“Given the amount of residential home loan volume he writes and a conversion rate of more than 89%, Zakee’s dedication is second to none. He’s done an amazing job to get to where he is today.”
Jurisic said Infinity Group also understood how harnessing the strength inherent in a diverse, and inclusive culture, could help benefit its clients and millions of Australians, and beyond.
