Daniel Marsi focused on attracting new brokers to industry
The new CEO of boutique aggregator Liberty Network Services has explained his vision for ongoing growth with a focus on adviser engagement, recruitment of new-to-industry brokers and the integration of AI to streamline customer processes.
Daniel Marsi (pictured above) has worked for LNS for 10 years and in June was appointed as CEO, following the retirement of managing director Brendan O’Donnell.
MPA caught up with Marsi recently to discuss his career journey and what he hopes to achieve as leader of the LNS broker network
Marsi’s early career path
After completing a commerce degree in 2007, Marsi entered the workforce in 2008 with the aim of working in investment banking.
“It was the GFC, so that ambition of getting into investment banking certainly wasn't as easy as what I thought it would be,” Marsi said. “When I was younger, I really had a passion for new business and mergers and acquisitions. This ambition was derailed with the GFC.”
Marsi joined GE Money’s branch network as a personal finance representative and worked across various roles including branch and regional manager, and business development manager in mortgages and personal loans.
He said the GE Money BDM role gave him the opportunity to work with Aussie Home Loans as a BDM in 2012, promoting Aussie’s white label personal loan product (a GE product). “That was my first real taste of aggregation and mortgage broking.”
Joining Liberty Network Services
In 2014, Marsi was approached by a recruiter to join Liberty Network Services, which was established in January 2012. He recalls being interviewed for the newly created role of network sales manager NSW and ACT by LNS founder and then managing director Brendan O’Donnell.
“I was genuinely inspired and motivated by an individual who had so much passion for a business that was still in startup phase. He was able to really articulate the vision of the business and correlate and tie that into where LNS fits in the Liberty group.
“I saw it as an opportunity not only to get into aggregation, but to work with somebody that was able to share and articulate such a vision.”
Marsi said he was drawn to LNS because instead of being a “cog in a big machine” it was a small business at the time, with just 40 mortgage advisers, but it was growing.
O’Donnell was able to explain the organisation’s goals, that it formed an integral part of Liberty Financial Group and “this is where we fit in”.
After five years as LNS network sales manager, Marsi was promoted to state manager NSW/ACT in 2019, a new role that had been created due to the successful growth of the business.
Daniel Marsi’s role as CEO
Marsi said he came aboard LNS as part of O’Donnell’s vision to pursue growth and as network sales manager (NSM) he had built the business to a level where it could recruit further NSMs and create the state manager role.
“The state manager role was an interesting but organic change, but the big shift for me was when I began studying my executive MBA at the University of NSW in 2020 … this really tested me, juggling full-time work and study. On top of this, trying to juggle being a dad with a large family of four children.”
Marsi was officially appointed as CEO of LNS in June, taking over from O’Donnell, who announced his retirement in May after almost 20 years in the mortgage broking industry.
Initially realising he had “big shoes to fill”, Marsi saw his new role not only as an opportunity to demonstrate his capabilities. But also to benefit from the mentorship and leadership he had received from O’Donnell, who had helped him grow both professionally and personally over the last decade.
“Now I really don't see it as shoes to fill – they’re my own shoes to create, it's not about filling somebody else's role and that's important. I understand as part of group strategy, the intention is not to just put somebody in to go and do the same thing. It's to come at it with a different lens and fresh set of eyes.
“Being appointed CEO highlights that with commitment, resilience and honesty, anything is achievable. It’s been a long journey but without the time, experiences and support, I wouldn’t have been presented with this opportunity.”
Focus on growth
LNS has gone from strength to strength, said Marsi. Like any business, it had experienced ups and downs but remained in a strong position.
“We've got 220 advisers nationally – we’re at our largest and strongest,” Marsi said. “We’ve got a fantastic team and I’m proud to be CEO.”
“My role now is to look to how we grow the business nationally and how we further strengthen and encourage our advisers to become more productive, scale and diversify.
“We’ve always had the lens of doing things differently, being adaptable, dynamic and making sure we’ve got a team that understands and is aligned with our vision.”
Being part of the Liberty Financial Group meant LNS was able to leverage 27 years of expertise across lending, business growth and acquisitions and LNS advisers had access to a broad range of products, services and resources.
Marsi said LNS was performing well, with a continuing focus on adviser business support, education, and recruitment.
“We believe that the industry is in need of new broker entrants – the industry is made up of an ageing population.”
LNS runs an internal mentoring program for advisers called A-Fit (short for Adviser Fit), which focuses on providing genuine support and mentorship to new-to-industry mortgage advisers.
The 24-month program includes three phases and LNS network sales managers are our registered mentors. “We don’t use external mentors and that’s how we’ve been successful to date when it comes to attracting new entrants to LNS,” said Marsi.
“We want to continue to educate and support our advisers with diversification and scaling their businesses … we don't need to reinvent the wheel,” said Marsi. “It's a business model that's worked very well and it's a matter of keeping an open eye on new opportunities along the way.”
Diversification is a core part of LNS’ value proposition, he said, contributing to the network’s scale and loan growth over the last 12 years.
With broker market share in the residential space at almost 75%, LNS remains focused on opportunities outside of residential lending.
Mortgage brokers have two focus areas – book building, which include residential and commercial lending, and cash flow management, covering asset finance, personal loans and insurance.
“That’s diversification. It’s about growing share of wallet from your customer and understanding the lifetime value of your customer.
“There’s more to your relationship with your broker and just getting a residential home loan for one home, you could look at purchasing a commercial factory in your self-managed super fund, or you may look at buying a car, or you may look at getting a personal loan to go on holidays – that’s how you can more fully serve a customer.”
Education and business support
Marsi said LNS advisers were offered education and training to be more than just a mortgage broker to their customers and to offer commercial, asset and personal loans. “Brokers are in the business of sales and relationships, not finance.”
While some specialist commercial brokers assert that they are best suited to write these loans, LNS believes that any adviser has the opportunity to write commercial loans and doesn’t encourage spot and refer, he said.
“We would rather educate you and put you in front of the right BDMs and the right product managers and training to overcome that imposter syndrome. Commercial lending, personal loans, asset finance and SMSF loans are not that hard – it’s just a matter of getting through that first deal, then the second deal and so on.
“Every broker has the ability and capability, if they wish to diversify.”
Marsi said some LNS advisers had strengths in commercial or asset finance rather than residential and they were also coached and mentored to look beyond these areas and write residential loans.
Using tech to enhance customer engagement
As FY2025 gets underway, Marsi said LNS remains focused on enhancing its communication and engagement with advisers.
“We see opportunities to streamline our advisers’ customer engagement process and that's through AI integration and continued enhancements of our aggregation platform, Spark+, and we're going to be able to achieve this over the next couple of years.
“It’s about how we streamline processes, not replace processes.”
This would include enhancing customer document collection, compliance review processes and other touch points.
Marsi said the plan was to incorporate AI and other technology into existing platforms, rather than creating additional platforms for advisers to use.
He summarised LNS’s short-term goals as adviser communication, engagement and education. Medium-term goals included use of AI integration and technologies to streamline advisers’ customer engagement process.
The long-term goal for LNS was to encourage a greater number of new-to-industry brokers who are open minded to embrace new approaches and opportunities.
“We will continue to revise our mentoring program, but I think as an industry we have to make a genuine shift in mindset on how we approach attracting and developing new-to-industry brokers,” said Marsi.
