MEET THE TEAM

About Us

Virtual Business Partners (VBP) is an Australian outsourcing company based in Cebu, Philippines; founded in 2013 by David Carney and David Deegan. DC and DD, as the staff would fondly call them, have worked in the financial planning industry—DC brings 20 years of experience and is a Certified Gazelles International Coach while DD started in the industry way back 2002 and has gone through the E-Myth Mastery Business Coaching program.

With their combined knowledge and expertise, they have successfully established a back office solution that aims to change how financial advice is delivered in Australia.

David Carney

Co-founder & CEO

David Deegan

Co-founder & Director of Innovation

Tim Farr

Chief Operating Officer

Andrew Rocks

Head of Partnership and Business Development

Nath Moyes

General Manager

Leadership Team

Chris Booth

Mortgage Broking Specialist

Sarah Matthews

Advice Manager

Kay Jongko

Learning and Development Manager

Shi-an Llanto

Head of Client Services

Jabber Ludag

Head of Client Onboarding

Leo Infante

Training Manager

Chy De Los Reyes

Operations Manager

Tessa Tundag

Operations Manager

Lailani Santos

Operations Manager

Elissa Yntig

Office Manager

Charmaine Querouz

Head of People and Culture

Perlyn Gumahen

Senior Marketing Specialist

Fruilene Panes

Compliance Manager

Dolly Leviste

Senior Accountant

Kimmie Dico

Senior Business Analyst

Client Service Managers

Jon Beja

Shayne Laude

Christian Jaca

Jefferson Lim

Chrisal Kilat

Riga Tablada

Alex Arrieta

Mike Chan

Aldrin Gornez

Nora Cayanong

Tina Reyes

Jesalyn Inso

Renz Salares

Alez Roque

Jeffrey Suñega

Lito Macawile

Aimz Pagobo

Cam Suezo

Elmo Doguiles

Richard Ermac

Jai Espoltero

Anne Reynes

Gesamay Barit

Valery Jakosalem

Steven Almagro

Femiel Pama

Vanessa Lozano

Chem Ayuban

Eljon Brigoli

David Carney

Co-Founder & CEO

BIO

David Carney (DC) is our Chief Executive Officer. He lives in Queensland and visits our Cebu site every quarter. DC brings 20 years of experience working in the financial services industry. He is a Certified Financial Planner and was the Managing Director of Aspect Partners—a financial planning firm he previously owned and successfully sold in 2008. He is a Gazelles Certified business coach and has worked with several planning firms to help them with strategic thinking and execution planning.

Frustrated with the bottlenecks in the planning industry caused by the level of admin, paperwork and compliance, he decided to find a solution for planning firms and hence, he has built an organisation that will do exactly that.

David Deegan

Co-Founder & Director of Innovation

BIO

David Deegan (DD) lives in Cebu, Philippines and is the co-founder of Virtual Business Partners. He has worked in the Financial Planning industry since 2002.

DD went through the E-Myth Mastery Coaching program between 2004-2006 and learned the importance of implementing systems in building and growing a successful business.

There are so many great tools and technology solutions available today, and as Head of Innovations, DD helps businesses learn how to use these tools to quickly and easily systemise their business.

Tim Farr

Chief Operating Officer

BIO

A former pioneering client of VBP, Tim joins the company as Chief Operating Officer and is now responsible for overseeing the day-to-day administrative and operational functions of a business. He works with our Cluster Heads and Client Services Managers in making sure we implement the right processes and system needed in providing the best experience to our clients.

He also led the re-establishment of our Paraplanning team, growing from 20+ Paraplanners to now more than 150 in less than a year. He is an Associate Financial Planner (Financial Planning Association of Australia, MACID (Australian Institute of Company Directors and an Accredited Mortgage Broker. In addition, he was also with AMP for 11 years as Director and Senior Financial Adviser.

Andrew Rocks

Head of Partnership and Business Development

BIO

After a Character building career in Cotton Chipping at Boggabri, and a very good time at Uni at Newcastle, Andrew moved to Sydney and founded the Announcer Group of Companies (acquired by Infocus in 2017). The Announcer Group was VBP’s first client way back in 2013. Currently, Rocksy is also involved in XY Adviser (the social network for financial advisers).

In 2020, Andrew joined VBP as Head of Partnerships and Business Development. His role is to lead the VBP Sales team and ensure that we establish the best partnership with our clients, helping them build the future of their business.

Nath Moyes

General Manager

BIO

Nath brings over 20 years of experience in developing and managing teams and businesses across the product lifecycle. Worked and owned multiple business units and is an accomplished people manager, developer and leader with extensive change management experience.

Nath currently lives in the beautiful island of Boracay, Philippines. He joined VBP as our General Manager, responsible for overseeing daily business activities, improving overall business functions including finance and strategies as well as communicating business goals.

Chris Booth

Mortgage Broking Specialist

BIO

Chris Booth (Boothy) is our Mortgage Specialist.

Bringing 20 years of banking and lending experience to the team, Chris has both practiced as a Broker and a Broker Manager for over 10 years.

He has held the position of Responsible Manager and Director of Infocus Lending Advisory P/L and provided credit services to a National Network of Financial Planners within the Infocus Group. He has been working with our VBP Team since 2013 when he recruited the first Mortgage Broking Assistants to manage his Broker Back Office.

Chris holds a certificate in education and has worked with Kaplan specialising in the Mortgage Broking Certificate and Diploma structuring education content and facilitating workshops. He has provided the training and development for our team of Mortgage Broking Assistants in Cebu.

Operationally, Chris is passionate about driving efficiencies in Mortgage Broking businesses and has a wealth of knowledge and practical experience in managing the increased administration, paperwork, and compliance of a modern day Mortgage Brokerage.

Sarah Matthews

Advice Manager

BIO

Sarah brings over 10 years of experience working in the financial services industry as both a qualified financial planner and mortgage broker. Before joining VBP, Sarah was working at the National Australia Bank in their paraplanning division.

As the Advice Manager of VBP, Sarah is responsible for overseeing the production of advice documents for our clients as well as providing professional and technical support and training to our team of over 150 Paraplanners and Quality Assurance Analysts.

Sarah works closely with our clients and their licensees to ensure advice production is aligned to their practice preferences and compliance standards.

Kay Jongko

Learning and Development Manager

BIO

Kay is responsible for the knowledge base. She conducts training for new staff members as well as the ongoing training for all staff. She regularly updates the Learning Management System and reviews case studies each FPA has to complete during the induction to ensure staff is equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills before they are handed over to you.

She is also the point of contact for FPAs with whatever task they are stuck with. If you have any suggestions on areas our FPAs need to improve on, she’ll be happy to hear from you.

See Training

Shi-an Llanto

Head of Client Services

BIO

With over 10 years of management experience in the outsourcing industry, Shi-an joined VBP as the first team manager back in 2014. She has worn multiple hats, serving roles in HR, IT, Sales and Onboarding, Service Delivery, and many others, over the years.

Currently, she is one of the cluster heads working with Client Services Managers and Dedicated Team Leads in overseeing about 250 admin staff and ensuring right support and direction are provided to achieve great outcomes for clients.

Jabber Ludag

Head of Client Onboarding

BIO

Jabber has been with VBP since August 2015 and also started off as a CSR. He now looks after 15 FPAs, continuously supports them to be the best in their jobs, thus making their clients happy. He also helps build bridges between FPAs and their clients, encouraging them to maintain open relationships.

He is one of the finalists for the Servant Leadership Award and his team won the very first Team of the Year Award last August 2017 during the VBP Talent and Awards Night.

Leo Infante

Training Manager

BIO

Leo started as a Financial Planning Assistant in 2014 and moved to assist the Learning & Development Manager with training of new hires because of training work background. He is also responsible for upskilling team members as needed and he endeavors to have a comprehensive understanding of work processes to develop and deliver training modules under specified timelines.

He manages training classes and interdepartmental communication and coordination, and assesses performance of trainees accordingly.

See training

Chy de los Reyes

Operations Manager

BIO

Chy is one of our greatest success stories in VBP. She started as a Financial Planning Assistant in April 2015, won the First Employee of the Year Award in 2016, then became a Client Services Manager in 2017.

Tessa Marie Juanillo-Tundag

Operations Manager

BIO

Tessa started as a Financial Planning Assistant in July 2014, shortly after got promoted as Subject Matter Expert, then became a Client Services Manager in 2015. Although she left VBP in 2018, Tess would be the perfect example of finding home in the workplace as it didn’t take long for her to come back. Having completed her Diploma in Financial Planning, she stepped in as a Client Services Manager for the Advice Team in 2019.

Currently, she is one of the cluster heads working with Client Services Managers and QA Analysts in overseeing about 250 Paraplanning staff, making sure they produce quality advice documents.

Lailani Santos

Client Services Manager

BIO

Lailani is a dedicated CSM for the Announcer Group. She is the go to person for all things Announcer and has been successfully navigating across all divisions—Financial Planning, Mortgages, Marketing, Tax and Property. She oversees tasks that FPAs (financial planning assistants) are doing and is responsible for the overall performance of the team.

She started as a Financial Planning Assistant in 2014 and became a hybrid Mortgage & Financial Planning assistant before she became a CSM. She believes that the success of an FPA rests in nurturing them by way of hands on training, real time coaching and believing on their potential.

Elissa Yntig

Office Manager

BIO

You may have had a few exchange of emails or have spoken to her at some point. Elissa is responsible in setting up meetings for both existing and potential clients, manages the CRM database and also does general PA work.

She also manages client payments and handles general bookkeeping.
On top of these, Elissa also does a bit of marketing as she collaborates with Dave on his marketing endeavors.

Charmaine Querouz

Head of People and Culture

BIO

You’ll definitely run into Charmaine as she heads the human resources team. Armed with a degree in Business Management majoring in Enterprise Development from Ryerson University in Toronto and fueled with a passion for entrepreneurial spirit, Charmaine executes the people strategy and long-term vision for growing our team while maintaining and strengthening our committed, collaborative, high performance culture.

Dedicated to the people function she provides counsel, develops roadmaps, and executes key people-related programs including onboarding, cultural initiatives, engagement and retention, performance management, career development, and human resources.

Fruilene Panes

Compliance Manager

BIO

Frui heads the Compliance Department and is instrumental in leading the organization for its ISMS accreditation.

Kimmie Dico

Senior Business Analyst

BIO

Kimmie looks after the Business Analysis team also known as PPG which mainly focuses on making sure that work instructions are all created and updated. She oversees the tasks being done by the Business Analysts, the Business Process Engineer, and the Document Writers.

She started as a Document Writer before she moved to the Senior Business Analyst Role. In addition, she is what we would like to call your Girl Friday as she gets the work done in the shortest time possible and she is always ready to help out with a variety of tasks. She was able to nurture the belief that if it cannot be fixed in 10 minutes, it is best to talk about it in private.

Jon Beja

Client Services Manager

BIO

Jon (Bej) joined VBP in 2015 after having spent 10 years working in the BPO industry; servicing accounts for technical support, credit card fraud and retail banking. He joined the company as a Financial Planning Assistant. He then transitioned to being the Coordinator of the Scalable Admin Services after a year, where he was responsible for assessing new hires that they are client-ready as well as ensuring that SAS client deliverables are met. In 2017 he transitioned to being a full-time Client Services Manager for Admin Client Services, winding down his SAS team and managing his own team of FPAs. He completed his Diploma of Financial Planning in 2019 and joined the Advice team as a CSM and has been helping manage paraplanners achieve their performance goals since then.

Shayne Laude

Client Services Manager

BIO

Shayne joined Virtual Business Partners in July of 2019 as Client Services Manager for the Paraplanning Team after having almost a decade of experience leading and managing teams. Prior to Virtual Business Partners, she has worked on a few roles in the Banking Industry, BPO Industry as well as Shared Services in the Philippines such as the ones below.

CSR – Teller
Subject Matter Expert
Sales Team Lead
Sales Team Manager
Credit Controller
Credit Team Lead

Shayne is currently managing 27 Paraplanners and 17 clients. She is tasked to monitor performance of her team members and provide coaching with the support of client training and assistance of the Training and Quality Assurance teams.

Jefferson Lim

Quality Assurance Manager

BIO

Jeff joined VBP back in 2016 having worked in 4 types of industry ranging from Information Technology, Auto-finance, Insurance, and Telecommunications. Currently, he is the Quality Assurance Manager for the Paraplanning team, working with 9 Analysts providing support to all Paraplanners in all technical aspects and training. This is to ensure that the staff can produce high-quality advice documents to our clients and are kept up to date to any changes in the financial planning industry.

Chrisal Kilat

Client Services Manager

BIO

Chrisal looks after the Invest Blue – Implementation Team. She monitors the Team’s performance, Team tasks, quality checks, training and she also looks after up skilling her team.

She does commence a lodgement if there is a need to help the team due to workload. Her team does the SOA preparation and the actual implementation which is an end to end process and this is for both Standard and SMSF Clients.

She makes sure that the team is aligned with the processes and that the team still has work and life balance despite of the workload and the weight of the tasks.

She was awarded last 2019 as the VBP Employee of the Year which she really deserves. A hard working individual, an outstanding one.

Riga Tablada

Client Services Manager

BIO

Riga looks after Invest Blue – Advice Team. She monitors overall performance and oversees task. She fills in if an FPA is not around. She makes sure that the team is aligned with processes across all 8 offices that Invest Blue caters. She believes that everything is possible with Invest Blue.

Alex Arrieta

Client Services Manager

BIO

Alex joined VBP back in 2017 as an FPA and now looks after the Invest Blue Office Admin Assistants. She oversees allocation of workload, fields task-related questions and fills in if one of her team members is not around. She is responsible for addressing client feedback, upskilling her team on new processes, and conducting performance reviews. In 2018, she was awarded the Su Cardino Core Value award, and team Invest Blue – the Team of the Year award!

Mike Chan

Client Services Manager

BIO

Mike, as fondly called by his friends, has joined VBP in April 2018, as a Client Services Manager. He is currently managing 22 FPAs with 13 clients in his plate, ensuring everyone gets the same level of service he’s expected to provide. He was one of the awardees in the recent All-hands Meeting for the 2019 Most Influential Leaders of the Quarter.

Aldrin Gornez

Client Services Manager

BIO

Aldrin is the dedicated Team Leader for Finlease Australia Pty Ltd with 5 FPAs. Part of his role is to do Loan Documentations, Online Applications and Data Mining. He handles the team’s performance by making sure that all deals were submitted on time and has no error. He does one-on-one sessions and makes sure that everything is monitored regularly. He is happy to provide assistance anytime to FPAs handling Mortgage Online Application and Loan Documentation.

Noralynd Cayanong

Client Services Manager

BIO

I have been with VBP for 4yrs and currently handling 16 FPAs and 7 clients. I am across with most all of the CS tasks as I was exposed in doing these for 2yrs before I became a manager. I am committed in providing good service to the company and 100% support to my FPAs and clients.

Kristina Reyes

Client Services Manager

BIO

Tina joined VBP in March 2017. She is one of the Client Services Managers and is currently managing 17 Financial Planning Assistants with 12 different clients. Tina is responsible for overseeing the performance of the FPAs and liaising with their clients about tasks being assigned, training needs, and etc. to ensure that a supportive team environment is provided.

Jesalyn Inso

Client Services Manager

BIO

Jesalyn is the Client Service Manager of The Hopkins Group Cebu team.

She mainly handles the Financial Planning administration processes but also supervise in Accounting Admin, Mortgage Broking, and Property Management offshore matters. She is responsible in responding to client’s feedback and concerns. She does performance review of the staff and conduct one-one-one sessions to discuss topics a staff is concerned about and identify what kind of support can be provided

Renz Salares

Client Services Manager

BIO

Renz is responsible in managing the team’s performance by making sure that FPAs are compliant with their schedules and are performing to their clients’ expectations. He does this through regular one-on-one sessions, coaching, and quarterly performance evaluation. He also supports client and FPA interaction by conducting weekly check-ins, NPS survey, and Partnering for Performance Sessions.

Alez Roque

Client Services Manager

BIO

Prior to joining VBP, Alex has spent 6 years working a few roles in the BPO industry as:

Representative for Sales
Order Entry Specialist
Quality Assurance
Operations Supervisor

Alex is a dedicated CSM for practices under Retire Invest Advice Group. After a year of being a Financial Planning Assistant, she is now managing 17 FPAs spread across 11 practices. She works to ensure an inclusive and harmonious FPA – client relationship by stripping off differences in norms, communication, culture and technicality.

As a data person, Alex is committed to conduct quality one on one sessions backed with appropriate coaching methodologies to discuss FPAs’ Areas of Opportunities and Success and executing SMART action plans. Alex also aims that FPAs are groomed to embody VBP’s service commitment to clients. That is to be relationship driven FPAs working with love, knowledge and commitment.

Jeffrey Suñega

Client Services Manager

BIO

Prior to joining VBP, Jeff has spent 6 years and worked a few roles in one of the BPO companies in the Philippines as:

Quality Assurance
Specialist Subject Matter
Expert Training and Staff Development
Team Leader

Jeff is responsible for managing daily performance and productivity of his FPAs and ensure that work is delivered on time, high quality, and accurate work with strong attention to detail. He liaise with client about tasks being assigned, training needs, and coordinate where required for further training. He oversees and ensure that the FPAs have documented processes and task instructions for the work they do on the business hub. He also supports client and FPA interaction by conducting weekly check-ins, NPS survey, Partnering for Performance Sessions, and provide quarterly performance appraisals to FPAs.

Lito Macawile

Client Services Manager

BIO

Within 6 months of handling the FPA team, Lito was awarded as the “2019 Most Influential Leader of the Quarter (MILQ)” during the second All-Hands Meeting of the year 2019.

He was also the awardee of the 2019 Sue Cardino Core Value Award during the 2019 Awards Night.

He is currently a new member of Team Phoenix as a Client Service Manager after completing the RG146 requirement on FNS50615 Diploma of Financial Planning course via distance education training of the International Institute of Technology with Certificate Number 11336 last 1 April 2020.

Aimz Pagobo

Client Services Manager

BIO

Aimz has always been a challenger of the norm to better the status quo.

Backed up with a total of 10 years experience, she has gained success in implementing innovations in operational systems and she has been applying these principles to her team of 12 Financial Planning Assistants under various practices. She helps breach the gap brought about by distance and diversity by checking in with the clients and discussing points for improvement with her team members through one-on-one sessions. She encourages her team members to express their ideas and maintain autonomy while adhering to company standards.

Cam Suezo

Client Services Manager

BIO

Cam joined VBP in April 2018 as an FPA to Newcastle Financial Planning Group. Because of her hardwork and being results driven, she was promoted as the dedicated Team Leader of the same client, handling a total of 6 FPAs.

Her tasks are implementing clients’ Statement and Record of Advice, as well as provide unparalleled support to the Advisers and their clients to ensure that every client has a positive impression of the practice. Apart from that, she also does regular one-on-one sessions and coaching, provides feedback and makes sure that her team feels supported not just by the VBP Management and also by their AU-based Team.

Elmo Doguiles

Client Services Manager

BIO

Elmo started working for VBP as a Financial Planning Assistant in May 2017. During his time as an FPA, he was assigned to different firms under different licensees like AMP, etc. In 2018, he stepped up and got promoted as a CSM for the onboarding team (The Forge). His main responsibility is to oversee and assist new FPAs endorsed from training to operations. He is also responsible for onboarding new clients and helps them uncover and streamline the processes of the tasks that they will assign to their FPAs and assess and aid them with any teething problems they encounter and come up with resolutions to resolve them.

Richard Ermac

Client Services Manager

BIO

I was with VBP since August 2017and had been with Alteris (Formerly known as Affinity) for about 1 year and 9 months. I was the very first FPA of the practice and was part of Affinity Aged Care which dealt with the aged care side of Financial Planning. After leaving the team and pursuing my personal goal to be part of management, the offshore team now consists of about 6 FPAs.

From being a Domain Expert, I am now one of the Client Services Managers under cluster Shi-an and is currently managing 7 FPAs. Practices handled are all under the Retire Invest licensee. I help my team bring out the best in them every day and vice versa.

Jellianne Espoltero

Client Services Manager

BIO

Jai joined VBP in September 2016 after having spent 4 years as an HR Officer handling Recruitment and Employee Relations. She is one of the Client Services Managers and is currently managing 20 Financial Planning Assistants with 15 different clients. Jai is responsible for overseeing the performance of the FPAs and liaising with their clients about tasks being assigned, training needs, and etc. to ensure that there will be enough support given to the team.

Mary Anne Reynes

Client Services Manager

BIO

Anne started as a Financial Planning Assistant then later became a Universal FPA before taking up the lead role. She provides support to her team consisted of 5 FPAs. She handles training, managing of workload and delivery of tasks for Paraplanning Assistants and Client Services officers as well as other offshore matters. She also does adhoc tasks and projects for her client and she handles feedback and concerns as well. She’s also involved in streamlining processes for both the onshore and offshore team and is working on aligning these processes to improve efficiencies.

Gesamay Lou Barit

Client Services Manager

BIO

Gesamay is the Team leader of Advice Evolution FPA team in Cebu managing 6 FPAs and also supervising the Advice Evolution Paraplanning Team in Cebu and Onshore. Part of her role as Support Manager, is assisting the entire support team of Advice Evolution and is responsible in supporting all 34 Practices under the Dealer Group in all their Licensee queries regarding policies, standards, commissions, client transfers and compliance requirements and manages the on-boarding of new advisers and off boarding of the advisers who are leaving.

Valery Jakosalem

Sales and Onboarding Consultant

BIO

She joined VBP last March 2018 . She worked as a financial planning assistant for a year and 7 months for different licensees. After which, she became an Onboarding Client Service Manager under the Forge. Just recently, she also became a part of the Sales Team as a Sales and Onboarding Consultant.

As an Onboarding Client Service Manager, she helps establish a good working relationship between clients and FPAs. She is responsible for supporting the FPAs and the Clients especially on the first few months of onboarding where most of the adjustments are done. She oversees the FPAs daily performance and helps them produce compliant and quality work. Now and then, she checks in with clients to make sure that they are supported in whatever way VBP can.

As a Sales and Onboarding Consultant, she is usually the first person you get to interact with when you come in touch with VBP for the first time. She will walk you through how we make things possible here in VBP and share a helicopter view of what to expect when onboarding.

Steven Almagro

Client Services Manager

BIO

Steven is the CSM for the Infocus licensees, collectively called Infocus B2B. He is a subject-matter expert for Platformplus, an application used exclusively by Infocus Securities. He manages his team well, making sure that they feel supported all the time which then translates to good client experience.

He started as a Financial Planning Assistant in 2018 under Infocus Advisory. He had built a good rapport with his clients which led to him being nominated as Admin of the Year during the 2019 VBP Talents and Awards Night. He believes that the key to success for an FPA is to build lasting relationships with the clients and with peers.

Femiel Pama

Client Services Manager

BIO

Femmy joined VBP in May 2018 as a financial planning assistant and became a dedicated Team Leader for Blueprint Wealth.

She handles financial administration processes while managing the team. She monitors the team’s performance by coordinating with the clients onshore, providing performance review and one on one session with her teammates to ensure good quality output. As a Psychometrician, she offers a counseling session to her teammates who needs emotional and mental support.

Eljon Brigoli

Client Services Manager

BIO

Eljon joined VBP as a Mortgage Broking Assistant in March 2017 working for a mortgage broking firm. He was responsible for preparing loan application forms, lodgments, following up of loan status and preparing loan reviews. In December 2019, he stepped up and got promoted as an Onboarding CSM (under The Forge).

Eljon is responsible for assisting new FPAs and MBAs endorsed from training to operations. He is also responsible for overseeing the performance of new FPAs and MBAs and liaising with their clients regarding the tasks being assigned, training needs, workload, etc to ensure good quality output.