Mr Herbst joins from Heritage Bank where he was responsible for the successful establishment and growth of Heritage’s presence in financial advice prior to its sale to the IOOF group.

Meanwhile, Irene Watt has taken up the role of general manager of marketing. Ms Watt held numerous senior in-house and agency marketing roles that included former head of marketing roles with Careers Australia and Foundation Group.

Michael Corcoran has also joined the company and has taken up the role of general manager – salaried advice, responsible for Infocus’ salaried advice team.

Mr Corcoran joined Infocus from BT Financial Group, where he was most recently acting general manager for Victoria and Tasmania, with direct responsibility for BT’s salaried advice team.

Infocus chief executive Rod Bristow said the H&R Block referral program is a key driver for the leadership restructure.

“This directly aligns with our adviser value proposition of helping our advisers grow revenue, increase efficiency and effectively manage risk in their businesses,” Mr Bristow said.

“We are also seeing growth in our AFSL operations, as we recruit and retain experienced financial advisers providing quality financial advice for clients, and our technology business, as more advisers leverage the real-time monitoring and supervision capability and deep client engagement and advice management tools within our proprietary software.”