Margin Call: Dave Akers steps up to lead advice at AMP

AMP executive Anthony Jack Regan in April appeared at the banking royal commission in Melbourne. Picture: Stuart McEvoy/The Australian.

Former KPMG partner Dave Akers has taken over as AMP’s acting head of advice after Jack Regan, the most pummelled witness at Kenneth Hayne’s banking royal commission, has had his stress leave further extended.

Margin Call today revealed that Regan remained on leave, as the AMP executive recovers from his two-day showdown with counsel assisting Michael “Babyface” Hodge in the commission’s bruising wealth round in April.

Staff at AMP’s towering Circular Quay headquarters were today informed that Akers will now be acting in the role.

Akers had already taken on some of the responsibilities for which the former schoolteacher Regan was last year paid $3.2 million. Akers will now formally report to AMP’s CEO Mike Wilkins, who is also working in an acting capacity.

New AMP chairman David Murray continues to search the globe for a new chief executive to lead the $10.5 billion financial services outfit.

Murray is also on the hunt for new female directors to replace the departed Catherine Brenner and Holly Kramer, and the soon-to-go Patty Akopiantz.

Former Credit Suisse Australia chairman John O’Sullivan — either the greatest ASIC chairman Australian never had or that rogue from the Utegate scandal, depending on your politics — joined Murray’s board last month.