He will replace Ross Butler, also a Mortgage Link director, who has temporarily held the role for the last six months or so since Roger Poulter stepped aside from the role of general manager.
Butler’s role has been restructuring the organisation and putting new systems in place ahead of finding a permanent appointee.
Templeton left his previous role as general manager of Perpetual Trust late last year.
The job of leading Mortgage Link will be only his third job. He began his career at a Christchurch accountancy firm which later become Price Waterhouse where he was an audit manager.
South Island-based investment firm Pyne Gould was among his clients and in late 1989 it approached him to head its corporate trust business. In late 1996 when Pyne Gould bought the AMP Perpetual Trust business, its corporate trust business became a national concern.
Templeton says the business went from having about $3 billion in assets under management when he joined to more than $10 billion when he left.
While the Mortgage Link role marks a new departure, Templeton says "it’s in the same ball park in the financial services industry."
Much of the relationships and knowledge he has built up over the years should cross over to assisting him at the mortgage broking licensing company, he reckons.
Templeton says he read the advertisement for his new job while on holiday in Tekapo and was intrigued by its wording and "put a finger in the air, rather than a hand" though a client connected with Mortgage Link and one thing led to another.
Butler says Templeton is "a strategic thinker" with a strong background in corporate practice and governance.
Initially, Templeton will be based at the company’s current Nelson head office, but it may eventually be managed from Christchurch.
Butler will remain with the company in 2004 to work on "some specific and appropriate projects."
