Regis Mutual Management has promoted Gerald Ewing to the new role of CEO Australia, as its business model gains traction here and in the UK.

Former Austbrokers CEO Lach McKeough and Regis Company Secretary Jodie Nicholls have also been appointed to the Australian board.

Regis was founded in the UK in 2007 to help set up mutuals and provide management services.

A year later Mr Ewing joined and established the Australian office as COO.

He says being CEO will allow him to focus on Australian expansion and gives him more power to make decisions.

“As Regis grows and starts to take on more mutuals, it makes sense for us to have a CEO in Australia running the business a little more autonomously than we have done in the past, supported by a strong local board,” Mr Ewing said.

The appointments are also an opportunity to rethink the company structure.

“As a start-up company we had a very flat organisational structure, but we are now moving to the next stage where we will need a more flexible structure that can carry us forward – one that supports our changing needs, both for managing growth [and] the existing business,” Mr Ewing said.

“Flexibility in the way we approach the mutual model and the ability to adapt it to different groups is going to be key.”