Meet the team

Craig Fenwick

Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer

With over 25 years’ experience in banking, finance, consulting and technology, Craig has worked for some of Australia’s largest organisations, including Suncorp, PwC and IBM. He co-founded Alex Bank to build a bank from the ground up leveraging the latest technology to provide financial products without the friction.

At Suncorp Bank, Craig brought new products and customer experiences to life and profitably grew large balance sheets in deposits, mortgages and consumer lending.
Craig is a Chartered Accountant and a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Craig Manson

Non-Executive Director

Craig has 15 years board experience across the private sector where he’s had success in helping companies achieve strong growth, improve governance and risk models, contribute to capital structuring, and guiding companies through periods of great change. His background is in the technology, financial services, consumer electronics and healthcare markets.

Craig is a full-time Board Director and Advisory Board Chair and in addition to Alex Bank currently Chairs the Boards of Galilee Solicitors, Respond Global, Toustone and is a Non-Executive Director of Marketboomer. Prior to this, he was the Managing Director of Computershare Communication Services, Executive Director of Canon Australia, and Managing Director of Canon NZ.

Katherine Ostin

Non-Executive Director

Kathy is a deeply experienced executive having spent 24 years with KPMG in Australia, Asia, the United States and UK as partner in the Audit, Assurance & Risk Consulting division, and in various other senior management roles. She has broad sector expertise, across software distribution, investment and regional banking, financial services, treasury operations, wealth management, technology, transport and health.

Kathy is an experienced non-executive director and Chair of Audit & Risk Committees and Chair of Nominations Committees of publicly listed and unlisted companies.

Alex Twigg

Non-Executive Director

Alex has over 30 years of experience as a career banker and entrepreneur. He is a leader in banking and technology and a pioneer of digital banking, having led and co-founded multiple start-up banks, including UBank and Judo – where he also held Chief Information Officer and Chief Executive Officer positions.

Alex is currently the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Shift Happens Group and the co-founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Appeggio.com.

Alex also sits on the University of Queensland Business School Service Innovation Alliance advisory board and is a fellow of the Financial Services Institute of Australasia, and a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Sascha Hunt

Chief Growth Officer

Sascha has over 20 years’ experience in both Australia and Asia Pacific, developing customer led business and marketing strategies to create sustainable competitive advantage for organisations in the retail banking, broking, wealth management, and insurance sectors.

Prior to Alex Bank, Sascha was the Head of Marketing for Aussie, Group General Manager of Marketing and Digital Business at Allianz Australia Ltd, as well as Head of Digital Marketing, Strategy and Innovation for Tabcorp. She has also held numerous senior roles at Google, BT Financial Group, Citibank, ING Direct and Qantas.

Sascha holds a Bachelor of Business, Marketing and International Business and a Master of Business, Marketing from UTS.

Steve Kluss

Chief Operations Officer

Steve has more than 30 years’ experience in Banking, Financial Services and technology - with a proven track record in balancing customer experience, team engagement, operational efficiency and risk management.

Prior to joining Alex Bank, Steve was a Director at NAC Consulting, one of the fastest growing consultancy firms in Australia. Steve also held several Executive General Manager positions within the Suncorp Group responsible for Retail, Business and Treasury Operations, Distribution and Lending Product.

As a member of the Suncorp Senior Executive team, he was a key member of Risk and Compliance committees, while also completing board member duties as a member of the Queensland Finance Advisory Board and a Fellow of FINSA. Steve also holds a Master of Business Administration and a Postgraduate in Leadership from USQ.

Michael McLennan

Chief Risk Officer

Michael has over 25 years’ financial services leadership experience ranging from Australian ASX-listed challenger financial institutions through to a global financial conglomerate, leading key risk and financial functions drawing upon skills across the broad spectrum of finance, risk and internal audit.

Prior to joining Alex Bank, he was the Chief Risk Officer for BankVic. Previous roles included Chief Risk Officer and General Manager of Internal Audit for Auswide Bank and Chief Financial Officer for Pioneer Permanent Building Society.

Michael also has international financial management experience from senior management roles with Lloyds Banking Group while based in the UK. These roles included planning for the Group’s International Retail Banking operations and management of the Group’s economic capital and economic profit frameworks.

Jeff Nel

Chief Information Officer

Jeff has over 25 years’ banking experience across distribution and operations roles.

Prior to immigrating to Australia in 2008 Jeff ran the Global Trade and Payment Operations for Nedbank out of Johannesburg, South Africa.

In Australia, prior to Alex Bank, Jeff worked for UBank where, in 2008 he set up and managed their Operations centre. He was instrumental in the rollout numerous products & services over the years whilst simultaneously growing his operational remit. Post UBank, Jeff led the Broker Relationship Team for NAB in QLD & NT.

More recently Jeff was at Judo Bank, where he led the build of their go to market CRM & LOS and Headed up the Core Technology and Business Assurance team.