Beyond The Numbers With Christian Stevens

Matthew Hollinworth is a Flint Director and founding broker at Flint Newcastle. With experience across accounting, CBA business banking and mortgage broking, Matthew brings a rare mix of technical finance knowledge and client-facing energy to complex lending. This conversation goes well beyond the bank-to-broker story. Matthew breaks down how he moved from accounting into CBA business banking, why...

Rachael McKenzie is the operations manager at Loan Gallery Finance, a 40-plus person brokerage with 27 loan writers, and a major FY27 recruitment drive ahead. She came into broking from the fitness industry after COVID, and has helped scale the brokerage without the wheels falling off. Rachael opens up about the real mechanics behind high-performance brokerages — splitting admin teams, managing co...

Melissa Gielnik is the Managing Director of Smart Lending Mortgage Brokers, a 25-year mortgage broking veteran, former Deputy Chairman of the MFAA during the Royal Commission, and one of the most decorated female leaders in Australian financial service. She built Smart Lending from the ground up and has spent the last two and a half decades helping clients invest smart and generate wealth. This co...

Rushmi Shrestha is the General Manager of Flint Engine, running the entire support team behind Australia's fastest-growing mortgage brokerage. Rushmi manages an 80-person team across app docs, loan processing, credit, compliance, HR, training and tech; and is directly responsible for growing headcount 1000% in a single year! This conversation pulls back the curtain on what actually goes into build...

Niti Bhargava is the founder and principal broker of GB Financial, arrived in Australia at 20 with three master's degrees, was rejected from 26 jobs before landing a teller role at Bankwest, and spent the next 13 years climbing through CBA from teller to direct lender. But even with all the success she has, Niti left banking in 2020 and started building GB Financial on a tagline most brokers would...

Lauren Franzmann is a finance broker at Flint, based in Newcastle, and a founding member of Sheinvest. At 23, she's already five years deep in an industry where most people take a decade to see what she's seen in two. She fell into broking through a Facebook ad for a loan processing role while studying economics at Newcastle Uni, and is now working alongside one of Flint's top brokers, handling fi...

Paritosh Wadhwani is the principal broker and director of APW Finance. He’s a migrant from India who arrived with no job, talked his way into ANZ as a part-time teller, and worked his way to commercial lending manager in just under three years. Paritosh breaks down what bankers actually want to see in a submission and why most brokers are presenting deals in a way that makes the assessor's job har...

Ruan Burger is the founder of Success and Broker and one of the most credible voices in Australian mortgage broking. As a former top 1% broker, he settled 367 deals in a single year out of a regional town of 44,000 people and built a $1 billion brokerage. Ruan breaks down the growth framework he uses with every client and why writing business is easy but finding business is hard. He also unpacks w...

Ashley Van Rosmalen is a 26-year-old asset finance broker and the founder of Noma Finance. She started her business from a bedroom in Adelaide, took a yacht chef job in Croatia to pay the bills, and was scrambling eggs in a galley while fielding car loan enquiries from her old Mazda clients. When she returned to Australia she decided to go all in on TikTok and Instagram, and is now one of the top...

Joanna James is the Chief Development Officer of the FBAA, a licensed architect, former mortgage manager, published author, and one of the most quietly formidable people in Australian financial services. She co-built a mortgage management business to 140 people and $150 million/month before most of the industry had even heard of offshore processing. Then she walked away, went to India, wrote a boo...

Matt Turner is a partner at GSC Finance in Geelong, a former financial planner who talked his way into a banking role, spent five years earning his stripes as a relationship manager (amongst other roles), and built his way to business partner without ever being handed anything.  In the last 12 months alone, GSC has rebranded, moved offices, launched a sub-aggregation arm, added asset finance, and...

Pete Davies is a mortgage broker based in Lake Macquarie — a former big four business banker turned underground coal miner, who rebuilt his life from scratch after a separation during Covid and came back to finance with a clarity most brokers never find.  This conversation goes well beyond the loan book. Pete opens up about why he deliberately chose not to go it alone — selecting a mentor with 30...

Robbo Roper is the founder of Trusted Finance and arguably the most followed finance mind in Australia — 1.7 million followers across TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, built entirely without spending a single dollar on advertising. But his origin story isn't what you'd expect. He spent a decade as a high school maths teacher, built a 15-staff tutoring centre on the side, and only stumbled i...

Kaylene Edwards is the managing director of Flexify and one of the more honest, self-made stories to come through Beyond The Numbers. She grew up in commission housing, bartended her way through her twenties, and bought her first property at 21 — sleeping in her car between shifts to save the deposit. She later moved into banking as an assessor, watched brokers submit loan after loan, and eventual...

Simon Lewis is the founder of Broker Capital, a trail book lender built specifically for mortgage brokers who want to grow — without selling what they've spent years building. In this episode, Simon unpacks how trail book funding actually works, why most brokers don't realise they're sitting on a borrowable asset, and how Broker Capital is funding deals in as little as two days. He breaks down the...

Chris Raymond, founder of Unconditional Finance, joins Christian Stevens on this week's episode of Beyond The Numbers. With 25 years across banking and broking — from loan documentation and credit analysis to becoming a #1 BDM nationally — Chris built Unconditional Finance from a single relationship that generated $67 million in his first year as a broker. But it wasn't overnight. From going all-i...

Julian Fayad, Founder and CEO of LoanOptions.ai, joins Christian Stevens on this week's episode of Beyond The Numbers. As Australia's first AI-powered loan comparison platform, FBAA Industry Champion of the Year, and a Deloitte Tech Fast 50 company, Julian has been building AI in financial services since 2020 — years before it was mainstream. He joins Christian to unpack the full story of how it h...

Leigh Morris, mortgage broker and founder of SFP Financial, joins Christian Stevens on this week's episode of Beyond The Numbers. As a former financial planner turned content creator, Leigh has built a following of 50,000+ across social media, hit 2.7 million views on a single video, and books out his calendar weeks in advance — all without spending a dollar on ads. But the journey wasn't overnigh...

From arriving in Australia with just $1,500 in his pocket to becoming the #1 mortgage broker for the Nepalese community — Raj Sapkota’s story is one of relentless grit, smart strategy, and playing to your strength. In this episode of Beyond the Numbers, Christian Stevens sits down with Raj to unpack the immigrant mindset that turned a cleaner's wage into a multi-million dollar property portfolio a...

Rhianna Farnan, Chief Communications Officer at Derwent Finance and mental health advocate, joins Christian Stevens on this week's episode of Beyond The Numbers. As FBAA Tasmania State President, Artemis Ambassador, and the 2025 Better Business Awards Thought Leader of the Year, Rhianna shares the story behind building one of Australia's leading mortgage broking firms - starting from a bedroom at...

Melissa Procajlo, founder of Pro Good Finance, began her career in project management within the mining sector, working on large-scale quarry and infrastructure projects across Australia. The role demanded long hours, tough environments, and resilience - lessons that would later shape the way she approaches business. In this episode of Beyond The Numbers, Mel shares how she transitioned into mortg...

In this episode of Beyond the Numbers, Christian Stevens sits down with Ben Robinson, Flint Director, top 1% broker, and the man building Newcastle's first billion-dollar brokerage. Ben shares his unconventional journey from mustering 20,000 cattle on a 2.5 million acre station in the Northern Territory to becoming one of the highest-performing brokers in Australia. He reveals how he built a team...

In this episode of Beyond the Numbers, Christian Stevens sits down with Eric Dill, the co-founder of Quickli - the tech platform that has revolutionised how over 13,000 mortgage brokers assess serviceability across 35+ lenders. Eric shares the unfiltered story of building Quickli from a spreadsheet proof-of-concept to the industry's most essential tool, why he's never raised a single dollar of out...

In this episode of Beyond the Numbers, Christian Stevens sits down with Sinead Grant - a FlintDirector and one of the most exciting young brokers coming through the industry. At just 22, Sinead has already built a portfolio of two investment properties, is on track for five by 25, and has grown a personal brand from scratch by simply putting herself out there and creating consistent content. She s...

In this episode of Beyond the Numbers, Christian Stevens sits down with Max Harris, Associate Director at Azura Finance - one of Australia’s leading brokerages - and a 7x Top 100 Broker. Max shares how he went from being a part-time uni student cold-calling buyers at open homes to settling over $300M in loans this year, backed by a lean but highly effective team. Whether you’re a new broker chasin...