Manly-based broker collects Bradley McGougan Memorial Award, extending a winning run that started in 2024
Janine Wade (pictured, top) has been named Australian Finance Group's (AFG) Champion Broker for the third year in a row, collecting the Bradley McGougan (the founding director of AFG who passed away in 2013 following a battle with leukaemia) Memorial Award at the AFG Next 2026 gala dinner and extending a winning run that began in 2024.
The founder of Manly-based mortgage brokerage Ikaya, who was crowned AFG Champion Broker for NSW/ACT in September, opened her acceptance speech with a warning shot – of sorts – for the rest of the field.
"So the good news is I'm gonna be pursuing my career back in tennis, so hopefully someone else can win this next year," Wade told the crowd.
Not quite – speaking to MPA shortly after leaving the stage, the self-confessed tennis obsessive clarified she was simply hoping to get back on court more often.
A trophy for the mums
Wade missed last year's ceremony after giving birth, leaving her team to accept the national title on her behalf. This time she was there to thank the people she said made the three-peat possible.
She paid tribute to the AFG Women on the Move program. "I've been part of that program and it literally was life changing," she said.
She also thanked her long-time business development manager (BDM), whom she has known for almost 14 years, before turning to the team back at Ikaya.
"There's no way that I'd be able to do this three times in a row without my team, who are all mums, (who have) returned to work, hustling really hard," Wade said. "This one is for you guys."
Six trophies and a $400 million milestone
By Wade's count, the haul now stands at six – a state and a national award in each of the past three years.
Asked by MPA for the secret to her success, she kept it simple: "A lot of late nights and a lot of commitment, a lot of dedication."
She admits she doesn't watch the numbers closely. "I've never monitored the numbers or actually looked at what the volume is that we're writing," she said. In fact. it took a call from her colleague to tell her the team had just passed $400 million.
Nonetheless, staying on top year after year means roughly doubling your numbers each time; when she first won, her figures went from around $18 million to $140 million.
As MPA's profile of Wade and the rise of Ikaya explored, she built her team by hiring women returning to the workforce after having children and training them from scratch. That hasn't changed. Only one team member, Kate, who joined a year ago, came with prior mortgage experience.
"That's very, very hard to find," Wade said of her team's commitment. "And I've had to teach them how to do the job."
Beyond volume, she said what defines a great mortgage broker is backing clients that others won't. "A lot of the clients that came to me would say, ‘oh, you know, that other person just wouldn't want to help me at all’,".
She explained how her team has stuck with some clients for years until they've saved up enough for their deposit.
McKeon looks back – and ahead
The AFG gala dinner also heard from AFG co-founder Brett McKeon (pictured, below), who was honoured on stage and used the moment to look back at the aggregator's beginnings.
It was, he said, nearly 10 years since he had last stood in front of an AFG crowd. "I want tonight just to take a few minutes to look backwards rather than forwards," McKeon said.
He recalled AFG's start in a Perth boardroom in 1994 and the resistance it met from banks when he moved to Victoria – a state, he noted, that was then in deep recession. The first loans were processed by hand and by fax, and 80% were declined.
McKeon thanked brokers, third-party bank BDMs, AFG staff and the board, and his family. "I do love people that get out there and take a risk and have a crack at life," he told the brokers in the room.
He closed with a message for brokers who have endured a tougher quarter: "The dam will break at some point in the next two quarters, and I'm sure you guys will be as busy as ever."
McKeon added that he remains an AFG shareholder and will "still be keeping an eye on what you guys are doing".
Who else won at the AFG Next 2026 national awards?
UFinancial Group took the top brokerage honour, adding the national Champion Broker Group title to the two state Champion Group wins it collected in September.
The AFG Champion Commercial Broker Group award went to Link Capital and was accepted by Larry Zhou, while the AFG Champion Asset Finance Broker Group gong went to Network Finance, and was accepted by Craig Titmus.
The national awards cap AFG's annual broker awards series, which ran through Brisbane, Adelaide, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney earlier this year. UFinancial's Daniel Mills was also named Champion Broker for Victoria/Tasmania at state level.
