Sage Spotlight: Meet One of Our Directors - Matthew Henderson

Since joining Sage in mid-2025, Matt has built much of the infrastructure that has supported the company’s rapid growth, allowing it to scale quickly without losing the unique characteristics that define Sage. Across client solutions, insurer relationships, technology, operations, licensing, systems and governance, Matt’s work has turned a young brokerage into a mature one that can compete nationally across a broad range of products. His focus has been consistent: get the back office right so the broking and claims teams can do what they do best, which is focus on their clients’ needs. Matt’s work is often not seen, but it sits behind every success story our clients share with us.

Welcome to the spotlight, Matt, and congratulations on a significant year. You’ve been at Sage for over a year now, so what stands out as Sage’s most significant achievement on the operations and systems side?

I am most proud of securing and transitioning to our own Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL). It underpins the future of the company and is something that will remain in place for many years to come. After several months’ work, we were granted the licence in February and recently moved the business onto it. It was a substantial piece of work across almost every facet of the company.

Beyond the licence, the year has been about building infrastructure that can support a national business: the platform, CRM, renewal and claims workflows, and the finance and reporting systems that keep everything running smoothly. The aim is not just technology for its own sake. I have over 15 years in the industry across underwriting, broking and operations, so I always ask myself: “Does the client actually want this?”, “Will this make the brokers’ and claims teams’ lives easier?” or “Does this help the underwriter deliver a better result for our clients?”

You say you’re most proud of the AFSL. Why does it matter for clients?

Holding our own licence means we are directly accountable to our clients and responsible for our own regulatory obligations. We are not operating under someone else’s authority or appetite. It gives us control over our advice, processes and the markets we access, and it reflects the maturity of the business.

We will appoint and work with Authorised Representatives, Distributors and other referrers in complex schemes that require us to ensure our governance is held to the highest standards. For clients, it means Sage Insurance is advising them and owns the standard it is held to.

Basically, the buck stops with us now and, as one of the official Responsible Managers, I take that very seriously.

Sage is expanding its presence in strata quite rapidly. The past few years have been somewhat controversial in this area, and you have published several items on your website relating to it. Your Conflicts of Interest FAQ for Strata Managers caught my eye. Why put that in writing?

Because trust in this market is earned by being clear about how you operate, not simply by asking people to take it on faith. Our strata manager partners and the ultimate clients, the owners within the strata buildings, deserve straightforward answers about who arranges their insurance and how anyone involved manages a conflict, so we wrote those answers down.

The substance is simple. Sage is 100% Australian owned and 100% privately owned. Our Directors own the business they work in. We have no parent company and no external equity investors. We hold no ownership interest, partial or otherwise, in any insurer, underwriting agency or managing general agent in the strata market, and we have no financial stake in any strata management business. When we suggest a builder or repairer for a claim, it is because they are on the insurer’s approved list or because we believe they will deliver a faster or better outcome, and we receive no referral fees for it. We are transparent at the point any such referral is made.

We are members of networks such as Steadfast and we engage the Elite Broker Network for certain finance and compliance support, but neither owns equity in Sage and neither directs our advice. We subscribe to the Insurance Brokers Code of Practice through our NIBA membership. Putting all of this in front of clients, and inviting them to ask the same questions of any other broker, is the standard I want our operations to hold to.

Sage now has a national footprint. In a rapidly growing company, how do you ensure consistency?

On day one, a few years ago, Sage was two brokers operating out of a small office in Brighton. We now have two offices in Melbourne, Collins Street and South Yarra, as well as offices in Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. The systems in place and the demands of operating under our licence are what make a multi-office model work without service standards slipping between cities. Consistency is the whole point. A client in Sydney, for example, should receive the same standard of service and output as a client in Perth. The infrastructure and systems are what guarantee that as we grow.

What is your focus for the year ahead?

Continuing to grow. Sage isn’t slowing down, so while the teams bring on more business, I need to ensure the systems and infrastructure keep up. I’ll continue looking for marginal gains that automate work that does not require a human, keep our governance and operations a real strength of the business rather than an afterthought and ultimately help us continue delivering the best possible outcomes for our clients.