The Broker Who Sponsors Athletes Instead of Buying Ads: Ryan Gray on Building Gray Finance in 18 Months

Eighteen months ago, Ryan Gray was heading up credit inside the corporate world, having spent most of his career in a big-four bank. Today he runs Gray Finance and Private Wealth, an independently owned brokerage with its head office in Noosa and a presence in Melbourne, Sydney and Cottesloe, WA, built without paying for a single lead.

How? Not with banners on footy ovals. Ryan grew the firm by sponsoring athletes and their families in sports he actually loves, then turning that goodwill into a referral snowball. This is a conversation about building fast, marketing with genuine skin in the game, and staying on the right side of a tightening industry. Press play above to hear it in full.

Ripping the band-aid off

Ryan's path wasn't accidental so much as delayed. He'd been with a big-four bank since he was a graduate, left briefly to head up credit for one of Australia's wealthiest families, then returned to the majors. Along the way he relocated from Melbourne to the Sunshine Coast to be nearer family and friends, and something shifted.

"I wasn't enjoying working within the corporate institution anymore," he said, "and I thought it was probably time to rip the band-aid off and go out on my own." He saw a gap in the market. The original plan was modest, dip his toes in, spend a bit more time at the beach. Eighteen months later, the beach time hasn't quite materialised, but the business has had, in his words, "a really good start."

Why four offices in 18 months

For a firm this young, four locations sounds aggressive. Ryan frames it as a service decision, not an empire play. Noosa is and always will be head office, but he aims to be interstate at least half of every month, racking up frequent-flyer points to sit across the desk from clients in Melbourne and Sydney.

I'm still a really big believer in high-end customer service. If you can get in front of a client in person, I always see the value in it.

Being a finance brokerage, he points out, means no geographic limits, so the interstate presence does double duty: it serves the many clients already based in those cities, and it builds social proof and community awareness of exactly how the firm operates, while growing the lending portfolio.

The athlete-sponsorship engine

Ryan's defining strategy started by accident. He never wanted to be the brokerage that slaps a banner on a surf club and feels like it's done its part. Having played a lot of sport, he wanted any marketing to meet two tests: he had to be genuinely passionate about it, and the money had to land in the right hands.

The first case fell in his lap. A new client, a single parent, was struggling to get her two talented young surfers from event to event. Ryan offered to help. The family had a strong social presence, and as Gray Finance backed the boys' surfing events, the firm's brand awareness inside the Noosa community immediately grew.

Then endurance sport supercharged it. Competing in a triathlon, Ryan met an athlete headed to the Cairns Ironman who asked for support. "I was quite naive at the time," Ryan laughed, agreeing to cover a cap and entry fee. The athlete won the Cairns Ironman, and landed on the cover of a triathlon magazine wearing a Gray Finance and Private Wealth cap.

About a week and a half later, we were contacted by a couple of hundred athletes looking for sponsorship, and immediately by multiple people making finance enquiries. I still get goosebumps talking about it.

That was the moment the strategy crystallised: it's cost-effective, the marketing budget goes exactly where he can see it, and it has direct impact on the athletes and their families. He now sticks to sports he understands, surfing, endurance, rugby and rugby league, and even sponsors under-15 rugby players on a Noosa club's New Zealand tour. In 2026, he says, people see straight through marketing you don't actually care about: "I have to enjoy it, I have to like it, and that's how I pick the athletes and the families we help."

Turning sponsorships into clients

The sponsorship is only half the play; the conversion is deliberate. Whenever Gray Finance takes on an athlete, Ryan invites the athlete and their whole family into the office to explain exactly what the firm does and how it fits into their world, starting with financial literacy for the young athlete, then extending to the family's own needs.

"A big point of priority, and I think a gap particularly with young people, is financial education," he said. From there the firm can help the family refinance a mortgage, buy a house, or get a single parent back on their feet, and the goodwill compounds.

Mum and dad send an SMS to their friends and family: 'our son's got a new sponsor, this is what he does, you should contact him.' It creates a snowball effect, and it supports the athlete's journey too.

He's candid that it doesn't work with every athlete, but when it works, it works: enquiries about reviewing home loans flood in, the database grows immediately, and the firm stays in contact until the time is right to refinance a loan or fund an investment property. The lead supports the business, and the business supports the athlete who brought the lead in.

Never paying for a lead

One line stands out: "Thankfully, I've never had to pay for a single lead in my life, since we've started the business." Part of that is the runway of 10-plus years in a big-four bank, but the discipline is repeatable, and it starts with consistency and confidence.

Every single customer gets a post-settlement call. If they're happy, Ryan asks, directly, whether they'd mind passing his details to friends, family or colleagues. "Nine times out of ten, we actually generate a lead on the back of that offering." His framing is honest and disarming: we're a growing business, and it'd mean a great deal to me.

Playing the long game with partners

Ryan's approach to referral partners is his sharpest contrarian move. Most brokers, especially in his coastal market, chase real estate agents for deals. He deliberately doesn't lean on agents, because a broker seen as "real estate agent A's broker" loses the trust of agents B, C and D.

Instead, he invests in trust-based relationships with accountants, lawyers, buyer's agents and other small businesses in the community, and when he does help a client who used a local agent, he calls the agent afterward to thank them for looking after the client. That flips the usual dynamic: agents typically only refer a deal that's "selling belly up", but a broker who reliably gets a shaky buyer financed becomes the person the agent trusts with the hard ones.

At the end of the day, we're paid problem solvers. If we can get the person on the edge of finance into the property, the real estate agent's happy, and the quality referrals follow.

Many of those partner relationships started simply by not being afraid to walk in and introduce a new business, something most professionals rarely get from a finance broker. In Sydney and Melbourne it's more formal, getting in front of buyer's agents, accountants and law firms directly.

Polished, unpolished and LinkedIn

Alongside sponsorships, Ryan runs a deliberate content mix. Some of it is polished, market and industry updates and client success stories, and some of it is unpolished and opinionated, like his genuine take on a just-passed federal budget. "It's really important to have a strong mixture of both."

LinkedIn is his newer bet, and one he's refreshingly humble about: "I won't pretend to be an expert, far from it." But he's found that in a world where everyone's an expert, LinkedIn rewards a professional, educated opinion on financial markets and property. Held from a good place, strong opinions drive real engagement, while the social side stays "a little bit more fun." He loves the armchair experts too, more people talking about financial literacy is a win, with one caveat: "be careful who you're taking the advice from."

Two feet in on AI

Ryan's stance on AI is blunt: "If you don't embrace it, it's going to come and take over very, very quickly." A Forbes Business Summit late last year, where AI was the number-one takeaway across medical, legal, fashion and finance, convinced him to go "two feet in." Nine or ten months on, it's simply part of the firm's daily rhythm.

Operationally, the firm uses mainstream tools to improve efficiency and productivity, helped by an aggregator he credits for being on the front foot with new technology. He also carves out time each week to track what's coming and what the banks are using. His one hard boundary is the regulated nature of the industry: "you obviously have to be careful with what you're actually putting into AI."

If you're stubborn and stuck in your old ways, things take much longer than they need to. Used properly, AI improves your conversations and your customer service. So just get on board.

Managing and mentoring a team

Ryan was a lone soldier for most of the first 18 months; the real hiring ramp came in the last 6 to 10 months. A key lesson learned the hard way: bringing in brand-new-to-industry people was extremely time-consuming, whereas surrounding himself with experienced operators meant "far less headaches" and let the business grow faster.

He runs the firm with habits carried over from the bank, regular sales and service meetings, tracking what's coming in and out and what's working, all measured quarterly against a clear vision and values so he can spot the gaps to plug. On AI specifically, he trains as a team and does the same training as his staff, so the mix from new-to-industry through to 30-40-year veterans all levels up together. When someone isn't embracing a process, he treats it as a "coaching or upskilling opportunity", sitting down to show them how much faster it can be done.

Once you show them, they get excited: 'okay, I can see how this works now.' What I look for now when hiring is a willingness to learn and to be part of a growing team.

One more growth lesson he shares generously: don't be afraid to ask. For a while he was too stubborn or fearful to ask bigger brokerages what worked. When he finally reached out to some of the country's top independents, he was "pleasantly surprised" by how willing they were to help, and quality relationships with banks and his aggregator round out the channels he uses to keep learning.

His hot take on the industry

Asked for a hot take, Ryan didn't hedge. Australia has 22,000-plus brokers, and he predicts fewer than half will remain in five years, with smaller independents either absorbed by bigger brokerages or unable to write enough business to stay sustainable.

He sees it as the mortgage industry following financial planning through the same reckoning: more education, more regulation, more compliance. And he welcomes it. "You're dealing with someone's finances and their assets, there should be regulation around who can have those conversations." It'll push out the "pajama brokers" writing one or two deals a year and let quality operators rise.

There's been a real gap between high-quality debt strategy and no strategy at all. That's where you see families struggling with mortgages because they overcapitalised on poor advice.

His antidote is a high-quality conversation with every client, plumber or ASX-listed CEO alike, covering their whole financial picture, credit, investments, insurances, even transactional banking, to understand what actually matters to them, rather than simply lending as much as possible.

The Finance Operator's playbook

If you want to model how Ryan grew Gray Finance and Private Wealth this fast, here's the distilled version:

1. 1Market only where you have genuine passion. In 2026 people see straight through sponsorship you don't actually care about; back the sports and people you love.
2. 2Sponsor the whole family, not just the jersey. Invite athletes and their families in, lead with financial education, and let goodwill convert into referrals.
3. 3Prioritise in-person, even across state lines. Being interstate half the month builds social proof and relationships a screen can't.
4. 4Never pay for a lead you could earn. Nurture the existing portfolio and ask confidently, most happy clients will refer.
5. 5Always make the post-settlement call. It closes the loop and generates a referral roughly nine times out of ten.
6. 6Don't chase real estate agents, earn them. Build trust with accountants, lawyers and buyer's agents, and thank agents after settlement instead of hassling them.
7. 7Run a polished + unpolished content mix. Balance market updates with genuine opinion, and use LinkedIn for the professional, educated take.
8. 8Go two feet into AI, behind compliance guardrails. Train as a team, use it for efficiency, and never put sensitive client data at risk.
9. 9Hire experienced operators to grow faster. New-to-industry hires cost time; experienced people bring networks and fewer headaches.
10. 10Don't be afraid to ask. Reaching out to bigger brokerages for what worked (and didn't) shortcuts years of trial and error.

Ryan isn't chasing 'biggest in the world'. The goal is to organically crack into the top 10-15% of brokerages nationally, brick by brick, while doing right by every client. You can learn more about the firm at Gray Finance and Private Wealth.