Introducing Annabelle. Annabelle shares about her time at University, her work experience and taking the plunge for her first official role in the finance industry at eInvest.
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The following is a transcript that has been created using AI technology. Please forgive any grammatical imperfections it may have.
Camilla Love
Welcome everyone, back to another episode of Shares Not Shoes, an Insider's guide to careers in finance. I'm your host, Camilla Love, founder of Future Females in Finance. Shares Not Shoes is a podcast whereby I interview someone of my favourite people, all with one thing in common they work in finance. We lift a lid on who they are, how they came into a career in finance and arm you with some knowledge about why a career in finance could be a good fit for you. I will promise that all my guests will share some amazing personal stories, will be open and honest and will inspire you. So let's go. This week's episode, we are joined by someone who really and truly impresses me every day, Annabelle Gillings. She works with me as an associate investment specialist at Einvest. I've chosen Anna to share with us her journey into finance. She is a really recent graduate, even showing me her graduate certificates this morning that she printed out specially on the printer. She hasn't even got the hard copy yet. I'm keen to find out why she was interested in finance, what she did at University and school, some of her work experiences before taking her first big career step, coming to join us at Einvest. So thanks for joining us today, Anna. Thanks for your time and I look forward to hearing your story.
Annabelle Gillings
Thank you so much for having me. It's my first ever podcast, which I think is a bit scary, but exciting, and I'm happy to be here. Hopefully have a bit of a unique perspective to some of the other great guests you've had on so far.
Camilla Love
Absolutely. And I don't bite, as you well know, so this will be a pretty easy experience to go through. So tell me a little bit about yourself. Start from the beginning. What did you do at school? What subjects did you do in your final year and why did you choose those subjects? What was so interesting about them?
Annabelle Gillings
Yeah, so I grew up in Sydney, went to Plc, and I kind of grew up always keeping busy with sport, dance, music. I was athletics captain at school as well, and I just had always loved maths and business from the very beginning. So funny story. I grew up really obsessed with those Excel books that you buy from the news agent. And I would make my parents buy them for me to do math questions on the couch over the weekend in all my spare time. Really quite odd of me, but I think I just always love problem solving in maths and formulas and all that kind of stuff. And it was just every time I tell anyone that they think, that's the weirdest thing I've ever heard.
Camilla Love
You should tell my son Henry, who is in year three, we have this conversation all the time.
Annabelle Gillings
I just used to love them because it's just when you have a problem and then you can answer it and it's right and you're right or wrong, it's like very logical. And that's just my approach, I think, to a lot of things. So I guess when I was in my final year, I did the usual extended advanced English, I did extension maths, I did bio, I did business, economics and religion. So I had quite a full schedule and I was definitely always interested in those business subjects. We got lucky to have financial literacy in year seven and we did some business commerce subjects all throughout and I always picked them. I think it's because I always knew I wanted to go into that kind of field after school, so I knew it would come in handy at some point. And I was pretty terrible at the art and creative subjects compared to some of my peers. So, yeah, that's definitely why I went in that direction.
Camilla Love
So tell me about why choosing business and economics as two separate subjects, because I love them separately, but it's quite challenging to do economics and business together.
Annabelle Gillings
Yeah. So I think I liked business because I think it's more of what I do now is like the front side, the front facing clients, how you work with people, how you work with operations. And that was quite unique, especially in school. Economics was so different to business or business. We did the typical finance, marketing, operations, HR, and then economics. It was monetary, fiscal policy and it was actually quite challenging and not many people did it. And also I think my parents were encouraging me because they both did economics and they knew I'd probably end up being quite good at it and they worked well together and then they worked well when I did go into uni and I started off in my economics degree and it was just, oh, I did this in year twelve.
Camilla Love
Like it was a very good transition and it makes sense economics and business together because you talk about supply and demand in economics and you see that come out in business all the time.
Annabelle Gillings
Yeah, they did work together and I think I don't even know how well I did in economics because it was really hard for the level that we were at only in year twelve. But yeah, they definitely work together nicely. And then even with the maths, I did three unit maths as well, so they kind of all paced together a bit better. So that was nice.
Camilla Love
How did you juggle your extracurricular stuff at school, being the captain of athletics and the captain of netball? How did you juggle that with your studies? Because they're pretty big roles to have.
Annabelle Gillings
Yeah, for sure. So I think since I was in primary school, I had a dance class every day. I had netball training three times a week and I had music and Mum had the piano lady come over and I was just so busy that I think I was forced to get stuff done when I have the capacity to do it, even, like when I was so young. It's just you have to be so efficient with your time. And it kind of just taught me the concept of time and that you can still do the things that you love without sacrificing your schoolwork and other, like, job opportunities, whether it's just activities that you like to do. And mom would always be like, okay, you have to pick one thing to do, and I just know I want to do them all. So it's just I kind of put myself in the position where I had to. If I didn't do the good work and I didn't get my work done, I didn't get the good marks, then I wouldn't have been able to do it. So I think I just didn't want to give up anything.
Annabelle Gillings
So I just forced myself to be efficient, which has been good now, because I'm pretty good at managing my time and doing everything that I want to do as much as I can.
Camilla Love
And it's a really critical skill to have when you are at work and you have a lot of other things to do, and you've got maybe extra study, doing a post grad or you got your juggling, your friends and all that sort of stuff. It's definitely a skill to have.
Annabelle Gillings
Yeah. I think you should start with all your studying that you're doing now, taking on everything. So it would be inspiring to me. As soon as I finish my degree, Camilla's going, okay, so what's next? What are you going to sign up for to do next in your learning? So that's always good to have people around you that do the same thing.
Camilla Love
Yeah. And I have a philosophy of lifelong learning, so I'm always seeking information out, whether that be informal study or even informal study through other people, listening to them talk, understanding what their backgrounds are, different cultures, travel, I think, is a great learning experience as well.
Annabelle Gillings
Yeah, you can definitely learn from literally anyone if you just ask the right questions and be curious. Really cool. Yeah.
Camilla Love
Curiosity is really interesting, and it's a skill I think that we all have to bring into our working lives these days.
Annabelle Gillings
Yeah, for sure.
Camilla Love
So tell me, did you get the Mark that you wanted to for your end of leaving school, and how did you transition into uni?
Annabelle Gillings
So when I finished school, I got a good Mark for what I had done. And yes, I worked really hard, but I was so busy and I just knuckled down and got the marks that I wanted. I didn't get a Mark for commerce, but at the time, I was pretty set on economics, because I'd always heard of commerce. Yes. The finance side had always had that, like, stigma behind being really, really hard. And perhaps at the time, I didn't know any girls from my kind of age, like, year above me going into finance. It was always the marketing side. And I think Jody actually touched on that in her podcast that all the girls went into marketing and all the boys went into finance. And I think that steered me away a bit from commerce. And because I did like the math side, I started off doing an economics degree, majoring in econometrics, so statistics, numbers. Yeah, it was pretty full on. So I did that for two years. And then I think I really wanted to move. I was doing a finance major in my economics degree, but then I got to the point where I thought, I don't think I'm set out to be in a statistician.
Annabelle Gillings
I just didn't think that was going to be my end game. So I was like, I may as well pick up another major that I would enjoy, and that was banking, which I love doing at Uni. But I could only do it if I moved to Commerce. I didn't get in first try to commerce, but it's so great that if you start off and get some good marks, you can just transfer into something that you do want. If you figure out that it's not quite right for you because it's so hard to know when you finish school what is right, but at least you can have the opportunity to change if you need to.
Camilla Love
And I think that's a really good point because a lot of the students I talk to, they're like, I don't know what I want to do. And commerce is a really sort of broad degree that can apply to a lot of different things. So that's why I was interested in commerce, because, like you, I was interested in business and running a business and all the marketing and sales side of it, but also supply chains and logistics and all that sort of stuff. I really enjoyed that. But were you disappointed? I've got a great story about my University entrance Mark, but were you disappointed that you didn't get into Commerce straight away from your Mark?
Annabelle Gillings
When I was doing subjects, I didn't even have commerce down as one of my subjects. I think I just have economics because I was quite happy to do that at the time. But who knows if that's me subconsciously kind of knowing that at the time I probably wasn't going to get 97 and just going, well, I'm happy to do economics, and I'm interested in it. So I think I know that if I put in a lot more hours, I could have perhaps gotten there, but it seemed such a big thing at the time. But you can really do anything if you're smart enough or if you understand what you're learning, you can get in anywhere. Like, you can end up doing what you really love if you have the capacity. And it's definitely a big deal when you're first year out, but no one asks you when you're going for a job, no one says what did you get at school? Because you can get 99 and not be the best doctor in the world just because of getting a good Mark in school. So I think that made me less disappointed, I think, because I knew there were still so many opportunities regardless of my marks.
Camilla Love
And that's a great message to tell those students out there listening today about sure, there is a lot of impetus put on to doing the best you can in your final year exams, but really when you hit your career and hit the workforce, do they matter?
Annabelle Gillings
Yeah, I think that it's so important to be able to talk to people. And I think that I do have so many skills because growing up and in high school I balanced my time, like doing athletics, doing sport, always, just keeping busy. It helped me grow so many more skills that I wouldn't have if I just sat inside all day, every day and quit my sports. And I lost that leadership component of doing sport, doing other activities. And I think I wouldn't get where I am or go anywhere much further in what I want to do if I didn't have those basic skills that you just learned by being around people. But yeah, definitely it is a great opportunity to try your hardest and get into what you want to do if that's what you want to do. But it's not the be all and end all if you can't or if you have other things to manage, like you never know what's going to happen, particularly with Cove. But I'm sure everyone is not going to be as happy with their marks this year or last year than if it wasn't if we weren't locked down.
Camilla Love
But yeah, it is definitely challenging for those students who are doing at University and at school doing their exam in this lockdown period. It's not good. And on the flip side, as a person who interviews a lot of people, I am always looking for that good mix of street smarts and book smarts, because I think it's that person who has a well rounded life, someone who volunteers and someone who plays an instrument and someone who is in the local netball team or plays tennis regularly. I'm looking for that in people who I like to be around and be with and work with, because it just shows the type of personality you are that you have the ability to work with others in a team. You have, as you said, leadership skills. You have the ability to learn, because all that training and practise, the ability to take direction, take direction.
Annabelle Gillings
Exactly like good criticism, like not being offended because especially when you do any area creative, that's creative, whether it's sport, whether it's music, you have to let someone tell you that you're doing something wrong or not very good at something without going off in a Huff and getting offended because you just have to keep going, which I think is very useful because a lot of people aren't super resilient and as soon as someone tells them off, they go into their shell. But it's so important to just be able to be careful. Okay. Thank you for pointing that out. Or thanks for letting me know. I missed that.
Camilla Love
Absolutely. So then when did you know you wanted to have a career in finance? Like I said before.
Annabelle Gillings
I think I've got like a logical brain, not too heavy on the creative side, but I like just things that you can work out, use a strategy or a formula and just get the result. And I think finance just allows for that. I see it as the foundation to everything in life, whether it's your business, whether you're starting a business yourself, whether it's the markets and the economy, everything just goes together and makes so much sense. And I think it just uses your brain in a really unique way because it can just help you in your whole life, like being financially stable and understanding how to make money, how the world works. I think it's just so cool.
Camilla Love
Did you try other things? Like did you try looking at FMCG or did you try looking at doing work experience in the fintech space or even the technology space, or did you look at property or anything else before landing on finance?
Annabelle Gillings
Well, I think I because I started working in finance by random, like, random job opportunity. I was working at a pub, I had some really good chats with a bunch of people that came in and I was offered a job basically by this great person that was in financial planning and offered me a job and said, you're doing commerce, that's great. And so I think by getting this job just randomly out of the blue, it taught me so much. And I was kind of like, this is really interesting, and this is why I guess that kind of led me to where I am now. But I did look at doing I know there's a few programmes that are in the fintech space and I do love that area of work. Like, I think it's so interesting and it's evolving so quickly and so many opportunities in there. But I think I just obviously did the typical intern grab applications, that's all the big places, but I mean, that didn't really go anywhere.
Camilla Love
And I think how was that?
Annabelle Gillings
Well, I think it was tough because especially during the current climate, in the last two years, we haven't really had many opportunities to get those roles. And I think it came down to.
Camilla Love
The typical people.
Annabelle Gillings
It's always about that, but it always came down to all the big places, usually take ten people. When I was applying, I only took four because of coverage constraints, and then it was always, oh, you actually number five out of four. We really liked you, but this person knew the numbers better or something like that. And I think that's what I love about working at Einvest is like you don't need to be the smartest, the best at maths, the best at anything to still do your job well and make an impact. And I think that's really important. Like we're saying before, you want the whole person and them and their skills to complement each other. But yeah, they were definitely hard and it's definitely a bit demoralising, demoralising, perhaps getting so many turn downs. But I don't think about now. I think it's more good to have those experiences and try again as many times as you want.
Camilla Love
So then what would you recommend if you're standing in your shoes or providing advice to someone who's standing in your shoes a year ago or two years ago, what would you tell them about that internship process or otherwise?
Annabelle Gillings
I think particularly with those internship and grad role processes is obviously more structured with the big four banks, the big four accounting firms, all that. And I would just say just give it a go because I think I learned so many skills because now it's all online. I did so many video interviews responding to questions on the spot. I did so many online questions, online puzzles, whether you get the job or not, it's just great experience. Writing cover letters, learning about a company quickly and explaining how your skills match is such a good way to learn about yourself. It's essentially just interview questions like we're doing now. Just what makes you want to work in this industry? Why would you fit in with this company? What's the biggest challenge you've had in your life so far or whatever it is. It's such a good way to learn about just talking and responding and whether you get the job or not. It doesn't matter because you'll just be better the next time you apply.
Camilla Love
But there's so much pressure on people getting these one of six spots or whatever.
Annabelle Gillings
Yeah, it is hard. And I think obviously with S Three, that was definitely a work internship programme that I don't see any other companies really doing. And when I did the F Three programme, we were with a big company. It wasn't just a random little place, it was still one of those really well known, amazing companies and it was just such a good experience. And I think it was a lot more rewarding than a lot of those programmes can be because you get seen a lot more. But it is a lot of pressure to get those jobs. But there's always something else out there and you just need to.
Camilla Love
You just need to be patient.
Annabelle Gillings
Yeah, no rush.
Camilla Love
So you touched on it before. You and I met nearly a year ago when you were put in one of my F three work experience programmes. And for those of you out there who don't know. F Three does a six week online remote work experience programme where five girls worked together to research, analyse and solve a business problem with a corporate partner. And so Anna was one of these five girls put into an organisation with a business project and they had to research, analyse and solve and present to pretty much the whole of the Sydney and Melbourne offices, correct?
Annabelle Gillings
Yeah.
Camilla Love
On their recommendations and the outcomes and the solution to their project. So tell me a little bit about what you did, how you found it, because the whole goal of what we do here at Shares, Not Shoes. And what I do at F Three is to nudge as many girls into finance as possible by showcasing really great role models and showing them the knowledge that finance isn't the scary industry that it's made out to be. But that F Three, the work experience programme, is a really supportive framework to do that in. So can you explain your experience?
Annabelle Gillings
Yeah, of course. So we met, obviously, all on Zoom and we're working in groups and we got given a big problem, a topic. And so coincidentally, ours was on ETS and we got to do this big project that was so just felt like real world experience. It wasn't just a Uni project, it was like, okay, we're actually presenting to the board and the whole company. It's like, we need to know what we're talking about. And I think it was so unique because obviously, being a girl, a woman doing finance at Uni, I did maybe seven or eight group assignments in the last year. I was the only girl of five in every group that I was in. And I think when you get put up against just boys, they sometimes probably don't think, you know as much as you probably do know. And I think the good thing about F Three was that you really just learned so much and just grew so much more confidence. Like, we'd have these group discussions and instead of being a bit tentative or not knowing if your idea was good or if it was relevant, we just got so comfortable with throwing out our ideas.
Annabelle Gillings
And then if someone's idea was bad, we'd be able to say it and then we talk about how it was bad or how it was good. And I think it's just like a really supportive experience. We got to meet each week with someone different of a different Department in the business. And obviously they all link to finance in some way. It's a financial services company. And I think that was one of the key things that I got out of it was that I was like, wow, you can literally be in any Department and still work in finance if you like it. You don't have to be the analyst, you don't have to be at the back end of everything. And that's what I think in Uni, sometimes you can be scared about financing. If you do finance, you have to be an analyst and not everyone wants to do that. And so I think it was a really great opportunity for me to see the cool sides of stuff. Like, we did a whole piece on the marketing side of this product and it's kind of what we do now at Einvest, which is awesome.
Annabelle Gillings
And you can still be creative. And I think in some ways it can be even more challenging, especially in finance and marketing. It's like there's so many regulations, there's so many things you can say, there's so many things you can't say. And it's interesting. Like invest. Now, we're one of the only fundies on social media, which is so unique, but it's so necessary with today and the world that's changing so quickly. Everyone invests on their phone, everyone is on their phone all the time. They want to learn. So I think that was what was so good about Fbri is I met all these cool people that did things that I was like, I would be good at that, rather than just thinking, what if someone's a bit better at stock picking than I am? It just broadened my interest and my horizon, I guess, of jobs that are out there for finance.
Camilla Love
Yeah. And that's essentially what the work experience placement does aim to do. It shows not only does it give you the experience and skills you need, but it gives you the network that you need into financial services, which a lot of people say I can't get into finance because I don't know anyone who works in there. This programme not only shows you, gives you an introduction to these people, but gives you an understanding about what their background was, what they do for the business, how the business sits within the value chain of financial services, and how their suppliers or their customers support the ultimate end game of the business itself. So you had a pretty cool team, I would say. You guys were obviously very smart people and you had a team that got along really well. And I could definitely tell that we were quite lucky.
Annabelle Gillings
I think it was hard, not obviously meeting in person, but great Practise for uni subjects, uni courses. And now we work from home every day for the past few months, so it's been good Practise to learn to make connections with people, even if it's not in person. And I think we had a fifth member, but she wasn't quite enjoying it or following along and she ended up leaving our group and we kind of all had to pick up the extra work, but it ended up working out well because we got to just work together even more and kind of build a really good connection. So, yeah, it was actually a lot of fun as well, which is always nice to have a fun group because then we actually enjoyed having our 09:00 P.m. Meetings on a Tuesday night because everyone had a different work schedule. Everyone had uni. Some people worked at night. It was just all over the place. So you kind of have to get along if you were going to be talking that much for six weeks.
Camilla Love
Indeed. Now would you recommend it to people out there to get involved?
Annabelle Gillings
Sure, yeah. I think being a woman in finance is a bit scary. In Uni, it is majority boys. Well, at least that was my experience and not because they can't do it, just because I think people probably get scared and it just gave me so much confidence. I think I came back to Uni last semester and I was giving all the ideas and then I think I was giving a bunch of ideas that I maybe wouldn't have been as happy to say before, but I was kind of just like, well, I've learned I've had experience. I kind of know a bit more now and I think that's the best way to learn is definitely through experience and it was so supportive and really fosters the growth of women in finance, which can't get much better than that.
Camilla Love
During that work experience programme that we did, you and I met and I asked you to start an invest, which thankfully you accepted, which I'm still very excited about.
Annabelle Gillings
Yes, me too.
Camilla Love
Tell me about what your role is. Is there a typical day in your role? What challenges does your role bring? Stuff from the top so everyone can understand what you do?
Annabelle Gillings
Yeah. So obviously I work with a great team. There's only five of us at the moment who all have a different role and different parts of play. And I guess my role kind of is just a bit of a support in each kind of area, whether it's helping content create with Jodi or now talking to clients and kind of educating investors in that way. But it's also the daily reporting on performance and making sure all of our ETFs are complying with the ASX and on Chi X on our trading platforms and making sure all of our monthly requirements are met. And there are a lot in the financial services industry which everyone will come to realise. But it is fun because I get to work on the website, work on sending out the commentaries and just help. I guess my job is to pretty much learn about the funds in the markets and just try and be up to date with everything. And yeah, I think it's cool because it's really important to always be up to date with news and we're constantly sharing news articles to read and just see what's going on at the moment because it is so important in our industry, which I've loved doing.
Annabelle Gillings
So I think that's the daily activities is just checking. We've got all of our announcements sent out for all of our funds, and then it's just a bit of a mixed bunch. It's a lot of fun, though, because you do get to see all the different sides. I do work with the operations quite a bit, work with the sales team. Then I'm emailing the portfolio managers and learning from them, as well as looking at the marketing and how we can kind of get our products out there and get more traction and get people to invest because it's such we've got the best fun. So why not?
Camilla Love
Indeed. Yes, it's great. Thanks for the little Einvest plan.
Annabelle Gillings
Yeah.
Camilla Love
You just started in the industry. It must be a really big learning curve for you right now. What's it like in that learning curve? Is it as daunting as you expect? And did you have any sort of false starts along the way? What are your major learnings?
Annabelle Gillings
Yeah, I think when you definitely start out, the biggest thing is just I've said this to Camille a bunch of times. I don't know if I can ask the question or whether I should know it or not already, but I think definitely now, being here for a few months and working in financial services previously, it's just like you need to just ask questions, and that's what is scary. And it's a bit scary. Now emailing portfolio managers just asking them random questions, but that's what they're there for. They love to talk to you and they love to give you some insight and help you in your role, which has definitely been daunting in the beginning and just knowing that a lot of people around you could know more than you. But that's the beauty of working in finance is that everyone around you probably does know something that you don't know. And that's why it's such a good place to learn, particularly now in our business, because we are so client facing and we do work with our investors so closely is that we get to work with investors, but then we also get to work with portfolio managers and we get to work with financial planners from across the country.
Annabelle Gillings
And that's just really cool, I think. And it's not as scary as it's made out to be. I think as long as you just ask the questions and you don't try and do things that you can't do, because if you do make a mistake, it can cause issues. So it's like you just need to ask. And I think that's something I learned a while ago. I was talking to someone and they're saying if you make a mistake, you need to tell someone and they'll help you. But if you try and hide it or do something that you don't know how to do it, it's not your fault. It's not your fault if you don't know how to do it, you just need to ask.
Camilla Love
Indeed. And it's better up. It's better to be open. And even now, 20 years on for me, I'm forced to say I don't know anything and would really love to be taught by others, particularly if it's their deep expertise.
Annabelle Gillings
Yeah. I think it's a hard thing to obviously lots of people don't like asking for help just by nature or whatever. But if you don't ask for help or you just don't say no, I don't know that it's quite. What's the word? It's quite confident of you to just say, I don't know, I don't know the answer. And that's something that I've learned very quickly, which I probably wouldn't have known before this, because you always want people to think you do know everything, but reality is that you really don't. So it's just great to learn from people with those expertise.
Camilla Love
Indeed. Now, I always ask this question of all my guests and obviously you're no different, even though you're only at the beginning of your career. But what is the best career advice you've ever been given and why did it resonate with you?
Annabelle Gillings
I think the best advice I've ever been given and I couldn't even tell you where it's from. Probably my dad at some point or my mum and dad. I know they all have great insight, but I think it was just always say yes. Just always say yes. Whether it's for a coffee, whether it's for like a job or whether it's to learn about someone, just always say yes. I think so far it's given me so many opportunities just to meet people and connect and have opportunities. Just hearing someone else's side and seeing what they do for their work is so cool and such a good way to learn. Like we said, it's just so good to learn through other people. And I think people love. I know it's happened quite a lot recently, me organising to meet up with just people that I know, like, my God, parents just talking to my family about their jobs. People love being asked about what they do because they want you to know. I think that's what it obviously say yes until you have no capacity left. But I think it's given me a lot of good opportunities to meet people and make connections, which is always important.
Annabelle Gillings
Just say yes to opportunities because it's so important. I think.
Camilla Love
Great. I think that's fabulous.
Annabelle Gillings
Nice.
Camilla Love
So we're coming to the end of the episode because you've listened to some of my previous episodes. We do this quick fire round. Right. And so you got to say the first thing that comes into your head about the questions that I'm going to ask you. Right. So you're up for this?
Annabelle Gillings
Yeah, got it.
Camilla Love
So let's start. If you could live in any country in the world, what would it be and why?
Annabelle Gillings
I think if I didn't have to work, it'd probably be Croatia, because I love the food, the beach, the water, the partying. It was like my favourite place when I went travelling to Europe with my friends, I think Croatia would be.
Camilla Love
I've never been so it's amazing. I wish typically we were just coming out of lockdown.
Annabelle Gillings
I know.
Camilla Love
Okay.
Annabelle Gillings
Your favourite superhero is probably Batman and that's because I don't really know any superheroes. But I did watch Gotham, which was that TV show about the backstory of him and I loved that. So that's the only one I know well enough to have an opinion.
Camilla Love
I think that man is a good choice.
Annabelle Gillings
My first investment was the ASX 200. Just plain and simple basket. You can never get it wrong.
Camilla Love
Great place to start. Was it an ETF too?
Annabelle Gillings
Yes.
Camilla Love
At the moment I have FOMO for overseas trouble, obviously. Me too. So many people.
Annabelle Gillings
My brothers live overseas. They've gone across Europe, across America, and we're all sitting here. But it'll be soon enough.
Camilla Love
I'm sure it will be soon enough. Don't you worry. If you had to invite anyone alive or dead to dinner, who would it be and why?
Annabelle Gillings
I think this will be a bit of a maybe a shock, but I think not because of my personal beliefs, but I would love to sit down with Trump and just understand him. Just because I think he's such an interesting person and just like businessman, politician, and just like pick apart his brain. I think he just would be a very unique perspective on life or Alternatively, Obama, because I think he's awesome and inspirational and I think I've just always had a little love for American politics. So I just love to see how it works.
Camilla Love
I think that's a great no, I think it's great. And learning from other people, even if they're different from you, really is really important. So critical. Okay, next one. My favourite book is.
Annabelle Gillings
I think my favourite book at the moment would be The Husband Secret, which is Leanne Moriarty. And I only got into reading this lockdown and they're just pretty much all Romcoms kind of romantic novels, just the typical boy meets girl. But The Husband's Secret is awesome and I would recommend it to anyone. It's one of her best books.
Camilla Love
Great. How would your friends describe you?
Annabelle Gillings
I think my friends would describe me as very driven and motivated, loyal and probably reliable. Yeah, I think those kind of vibes is usually how they describe me. Sometimes a bit too motivated or too busy, but I'm always there for my friends.
Camilla Love
Yeah, I think that's important. So if you're stranded on a desert island, what two things would you take with you?
Annabelle Gillings
That's a hard one. Logically. I'd probably just take a lot of water Philtre and something that would help me start a fire. Logically. Otherwise it would be like my phone and swimmers.
Camilla Love
Yeah. Well, if you're on a desert island and no one else is there.
Annabelle Gillings
You might not need them.
Camilla Love
You don't even need them. True. But then if you found you want to have something, don't you?
Annabelle Gillings
Exactly. That could be embarrassed.
Camilla Love
Okay. Yeah, indeed. Describe in three words why a career in finance is awesome opportunities.
Annabelle Gillings
Just learning and just being around also like minded people. Because I think when you're in finance, more than three words, I'm sorry, but I think when you're in finance, your brains just work similarly and that just helps you make great connections. And I think that's what I've found so far is everyone in our team just gets along so well and it's just the same. You love the same stuff. Yeah, it's awesome.
Camilla Love
And I will say that I've specifically built the invest team to be reasonably diverse. So that's why I think the team actually gets along really well is because we all come from different backgrounds and thought processes.
Annabelle Gillings
And that's the thing. There's definitely something to be learnt from everyone, as well as agreeing on a lot of things too, and having a lot of similar ideas. But you can always learn and someone will always have a different perspective. There's always someone who's on a different page. But it's good because it's great for conversation and great for learning about learning.
Camilla Love
That comes to the end of our podcast. And it was so wonderful to chat with you today because just seeing the industry in the next generation's eyes, seeing how and hearing your story about how you've travelled through school and University and taking your first job in finance can really anchor, particularly the people who are in finance already, what that next generation is looking for and where they've come from. But also your great insight for those people who are standing in years 1011 and twelve are at University today to explain to them about your journey, what subjects you chose, what you did at University, why finance is interesting to you. I think that's really fulfilling and give people a really good insight from your perspective. And I really thank you for sharing a journey with us at Cher's Not Shoes.
Annabelle Gillings
Well, thank you so much. It kind of flew by. It was a lot easier than I thought.
Camilla Love
I didn't buy, did I?
Annabelle Gillings
No way.
Camilla Love
No.
Annabelle Gillings
Yeah. It's really important. And I think it's cool to have a good platform to share a bunch of different stories because you never know who it can help. And yes, it's been fun indeed.
Camilla Love
So thank you for being open and honest with your journey. It really means a lot to me and it means a lot to our listeners and we really appreciate it.
Annabelle Gillings
Of course. Thank you so much.
Camilla Love
For more information about our guests on Shares Not Shoes and further episodes, head to Shares Not Shoes.com. Or for more information on F Three, head to F Three.com au you can obviously find us at your favourite podcast spot. I look forward to having you join us for our next episode where we continue to interview some really fabulous, wonderful, inspiring people and showcase you some great careers in finance and give you the inside scoop into how to get into the industry. So bye for now, everybody the information that is in this podcast we always talk about finance in this podcast. But it's not financial advice. It's actually really careers advice. If you really want financial advice, I recommend that you speak to a financial planner or a broker and work out your own personal circumstances with that. But this is all about career's advice and how finance would be a fabulous career for you.