S2.Ep5: Never Underestimate me with Alex McGuigan

Meet Alex. Alex is an institutional sales person by trade and is also the Global Development Director for 100 Women in Finance.

• Transcript

  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. So today, I'm so super excited to introduce you to Alexandra McGuigan. Now, Alex has a fabulous career in finance and is now heading as one of the front people for 100 women in finance. And I have known Alex for at least, I'm thinking eight years. Right. I remember the first time we met, we've got introduced over the email. And I think the two of us have very good mindset about let's put things in the diary and let's get things done. And we're very efficient type people. And I think both of you and I just knew straight away we would be good mates. And I'm Super excited to tell all our listeners about your journey. So, Alex, welcome to Shares Not Shoes.

  Alex McGuigan

  Thank you. I'm very excited to be here. And I love the name of Shares Not Shoes. But I do actually think that a career in finance, you can have both Shares and Shoes.

  Camilla Love

  Shares and Shoes. It's true. It's true. Because as I always say, I do like a good pair of shoes, but I'm only buying those shoes of the profit I have in my shares. So I invest first and then take my shoes later. Although it's really hard to get back into those high heels after covet and being in, my dear.

  Alex McGuigan

  It is. Yeah. I carry my handbag, actually, mostly.

  Camilla Love

  Yeah. And I think all women in finance do that because they're all tower walking between meetings and then all of a sudden you whip out your shoes. Totally. Yeah. So your finance career will give you good shoes when they Alex.

  Alex McGuigan

  Absolutely.

  Camilla Love

  Indeed. So, Alex, thanks for saying yes, for coming along. And maybe you can give our listeners a bit of an introduction on who you are and a little bit of your background on what you do right now.

  Alex McGuigan

  Sure. So I am an institutional salesperson by trade, if you will. I have had about 15 years experience in the industry doing that. Raised around two and a half billion dollars in the Australian market, across asset classes and strategies, and have definitely. What do they say pounded the pavement?

  Camilla Love

  You warn those shoe leathers out. I broken that many heels.

  Alex McGuigan

  Broken that many heels. Absolutely. So dumb. Surround me with anybody and everybody who would take a meeting with me ended up raising lots of money. And then I moved to Singapore with my husband in 2018 and we had a small baby at the time and I set up my own company in Singapore and I've been consulting since then. So my company in Singapore is called Am Access Capital, and I currently am the global development director for 100 Women In Finance. And what I'm doing for them is institutionalising their capital raising process. So we can essentially fund the demographic change in the industry from the companies that work in the industry. So I work, I talk to investment banks, asset managers, fund managers, insurance companies, brokerage firms, you name it, I speak to them and I ask them for money. They do.

  Camilla Love

  And can I say, there is nothing wrong with asking people for money and a lot of people out there really find it quite uncomfortable, but I dare say, with a bit of practise, it actually becomes easier, right?

  Alex McGuigan

  Very easy. In fact, don't ask. You don't get as well ask.

  Camilla Love

  I live by that mantra totally on anything. Right.

  Alex McGuigan

  And then you still don't have what you wanted anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

  Camilla Love

  And what's wrong with no? And I always take a no as a maybe and never as a no by you.

  Alex McGuigan

  Absolutely. They can always change their mind.

  Camilla Love

  Yeah, indeed. 100 Women and F Three actually have very sort of similar outcomes and goals, but we're doing it for different ways. So talk to me a little bit about what 100 Women are doing globally.

  Alex McGuigan

  Okay, so 100 Women In Finance is the largest organisation for the empowerment of women in financial services in the world. We have 28 locations around the world, something like 20,000 registered members, 500 volunteers who really execute. And it's kind of different what we offer our members. So we offer our membership base. What we offer them is probably something similar to maybe like Women in super, where we do bigger events and have keynote speakers, etc. E. And then we have sort of smaller events broken down by the experience level. And then our third pillar is impact. And so with the impact pillar, what we are trying to do is change the demographics of the industry. So for that, we have in our locations that are more senior, if you will, have probably 500 plus members. We host galas and there's a committee that puts on the gala and they put together. It's a fundraising event, really, for the industry. And so all of that money that we raise and we've raised $55 million in the last 20 years. All of that money goes towards investing in the next generation. And what does that mean? We have a grant giving programme.

  Alex McGuigan

  Because of our global reach, we don't think that we can do everything ourselves and we want to support smaller organisations or organisations that might be geographically specific, like S Three, for example, in the Australian market. And we give funding to those organisations. So they can go out and continue on achieving our vision, which is to have 30% representation of women in senior investment roles and executive leadership positions by 2040. So recipients of that grant, those grants would be currently matched for girls in the UK. And there's one in New York called Girls Who Invest. And then we can also do our own initiatives. And our initiative is because we almost have a bird's eye view of the industry globally. Our initiatives would always be industry facing and bridge the gap between organisations that are looking for students and helping those female students to understand what a career in finance might look like. The different job types, the different companies they might be able to work for, the different countries they might be able to work in, and then helping those students to actually meet those companies and people who work in those companies. So it becomes a real option for them to consider a career in finance.

  Camilla Love

  Indeed, there's a couple of pretty lofty goals in there. Are there areas globally where finances are doing really well on the gender gap and then areas where they aren't?

  Alex McGuigan

  Yes. So the most underrepresented area are women in investment roles and the very senior executive leadership, we call it executive committee, because sometimes the numbers at that very top level can be swayed by women who are working in traditionally female roles and companies can say, oh, well, we've got two women at the top, but they might be the person, the head of HR, global head of HR, or global head of marketing. Right. Because what we want is representation of women across the board. And so we have specifically focused on trying to solve for the most challenging piece of the puzzle, which is getting that investment role, which is currently Bloomberg says it's about 10% of women, our portfolio managers globally, and that number hasn't changed in 20 years. So the reason that we're focusing on this is that historically, actually our fundraising has gone to different philanthropic partners. But in 2019, the board recognised that the demographics hadn't changed. And if they were going to change at all, then there needed to be a concerted effort and we would have to actually invest in making that change. So that's the goal. And it is a lofty goal, but we gave ourselves the time horizon of 20 years because we can work on different initiatives, like grassroots initiatives, getting girls who are still at school, considering careers in finance, helping those who might be, say, studying science or something at University, considering a career in finance.

  Alex McGuigan

  So actually transferable skills. We're going to work on initiatives to retain women in that mid career section. So make sure that we're working with companies and make sure that they have a plan to help their women during that child rearing period where it is more difficult. Some countries have high representation in that period, obviously, because there is childcare available. So we see high in Asia where I live now, I'm looking for participation rate of women in financial services firms during that period. It doesn't really drop off that much. It does drop off at the more senior level, though. And so we find that there is a multiplier effect, and this sort of comes into unconscious bias as well, or even conscious bias, really. But if you have women or diversity at the top, you end up having a multiplier effect throughout the organisation. And so that woman will then hire women. Will then hire women. Right. So if we can get more women at the top, more women in the middle, and more women coming through the ranks, then maybe we have a chance.

  Camilla Love

  Yeah. And both you and I have been in the industry for a long time, and F Three is doing a lot in the grassroots, really on the student side, as you know. And I'm just trying to drive the pipeline. And when I looked at it, I just went, okay, how can I facilitate change inside an organisation? I don't think personally I could. So hence why I decided to start F Three for the pipeline. But I'm glad that 100 women are looking at retaining the senior women and promoting senior women as part of that as well. But you did media at Uni, right? So how did you jump from doing media at Uni into finance? What was the trigger point for you?

  Alex McGuigan

  Actually, I wanted to be an actress and I did a lot of acting training. I used to do a lot of performances with another girl who was a year ahead of me at school, and she got into Nida and we used to win all of these performances, et cetera. So when she got into Nida, I just assumed that I would get into Nida. Unfortunately, I didn't get into Nida. Well, maybe it was, fortunately, I don't know.

  Camilla Love

  Very fortunately. Otherwise we wouldn't know each other, right?

  Alex McGuigan

  Yeah. Unless I was an amazing famous celebrity.

  Camilla Love

  Which is a chance it could be on the rich list and beyond every Marvel episode that's out there unlikely.

  Alex McGuigan

  Because the chances of that are very slim. I quickly realised that I didn't want to be poor, actually, I had other skills and so I actually did media communications because I was just buying my time until I got into Nida. And then I realised that I had other skills and I should just probably focus on my studies for a little while. And I ended up working. I did an exchange overseas, I came back and I ended up working in the wine industry because my family makes wine, which was super fun. I used to go to all these parties and sponsor fancy parties.

  Camilla Love

  Yeah, I should have been wine.

  Alex McGuigan

  It was really fun, but it was also a little meaningless. And so after my travel and studying at Cornell, I was like, I really kind of had the travel bug, and I wanted to go overseas again, but I didn't really know what I wanted to do in my career. And I also kind of didn't want to waste that time just sort of sapping about. So I made a plan, and I decided five things that I wanted to achieve in the next five years. And I wanted to complete a postgraduate degree. I wanted to live in another country. I wanted to learn another language. I wanted to buy a property, and I wanted to have a share portfolio. And I went down. I told my dad, and he laughed at me. And I was like, Whatever. I could figure out a way to do this.

  Camilla Love

  The whole purpose is you proving up your point to your dad.

  Alex McGuigan

  Is it always the goal? That's always the goal of everything. So I decided to do an MBA. And I figured out that if I did an MBA at a University that didn't exchange to another country, then I could tick off two of those boxes. And if that other country didn't speak English, then I could take off three of those boxes. So I did that. And then I wanted to buy a property before I left. And so I figured I was going to need money. And where do people make money in finance? So I changed up my CV to suit whatever job. The only job that I was qualified to do in financial services, and that was to be an executive assistant. So I got lucky. And I interviewed with an amazing man who became my mentor and took me under his wing. And he was the managing director of Being by Mellon Asset Management. And he said to me he was an American guy. And he saw that I studied at Cornell, which is an American, I believe, University. And he said, look, you're overqualified for this job. But if you do it and you do it really well, for two years, I'll teach you how to run a business.

  Alex McGuigan

  And I was like, that's a pretty good deal.

  Camilla Love

  I'll take you on that.

  Alex McGuigan

  Yeah. And so I ended up getting to shadows this managing director. And literally I learned everything. I learned how to write emails, I learned how to present myself, I learned how to put a roadshow together, I learned how to manage my time. And all of those skills that I learned in that role I still do use every day for sure.

  Camilla Love

  And do you still keep in touch with him?

  Alex McGuigan

  I do.

  Camilla Love

  Great.

  Alex McGuigan

  And he's based in the States now, not as much as we did in the past, but there's only been a few people that have been as impactful on my life as him. And so after that, he was just flying around the world, winning mandates for $150,000,000. I was just like, this is cool.

  Camilla Love

  I want to be like you.

  Alex McGuigan

  Exactly. And then after that, that's just what I set my mind on. And I was like, I want to do that. And so I ended up studying. I did go to France and I did the exchange, but I actually had to major in international business, but I studied all finance subjects and really was coming from very far behind, but I worked my butt off and here I am.

  Camilla Love

  Do you find purpose in the financial services industry? Like, it sounded like you've definitely found that here.

  Alex McGuigan

  Absolutely. Well, I think that is finance is really interesting, but the subject matter is challenging. Right. So the people are generally quite intelligent and intelligent people have interests other than just finance. So I find the conversations that I have with people in financial services to be interesting. The subject matter is always changing, and I'm a lifelong learner, an advocate of that. So I like the fact that it's always changing, but really, in order to make change in the world, change goes where money flows. Right? And so if you actually want to make a difference in climate change or anything like that.

  Camilla Love

  That'S a great example.

  Alex McGuigan

  In financial services, you actually have the ability to make change. And I mean, it's all good, don't get me wrong. Marching and joining in protests and all of that kind of stuff. That's all good stuff. But if you really want to make change, you got to get money to go to the problem.

  Camilla Love

  Yes. And divert capital away to actually really make the change that it needs to see. I absolutely agree.

  Alex McGuigan

  Absolutely.

  Camilla Love

  So then talk to me a little bit how you were like, did you love sales? Did you love your roles? What was your favourite asset class that you sold? Can you give me a bit of an insight then?

  Alex McGuigan

  Yeah, sure. So what I really like to do is start with a problem so I can talk about Gan when I first started at Shed Enterprises. So Gan is a huge global asset manager and we were representing them. They had performance in a fixed income strategy of 10% per annum. They had a tracking record of like ten years. They were coming out to Australia for six years and they just couldn't raise money. So I was like, all right, I need to do a bit of an analysis on what is going on here. So I went out to the market. I spoke to different people. I found that the fee was just too high for the Australian market and they were raising capital all around the world. So they were like, pulling up and negotiate on fees. But that's a mistake, because if you're trying to enter a different market, you need to understand what the constraints and the requirements are of that market to be able to sell the farm. So that was the first thing then. The second thing was you're going to laugh. This is how old I am. But at the time, interest rates were like.

  Camilla Love

  More than zero.

  Alex McGuigan

  Yeah, exactly. They were getting 10%, people go, all right, well, you're getting annualised 10%, so you say. But things can change, right? So that's an okay 10%. Then you're going to charge me 1% fee. So I get to 9%, I can get a guaranteed 7.5%. So I think that I'm going to go with that option.

  Camilla Love

  Yeah. Because the risk is a no brainer on the risk decision too.

  Alex McGuigan

  Absolutely. It was an absolute return bond strategy. Basically. I put that analysis together and I expressed that to the manager and they were like, oh, thank you. No one had ever told us this before. So figuring out what the problem is first and then working out a plan on how to execute and how to sell. So that strategy then. Okay, so then where does it fit? What bucket does it fit into? Is it an alternative because it's a hedge strategy or is it a fixed income strategy? Probably not fixed income because it's too expensive. So then you work out your target market and from the target market, then you go, all right, who are the asset consultants for each of these people? So it's like a puzzle, really. And so it's kind of cool to be able to figure out the bits and pieces and then you just have to go and drink tonnes of coffee.

  Camilla Love

  And from a person who doesn't drink coffee at all, me, right. I find that very difficult.

  Alex McGuigan

  Yeah, it's a lot of coffee. So you have to build relationships, people have to trust you. I always like to think about it. First it's they buy me, then they buy the business and then they buy the product. If they don't want to deal with me, then there's no chance that they're going to buy the product.

  Camilla Love

  That's really critical because we talk about a bit in shares, not shoes, that it really is a relationship industry. So talk about how you go about building relationships that are based on trust and authenticity.

  Alex McGuigan

  I think you just have to go and have coffee with people and just talk about things that aren't related to the product, like don't try and sell all the time. It will come to the end of the conversation. And they'll say, all right, well, show me what you got. I'll see if I'm interested. And I love the institutional space because, look, there's a professional approach to it and I can have a personal relationship with someone and go and try and talk to them about a specific product. But if they're not interested, they can be like, Look, I really like you, Alex, but this is just not going to fly with us.

  Camilla Love

  Not for now.

  Alex McGuigan

  Not for now. Coming soon when you've got something different. So you can have those. It's less opaque, I think, and you can have those open and honest conversations, you can get feedback and you really just have to pound the pavement. Now, it's a little bit different with Zoom, but it's also more efficient. Sometimes you can never forgo or underestimate the impact of being in person. However, having an hour coffee and then tracing to the other end of the city to have an hour coffee takes a long time. Wears out a lot of shoes as we go.

  Camilla Love

  The high possibility of breaking a heel. I've done that a few times.

  Alex McGuigan

  Me too. But on Zoo at the moment now I deal a lot with the US. So I'm based in Singapore, so I deal with the US. The twelve hour time difference. So every day I pretty much only have work from 08:00 P.m. To 10:00 P.m. At night with the US. And I probably have four pitches a night for half an hour.

  Camilla Love

  Yeah, right.

  Alex McGuigan

  Which is a lot of energy, but I can get through a lot. I must have had 220 meetings with global institutions in the last seven months or something. That's a lot of meetings.

  Camilla Love

  That is a lot of meetings.

  Alex McGuigan

  Gosh.

  Camilla Love

  The efficiency is definitely there. You can see that already.

  Alex McGuigan

  Yeah. And so depending on what the product is and how complex it is, I'm selling sponsorships to a nonprofit, which is pretty easy to get your head around. Whereas if you're selling a derivative strategy or a quantitative strategy, it's going to take a lot of meetings. Right. And institutional sales process, I always tell people, is minimum twelve months from the first meeting, two years, and then two years, probably by the time the money comes in, it's probably six months from the time they tell you that you're going to get the money.

  Camilla Love

  Actually, by the time you do all the legals definitely in the negotiation part on fees. Oh, my gosh, it can take a while.

  Alex McGuigan

  It can take a while. But when you get $150,000,000 mandate or my biggest one ever was $350,000,000, that's pretty exciting.

  Camilla Love

  On that day, totally go out and buy a pair of new shoes just on a pattern.

  Alex McGuigan

  Yeah, absolutely.

  Camilla Love

  So you mentioned your quest and your sort of mantra of lifelong learning. And I know you've done extra stuff and your postgrad stuff. Tell me a little bit about that and why you did it.

  Alex McGuigan

  So, Kai, I did because most Shared enterprises was it's a third party marketing firm. And what that means is that we represented international fund managers in the Australian market and Shared Enterprises is a specialist in alternative investments. And alternative investments are typically basically they have more bells and whistles and levers and bits and pieces more complex, much more complex. I did that and then I moved on to Tribeca and I was head of investor relations at Tribeca. And again, they had a macro strategy. They had a long short equity strategy and a regular small cap strategy, but they were complex strategies. And I really felt that to have the credibility to go and speak to a CIO about the macro strategy or the long short equity strategy, which was what we call quantum, which is part quantitative. Sorry. And part fundamental. I really needed to have the vocabulary and the skills and the understanding to be credible. And so I did the hire and it was the most useful study immediately, useful study I've ever done to exactly what I was doing. And no study is wasted, don't get me wrong. But for what I was doing, the comprehension rate just increased substantially.

  Camilla Love

  And that is a focus on alternatives. Correct?

  Alex McGuigan

  Correct. So it's like the CFA, but it's for alternatives.

  Camilla Love

  Yeah. Okay. Obviously that applied directly to the people you're talking to and the products that you're with. And I bring this up because there are alternatives out there that might not necessarily be apparent when people are just looking for extra learning in this space.

  Alex McGuigan

  Absolutely. And so the other thing that I'm doing now is I've just signed up to Wharton online. So Wharton is the top finance University in the world. The top finance University in the world. Obviously, I don't have the capacity to go and do a course there in person at the moment, but I've signed up for a certificate in asset allocation and portfolio construction, which I'm continuing to do. So there are lots of different ways that you can upskill yourself. And if you want to transition or you need to move from media communications into finance, lots of different ways you could do it.

  Camilla Love

  Yeah.

  Alex McGuigan

  Good.

  Camilla Love

  So tell me, I always like to have real life stories as part of this and tell me, like, I'm really interesting or highlight of your career so far.

  Alex McGuigan

  Really interesting highlight of my career. Well, I guess that was the first mandate I won. Right. So I did this analysis and I don't actually think anyone ever thought that I was going to raise money, so that was pretty cool.

  Camilla Love

  Why not? Well, I don't know.

  Alex McGuigan

  Because with the third party marketer, you're kind of a gun for hire, almost. Sure. So it's not the same as what you do being invented organisation and understanding what's happening. You're always one step removed. Right. So you're just the sales and marketing, really. And she's had been successful, definitely. But I think that people were expecting that other people would have to come in at the top level and support the sales process through the end. So I worked out this strategy and I was like, all right, so this is how they outperformed. And so I reached out to one of the CIOs and I said, Will you have a meeting with me? And he said, yes, I have a coffee with you. And so he had like a 30 minutes coffee with me. And he said something about the product why he wasn't interested in looking at it. And I said, well, actually, I have to cheque because I'm only new, but I think that that's wrong. I think that actually these are the returns of the product. And so he was like, all right, well, send me stuff, and I'll have a look at it. And so I sent it to him, and he was like, you're right.

  Alex McGuigan

  Actually, my understanding of this strategy was not correct, and it has outperformed all of its peers. So then I started building a relationship with this CIO and brought the portfolio manager out a number of times. And then he said to me, okay. So I've decided I want to do this, and I'm going to go and tell Jana that I want to do this. And they have to come back to me with a reason why I can't do what I want to do. And I was like, that is the golden ticket. If you can get an institutional investor to instruct an asset consultant to work on your product, then you basically can open the floodgates. And that's kind of what happened. He had the access consultant work on it. They approved the strategy. And I remember I was walking on George Street when he called me, and he said, I just want to let you know I'm going to give you $150,000,000. And I did a happy dance on the street.

  Camilla Love

  And people are like, who's this crazy lady? What is she doing?

  Alex McGuigan

  Why is she doing? And then literally. So it took 18 months to get that first call to say they were going to give us that money and another 18 months to raise $1.5 billion.

  Camilla Love

  Yeah. Wow. And it's funny how it's just the first and then once the first how long it takes to get to the first. And once the first comes in, the flood comes not always.

  Alex McGuigan

  But if it's a good product and it really helps. And so one of the key points I would like, I think that's a good story to highlight the need for persistence. And a lot of people won't have that persistence, and that tenacity to keep following up. And they can't be annoying. You really have to try not to be annoying, because that shuts off the basis. The way that I did it with him was he said, okay, this is the next thing I'm going to do. Call me in two months. And so I put it in my diary, and I called him in two months. And I said, hey, you told me to reach out in two months. Is now a good time? And he would say, no, I still haven't got to it. Give me another month. And so I cancel it in my diary. And whatever he told me to do, I really try not to test for him. So having that systematic approach to the follow up is significant in the sales process, for sure.

  Camilla Love

  To me, there's two sort of learnings from that story. And I relate to something that I had a conversation ages ago, maybe 15 years ago, I had with my boss, who said, really? There's only 10% of people like you and I, Alex, where we just get stuff done. The rest of the people will go along on the ride or things happen in its luck or whatever. But it's 10% of people who have that persistency. And the second moral of the story never underestimate to me, Alex McGuigan.

  Alex McGuigan

  They're underestimate Alex McGuigan. That's exactly right. So I used to be the chair of the emerging leaders and the CEO was leaving. And I remember I had a conversation with them and I said, Please give me some pearls of wisdom before you leave. And this person said to me, Never underestimate the mediocrity of others.

  Camilla Love

  And that's true.

  Alex McGuigan

  I've never ever forgotten it. And you know what? You don't have to be the best. You just have to be a little bit better than everybody else and you will still win.

  Camilla Love

  Indeed, pearls of wisdom, everyone pearls of wisdom. Hey, where are you going to be in five years time?

  Alex McGuigan

  Where am I going to be? Well, I'm actually working on something pretty exciting. I can't say this yet, but I'm working on a project. What I can say is that female portfolio managers tend to outperform. And there's a lot of empirical evidence that has been done by investment banks and management consulting firms that prove this. And it's for a number of reasons. One is self selection bias. So they are just those type of people, those 10% of people who get it done. They are also comfortable being the only person in the room. So these portfolio managers tend to sit with contrarian positions longer, which is very valuable in a portfolio. So even though we have this information that tells us that women outperform, they still manage less than 1% of the global assets, and that is also for various reasons. One is unconscious bias, but I think that we're coming to a place where they are being actively addressed in organisations. But the second and probably most challenging piece is the structural element. Right? So institutional investors, they have risk management requirements and investment committees who say you can't be more than 10% of a fund, which makes it impossible for them to invest in women.

  Alex McGuigan

  So there's this whole group of exceptional investors who get immediately eliminated from the selection process just because of their size. So I'm working on a project with two single preemptive institutions on analysing whether or not this is actually true for the Asia Pacific managers outperform. And if the research proves the case, then I'm going to be working on a solution to get more money to women.

  Camilla Love

  What's this thing?

  Alex McGuigan

  I know it's very exciting.

  Camilla Love

  That's so exciting.

  Alex McGuigan

  It is.

  Camilla Love

  So we're going to come to the end of our podcast soon, but before we do, have you listened to any of my other podcasts? What we do at the end, we do this quick fire round where I ask you like five or six different questions and you got to say the first thing, like the first thing that comes into your line you're up for something like that?

  Alex McGuigan

  Sure. Okay.

  Camilla Love

  Well, who knows what your answer is going to be?

  Alex McGuigan

  That's why I say I hope not. Rude.

  Camilla Love

  Okay. You ready to go? Yep.

  Alex McGuigan

  Let's go.

  Camilla Love

  Okay. If you could be any animal, what would it be? And why?

  Alex McGuigan

  Tiger. Strong and beautiful.

  Camilla Love

  Fierce.

  Alex McGuigan

  Fierce.

  Camilla Love

  Endangered.

  Alex McGuigan

  Endangered. I think strong, powerful. But I don't want to say calculated. Yeah, but planned and considered. I think if they make an attack, they don't just do it. They think about it and they stalk. They stalk.

  Camilla Love

  My favourite superhero is Sheira Princess of Power.

  Alex McGuigan

  So good.

  Camilla Love

  Oh, my God, that reminds me of the 80s. That's so good. I love that. If you could invite anyone alive or dead to dinner, who would it be and why?

  Alex McGuigan

  Oh, Elizabeth Taylor.

  Camilla Love

  So amazing.

  Alex McGuigan

  Taylor? Yeah.

  Camilla Love

  And just because of the Grace. The diamonds, the dress?

  Alex McGuigan

  Diamonds, the diamonds, the dress. I just want to know the stories as well.

  Camilla Love

  How many husbands?

  Alex McGuigan

  Nine or something. She married one of them and divorced one of them twice.

  Camilla Love

  Twice exactly. A lady who can't make up her mind. Nothing wrong with that. My favourite book is.

  Alex McGuigan

  By David Benioff and it's called City of Fees. It's about the siege of Leninbrad and two boys. They get thrown in a prison cell together and they've basically both been accused of doing something wrong. And in order to save their lives, the general or the commander sends them off on this incredibly dangerous adventure to find a dozen eggs in the Siege of Leonograde when there was, like, everyone was starting to death. So it's a fabulous look. You won't be able to put it down.

  Camilla Love

  Okay, great. I'll have to put that on my reading list.

  Alex McGuigan

  It's very good.

  Camilla Love

  My first investment was a property.

  Alex McGuigan

  An apartment on William Street. Darling house.

  Camilla Love

  Do you still have it?

  Alex McGuigan

  I do.

  Camilla Love

  Great.

  Alex McGuigan

  Someone is living in it right now. Hopefully. Happy.

  Camilla Love

  Good.

  Alex McGuigan

  My biggest investment mistake was not linking my offset account for my money. For the property.

  Camilla Love

  No.

  Alex McGuigan

  Anyway, I figured it out.

  Camilla Love

  Extra interest, paid less and learned.

  Alex McGuigan

  Lesson learned. That was a Biggie.

  Camilla Love

  What weird or unusual thing do you have in your handbag right now that you want to tell us about shoes? I'm thinking of something else, but. Yeah, cool. No, every handbag has a good pair of shoes.

  Alex McGuigan

  Well, and you know what? I'm just really organised and I constantly change my handbag, so there's nothing weird in there. I usually put it away.

  Camilla Love

  Gosh. I don't have enough handbags to do that.

  Alex McGuigan

  Maybe that's a better question. What do you draw?

  Camilla Love

  What is in your drawer? Then tell us.

  Alex McGuigan

  Yeah, it's not really very exciting either. No, passwords is not very exciting.

  Camilla Love

  The efficiency of passwords in your drawings. My hidden talent is.

  Alex McGuigan

  Oh, reciting poetry.

  Camilla Love

  What?

  Alex McGuigan

  Reciting poetry.

  Camilla Love

  Can you tell some now? Come on, you can do it. Come on.

  Alex McGuigan

  I used to have this one poem that I used to win all of the estate around Sydney. And for anyone who's not into acting or whatever, it's very lucrative business. So when you get to the open stage when you're 16 years old, there's like, $100 cheque, which was a lot of money back in the 90s. So I used to make my mom drive me around all around Sydney, and I used to recite the same poem and just, like, clean up.

  Camilla Love

  Do you remember it?

  Alex McGuigan

  I can tell you the night. Yes, of course I remember it. My family still walks around the house going, Knight herons. Judith. Right. They mock me to know it.

  Camilla Love

  And you're like, But I still got cash for that.

  Alex McGuigan

  I got cash for that and I got an apartment. So who had the last laugh?

  Camilla Love

  Indeed. Indeed. And the final question is a career in finance is freedom.

  Alex McGuigan

  That's it.

  Camilla Love

  I think that's fabulous way to end. So, Alex, fabulous. So good to hear from you. I really miss you for being in Singapore. Come home and visit us soon. Thanks for being so wonderful and such a great, organic conversation. And thanks for sharing your ups and downs and your Nuggets of information. And if anyone wants to take anything away, never underestimate Alex Miguel.

  Alex McGuigan

  Never underestimate the mediocrity of others. That's the best one. But if anyone wants to contact me, any students want to know anything, contact me through LinkedIn. I'm happy to help in any way I can. Hunter Women in Finance has free memberships for students. So if you want to get involved and learn more about just start to learn the dialogue and the language, the different events they're on, all that kind of stuff. Just let me know and I'm very happy to help.

  Camilla Love

  Thanks, Alex. Okay, hopefully see you soon.

  Alex McGuigan

  Thanks, Kim.

  Camilla Love

  Bye. For more information on what we do at F Three, Head to F Three.com Au. I look forward to you joining us next episode Where we continue to interview some fabulous people. Thank you. The Inside Scoop On Careers in Finance. Bye. For now, you know the information that is in this podcast.

  Camilla Love

  We always talk about finance in this podcast.

  Camilla Love

  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 careers advice and how I'm Finance will be a fabulous career for you.

S2.Ep4: Don't be Afraid to ask the Next Question with Annabelle Gillings

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.

• Transcript

  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.

S2.Ep3: The Value in Multiple Perspectives with Sandi Orleow

Welcome Sandi Orleow. Sandi is an incredibly experienced professional with a portfolio career as a non executive director. Sandi shares how her career in finance started in South Africa and led her to Australia.

• Transcript

  The following is a transcript that has been created using AI technology so please forgive any grammatical imperfections.


  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.

  Camilla Love

  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. Today's episode, I am super excited to introduce you to one of my favourite people in the superannuation and investment industry in Australia. She is a person who questions me, pushes me to think differently and gives me the support to challenge the status quo. She's energetic, passionate and with such a warm heart. It is Sandi Orleow. Thanks, Sandi, for joining me today on Shares Not Shoes.

  Sandi Orleow

  Hi, Camilla, so nice to be here with you.

  Camilla Love

  Sandi has a portfolio career now as a non executive director, but she started her career in South Africa prior to moving to Australia. And I look forward to hearing her journey today. So, Sandi, tell me a little bit about what you do, why you do it and what is the purpose and meaning for you, why you do what you do.

  Sandi Orleow

  Well, there's a lot of questions, Cam.

  Camilla Love

  It's a bit deep, isn't it? First question.

  Sandi Orleow

  So I have a portfolio career now, which means that I sit across a whole lot of different businesses and don't work with a single entity. So I have a board role on a superannuation fund. I have a government board role. I have a listed investment company board role. I sit down some association boards. And I love what I do. I love the fact that I have the opportunity to work with a number of organisations and I love the fact that I can work with them strategically in terms of sitting around the table and trying to contemplate what the future holds and how things should be supported going forward. That's where I am at the moment. My Genesis into a portfolio career started about seven years ago. I was working within a funds management business. I'd been working within investment consulting, funds management, and I saw sometimes great people and organisations weren't really given the opportunity to be great. So it was okay. How do I try and influence the environment and the culture to try and support environments for people to be great and to come to work and put the best self forward? And I thought that would be sitting on boards and committees and that was my Genesis to start to move from executive work into non-executive work where I am today.

  Camilla Love

  So you talk about culture and that's a really big word with lots of different concepts and I always describe it as the iceberg, right? So you only see a little bit at the top. But actually the culture is everything underneath the water and it means a lot of different things to a lot of different people and it's a sort of organic organism. So what do you look for when you're in the cultures of the organisations that you're working with to highlight whether they're a great organisation to work with or not.

  Sandi Orleow

  So in my executive work, I was involved a lot in manager research and product research, and part of that was actually researching the components that went into making an organisation great or being a good investor or partner for us going forward. And one of those things, we're trying to get your finger on what that environment is, what the secret source or the environment is, because at the end of the day, a lot of things are commoditized. We work in a great industry with lots of highly intelligent, competent people. Everyone, theoretically on paper, can do the job, but you almost need it to almost synthesise and come together so that you can be great in terms of what it's about. So even when I work with organisations and you look at culture, culture is not second, forget, it's kind of always needs to be looked after and monitored. I look at it in terms of speaking to the people, finding out their comfort of talking what the appetite is for growth and doing things exciting. I read a lot on social media, I read mainstream media. I use a lot of almost that mosaic theory of speaking to people that work with those organisations, in those organisations, for those organisations and kind of hear about what's the experience of dealing with someone, what's the issue, what should you be aware about?

  Sandi Orleow

  And I think when you're looking at culture, culture can exist differently at different parts of an organisation, but in essence you want to know what is the business or the organisation seeking to do and does the culture support it? And look, I'm a big believer. You can call the word culture. Culture feels like it's becoming a bit of a cliche word at the moment. It's almost like agile culture. What does it actually mean? Same thing I think it's got to do with the kind of place that you want to be involved in or something that supports it. And it doesn't always have to be good and happy and everyone kind of being nice to each other because you could choose to work in a culture that's highly aggressive and supportive of an aggressive growth agenda and everyone goes in and it's kind of made the best man succeed. And it's kind of a little bit of less supportive but more aggressive. And at a certain stage of a business that may be wrapped, but it's almost understanding what you're looking for, what's important to you, and then kind of factoring does that organisation have it, and am I seeing attributes of it or signs of it and anecdotal things that are happening?

  Camilla Love

  Yeah, that's right. And we talk a lot to University students and school students on this podcast and we talk about culture is something that is really led from the top. How do people actually analyse or size up leadership at the moment? Because there's a lot of change that's going in on the leadership mindset particularly. And it's all about authentic leadership and allowing you to bring your whole self to work. And it's really interesting over this cover period how we've been able to sort of move or shift the culture a little bit, to be a little bit more flexible and be a bit more meaningful to people in their everyday lives. So what sort of tips would you give for people to size up, particularly the leadership in reflection of culture? And what signals can leadership give to sizing that up?

  Sandi Orleow

  Again, as I said, I come with my own personal biases. Everyone has their own biases and styles of engagement that they have a preference to. And I think it's with an acknowledgment of understanding what your biases are and what things resonate with you versus others. And it might be different, but I think it still goes back to the same point that I said. It depends where the organisation is in its life cycle and what its agenda is in terms of what it's seeking to do. I could tell you on paper that I think the leadership of the future is one that is collaborative, that doesn't claim to have the answers, that kind of has a way to pull in the best of everyone and synthesise it. But in reality there will be companies at a certain stage that need leadership to kind of make the hard decisions to get going are less perceived to be collaborative. So I think it depends on life cycle, where business is and what they seeking to do, and what's fortunate is we're all different, and certain things work better with certain types of working styles than others. And I think as everyone contemplates where they want to go with their career, life, place of work, partner, things will be different for different people.

  Sandi Orleow

  And it's probably knowing almost what your values are and your priorities are and then recognising where you think things are going and what you want to be part of. And it's factoring that in. And then in terms of the actual leadership, you want people to kind of be living the values that they kind of ascribe to. And I think it's interesting you see a lot of people talking about now the priority of the great is it the great resignation or is it the great balance? Indeed, I think it goes on the notion of it's the whole of person. And definitely we're moving into a time where the whole of person is expected. And as the uni students come in. And as we have the new workforce coming to the fore, the whole priority of your workforce and life not being two separate things being there, you want the purpose to be evident, you want the organisations to share and respect the purpose that you subscribed to and it may be a drive for you actually joining the organisation because you value what they support. And if they don't have necessarily a project that they're supporting, do they expect and accept that their staff do recognise that they want to do volunteering and is the flexibility allowed in the structure?

  Sandi Orleow

  So I think that's the whole notion of, if you believe it's important that family comes first, you expect someone, your leader, to be taking off a bit of work and going to see their kids play sport or doing gym in the morning and walking in at nine or taking a gym class at one. I mean, when I got into the workforce, that wasn't done indeed. And now it's almost you're finding these Gen X's and these older leaders kind of saying you can't have one standard for yourself and another standard for someone else. You've got to almost kind of live the ethics and the ideals of the organisation and role model indeed.

  Camilla Love

  And it's funny because as I lead my team at Einvest, I am very cognizant of how I role model what I expect in the team. So I think it's true. You have your whole of self at work. I think your mind and body needs to be fit and healthy to be able to do that. We do believe that family does come first and I encourage everybody in my team to be at those important events with their kids and be able to pick them up from school and things like that. But you're right in that different cultures and different businesses fit different people. And I always talk about it, particularly when I'm doing panels at schools and on the podcast. You really need to go and try all these different cultures and organisations out to find what's right for you, because you're absolutely right that the individual needs to sit down and work out what's important to them before they get into the workforce or before they change companies, because if they don't know what's right for them and they go into an organisation and go, oh, this is not right for me, then that's sort of like lost time.

  Sandi Orleow

  And I think that it's super important just on that camp in terms of knowing what you want, sometimes it's hard to know exactly what you want. It's almost easier to know what you don't want. So I never look at things as actually a waste of time, to be quite honest, because I believe you learn from everything. So I think that mentality of kind of learning from failure, learning from trying, I cannot underestimate or underplay the importance of recognising that if mistakes are made or things aren't perfect. There's a lesson in that and it will play out and it will come to the fall.

  Camilla Love

  Absolutely. And you well know that I'm a testament to learning by doing and the ability to, if it's not working, stop. And here I'm going to put the word in pivot to something that may work differently. And so I'm very open to experimenting different things, and I think it's important for everybody else to take on that mindset.

  Sandi Orleow

  Absolutely.

  Camilla Love

  In your answer, you also talked about purpose. And we talk a lot about purpose in our podcast, because you've got to be able to get up every morning and say, yes, I'm going to work every day because I work for an organisation in the industry that has purpose. Talk to me about your perspective on why finance is a great career to have on that factor of purpose.

  Sandi Orleow

  It's interesting that the notion of finance because I always just wanted to go into business. It just was the notion I wasn't going in for purpose, I was going in because I loved business and I love to be involved in being on the decision making side, making things happen, being involved in that echelon of the environment and the industry. But what became more concerning, and I think what it's played out, is that with the Royal Commission and some of the things that have played out, finance almost kind of started losing the perception of it having a purpose or having a heart. And it was rarely the notion. It's disconnected to the rest of the society and it is profit motivated. It's capitalism at its worst and it's kind of greed. Do I want that? And it almost became binary, I don't want that. So I'm not doing finance. And interesting, I did a session for F Three and one of my daughters schools to cohort or via twelve students, and it was a startling revelation for me to hear these year twelve cohorts talking about thinking finance only clips the ticket. They didn't value the fact that you had more money to travel or do stuff, they just discounted that.

  Sandi Orleow

  And it wasn't a priority. And there was an absolute disillusionment with finance. It amazed me because I don't think I ever got into finance because I was greedy or kind of wanted to do it. I was always kind of recognising the value of understanding how businesses work, being part of business. And for me, the thing that crystallises was Paul Smith, the Exeo of CFA, gave a presentation on the purpose of finance and he spoke about it. And I think what he did was crystallise the words that a lot of us were thinking. But he pulled it together and the CFA contains a lot of that where it basically says finance is a Noble profession in essence, ensures that economies grow, that organisations make money, that they invest, that they produce, that people earn money, that they are able to function, that's the good and the oil that almost greases society to kind of allow it to happen. Because reality is everything costs money and things cost money. If it's not money, it is time, it's a resource. There's a trade off that happens. And finance took a bit of a turn in the last while where this perception of it has no purpose, it has no heart.

  Sandi Orleow

  I absolutely and totally disagree. Finance very much. Yes, it has the perception that it was disconnected from society. But what it does mean and what finance has done for me is ensure that any organisation that you go into, you can understand how it works, regardless of whether it's a charity, it's a stockbroker, it's a closed producer. You need to understand because you have to keep the lights on some way and you need to actually source the goods. And if you don't actually understand how that works and how that functions, it doesn't work.

  Camilla Love

  And that's a great synopsis, because I like you are very passionate about this industry, and I don't understand that perception because I've never seen that perception in action. We do all have a purpose, and it is 99% of us in finance put the client at the heart of every decision that we make. So as with all people and organisations, there's always that 1% that do the wrong thing. But that's not the perception of the rest of the industry. And I think that that's right. I mean, businesses can't take loans to grow and the financial profession can't facilitate those loans. The economy and people just in general would be way worse off.

  Sandi Orleow

  Absolutely. You've kind of got me on to kind of going on this area, because I go on the notion of people can be greedy and they can be hungry to accumulate assets and be money driven by assets. And that's fine, because that's their drive and that's their purpose. But that can be accommodated in any industry and that's not a blanket kind of thing. Finance does that. And maybe you want those people that actually don't tick your boxes because they might be the people that are incredible stock pickers. They give you outsize returns, and you basically are taking a bit of an incentive based where you invest alongside them and they do what they do because they are arrogant and aggressive and greedy. And you know what, that's fine for that part, but that is not indicative of what finance is.

  Camilla Love

  Indeed. Indeed, you mentioned Paul Smith and CFA. You do a lot with the CFA, particularly here in Australia. Why are you so involved here?

  Sandi Orleow

  I did a CFA qualification, so I'm a Chartered accountant qualification. That was my first foray when I entered into the business environment, but never practises a Chartered accountant. I use it as a groundwork to get into business. But when I immigrated, I didn't want to re qualify as a Chartered accountant because I wasn't practising as an accountant. I've moved into funds management at that stage. And what I needed was a global qualification which would allow me to enter into another market. We had a recognised qualification without going back to re qualify. And I did the CFA programme, which was back in 2003. And to be quite honest, in the early days, it actually didn't really make much of a difference. It kind of was on my resume. No one actually said to me, do you have a set? But I think what's interesting and I can't actually hit home more loudly, is those qualifications are the key to get you through the door. And just by the fact of having a Chartered Accountant degree and then having the CFA, which has a global relevance and recognition, kind of lets you legitimise you and gives you a seat at the table, and then it's up to you what you choose to do with it.

  Sandi Orleow

  So I've continued ongoing learning and I can't stress the importance of almost. When I said to you about almost, you make a call to go down one way and it's not the right way. I've got two daughters that are in uni now and they're not sure it's the right course that I'm doing. And I've kind of said to them, Whatever course you're doing, you're learning. You may not use it tomorrow. I never practise as a Chartered accountant. Now that I sit as a direct on businesses, the fact that I'm a Chartered accountant and I actually understand numbers are comfortable with risk in those areas. I cannot thank whoever the stars that enabled me to actually do that charge of the accounting degree, because it actually has set me up for the next stage of my career. So when we look at this whole notion of this 100 year life or this notion of multiple careers that people will have you kind of put the pieces in place so you could choose to do an arts degree or you could choose to do a finance degree or something, it may be not used in that very next job, but it will be a component.

  Sandi Orleow

  And as the world becomes more competitive and the requirement for application of knowledge, not necessarily because we all have computers and everything will be on hand. The fact of your multiple perspectives and learnings on different areas and different insights from different areas just make you stronger going forward.

  Camilla Love

  And that's a really great point to make because you get asked a lot. Will my marks make a difference at the end of University? And really, it's the fact that you've got a degree. I don't think anyone has asked me ever what my Econometrics 101 course marks were. So, yeah, it is, definitely. And that learning mindset. I think everybody needs to have that going forward, to be flexible and to be adaptable in their careers. So I think that that's a critical point to make.

  Sandi Orleow

  Absolutely.

  Camilla Love

  So talk to me about a trend that you're seeing in the finance industry right now and how that's influencing you and your role, sitting across multiple different organisations, whether that be superannuation and government and listed organisations.

  Sandi Orleow

  We've spoken by purpose. I think Anna Dougsky was Cop 26 just happening and the whole climate, responsible investing, stewardship, the whole notion of leaving the world a better place, or at least not allowing it to deteriorate further from where it actually is. And the responsibilities that we have to future generations kind of is front of mind of everyone. I mean, we're talking just off to Cop 26. That's particularly pertinent at this point in time indeed. But I think what's interesting is this whole notion of understanding the responsibilities that we have. And so if you look at what finance is dealing with at the moment, it's the whole notion of do banks lend to certain players? How do you keep reskilling people as you move out of certain industries, as we move to more sustainable industries going forward? So the reskilling aspect that's there people living longer.

  Camilla Love

  Health care and the impacts of ageing, I think is also an area that's extensive within the finance industry as well.

  Sandi Orleow

  It's major because the notion of you living longer, you need to fund it somehow. So it's kind of the notion of funding where you're going. So if I looked at a trend and when I look at my next learning will be is I will do either a formal course or an informal learning within the sustainable space or the impact space, because that area has grown, is changing so rapidly at the moment in terms of how you measure it, the different indices that I play, different structures, and I think to actually understand some of the foundations that are being there, as much as I read it, I come across in most of my boards from some perspective, it's dealt with. I think that if I kind of go back and invest a little bit in some learning and we're living in a time now, I can do sign up to cosera, see if they have a new SG course or market learning, I can go into that. I can do a bit of an immersion. So I get a bit of the foundations. I don't need to do a whole three year course and I can kind of set myself.

  Sandi Orleow

  So when the discussion happens, I can take it to the next level. So when I look at trends that are happening, I think a lot of that will be that, yeah, okay.

  Camilla Love

  And we talk about ESG and sustainability and impact a lot on the podcast and what we've seen at Cop 26 as well. And we know people who are there from an investment point of view as well, which I think is really exciting to have a seat at the table while all these global leaders are talking about it. And then the flow on effects of what does it mean in finance, because I think the next ten years we will definitely see some boundaries set here on lending on even like social impact housing and even just their micro things to think about. But how can the finance industry really help the transition of all our global economies into a more sustainable footprint? And I think that that's a really Noble thing for the industry to put their sites on and help everyone move to that.

  Sandi Orleow

  Absolutely.

  Camilla Love

  So I always ask my guests this last question and obviously you're going to be no different. But it's interesting. You've had a long and extensive career. You've got a lot of advice over your period of time working in the industry. What is the best career advice that you've been given and why did it resonate the most with you?

  Sandi Orleow

  I think in terms of the best career advice, you pick up advice wherever you go. And I've always kind of valued and always respect the diversity of opinions. So what advice that I've done is kind of recognised to listen to, listen to what people say, to hear the different perspectives, to kind of expose yourself to as diverse as you can actually be exposed to, so that you never become two tunnel vision in one perspective. And it may not be something you understand or share in the theme.

  Camilla Love

  Yeah.

  Sandi Orleow

  But the fact that you have insights to that, there is a different way to do it just makes your thinking and perspectives that much greater. So have translated that over time was always the notion of saying every person in every role, senior, junior, or wherever it is, has a perspective that brings to the table. And it's about giving that bandwidth and the potential to actually listen. So if I translate it too early in my career, it's probably that notion of putting yourself out there, subscribing to a whole lot of stuff that you might or may not use going forward to valuing that people are calm to some extent. So it might be a lot of desk research you do yourself so that when you go forward, you're actually doing that stuff. And I think that notion of not being so hard on yourself go forward and actually take learnings from everything and recognise that it's not life or death, everything is going to actually play towards making you more rounded, giving you a better perspective, and kind of just keep going forward, just keep going forward and sticking by what's important to you and what your values are.

  Camilla Love

  Yeah, and that's important. I think that's a great piece of advice and I hear that in you all the time. And the active listening piece is something that I always try to work on. I'm not very good at it and I'm sure you will know that I'm not very good at it, but I definitely try to actively listen and to actually find out the reason why the actual underlying so people tell you certain things but actually what is the actual underlying reason why they're telling you that? And getting great perspectives and different perspectives. It's hard because the group around you, you fall into group think and it's easy to stay in that spot. And it's actually hard for you to actually jump out of that piece and extend yourself into an area that you feel uncomfortable. It's really hard.

  Sandi Orleow

  I think that's excellent. While you're talking and have replayed it back to me, it comes a little bit with age, that notion of kind of understanding. But if you're not going to do that, it's almost just kind of recognising where you actually are.

  Camilla Love

  Yes. And people are not necessarily comfortable in their own cells either. So being an understanding where you are at that point in time is really important. You're right. Such great Nuggets here, Sandi. So at the end of each episode, we do this quick fire round so people can get to know you a little bit more. And are you happy to be part of that because it can make you feel uncomfortable. Here's the uncomfortable spot. Okay, so let's go.

  Sandi Orleow

  So the first question is my bucket list includes my bucket list includes probably going to a cop or 27 or 28 and being around the table and being involved with the calibre of people that have been attending those forums of being something that makes a difference to the future. I mean, the calibre of global interaction with global mind. So that's probably on my bucket list. I would love to be you and I.

  Camilla Love

  We can get tickets together. I don't know how we're going to wrangle our way in, but maybe we can pay money to it.

  Sandi Orleow

  The younger generations are more of a chance to kind of come with their perspective, be brave, know what you stand for and kind of own it.

  Camilla Love

  Yeah. Okay. So that's a great bucket list. So next question. My hidden talent is organising trips.

  Sandi Orleow

  I love to travel. And it's funny because a lot of my friends, when they're looking for something a little bit left field or something, that's a bit of an adventure. I get these calls to kind of say, we're thinking about this. What do you think we should do? What do you think about this? Which restaurant? We're kind of looking at that and I think it's becoming a bit of a passion project. I think you need to live life and kind of experience. And so I'm always on. Unfortunately, my husband and my family are very able allies or just kind of get ready to be taken along to new places or trying new things or doing that then good on them. So that's my hidden talent. It's covered field.

  Camilla Love

  No, I totally love it.

  Sandi Orleow

  My first investment was my first investment was in a share in a business and my father worked in that listed and that was going to list. And it was, do you want to put a little bit of money in it and kind of watch it. And it gave me the opportunity to kind of watch a business go off market, go on to market, see how the share price went, see what was going. So it was a good entree into investing and to be kind of maybe it was that they planted the seed. But thanks. I've always loved investing in markets. As I've got further on in my career, what I've done a lot more is probably invested and recognised great investors and invested into them and recognising that. Maybe when I can have a belief in a certain business, it's probably I don't have the time because I'm now working too hard to actually manage my portfolio as it's going. And I quite like the innovation space. So if I can put some money into like, new ideas, maybe a little bit of crypto learn when I'm going, I kind of quite like, that.

  Camilla Love

  Great. My favourite book is my favourite book.

  Sandi Orleow

  It's such a hard thing to actually say which is my favourite book because I love to read, but in reality I've gone from reading. Love the Harry Potter series. Consult more about that girl, The Dragon Tattoo. Loved that series. Read that. I've loved learning books. So Malcolm Gladwell outliers. Love that book.

  Camilla Love

  So good. Love, Malcolm.

  Sandi Orleow

  Success isn't necessarily everything that you do. Sometimes you need the environment to support what you're doing. I love Seth goddamn. I read The Purple Cow. Someone gave it to me on how you have to differentiate yourself. And Interestingly, Malcolm Goodwill, Seth, goddamn all these people. As I read their books, I kind of follow them and then they send their daily pearls of wisdom. So Ray Daniel wrote Principles.

  Camilla Love

  I haven't read that book yet.

  Sandi Orleow

  Ray Dalio. Yeah. Once you read it, you subscribe to it. I subscribe to a whole lot of stuff. I've got my pile of reading ready for Christmas reading. I've got Hollywood reading Edge. I've got The Fish Rocks from the Head.

  Camilla Love

  Oh, yes.

  Sandi Orleow

  I've got the secure board from Analybel. So I've got my hands some fictional stuff mixed in there. So I like science fiction. I read a bit of science fiction.

  Camilla Love

  I didn't know that about you.

  Sandi Orleow

  Yeah.

  Camilla Love

  There you go.

  Sandi Orleow

  Yeah.

  Camilla Love

  Okay. So there's lots. That's a big reading list for those people out there.

  Sandi Orleow

  I don't necessarily read all the books cover to cover. I can be reading multiple books and some of them unless it's a fictional book that you read from cover to cover. A lot of these other books are pearls of wisdom that you kind of keep going back to.

  Camilla Love

  Tell me something that no one knows about you.

  Sandi Orleow

  Oh my gosh. I have twin sisters. Identical twin sisters that are mirror twins. So one is left handed and one is right handed. One has a beauty spot on one side. One has a beauty spot on the other side.

  Camilla Love

  Get out.

  Sandi Orleow

  So that's very interesting. So that kind of opened up the whole kind of area of twins versus siblings and the connections that they have. And I am a big follower in spiritualism. I like spiritualism and meditation and meaningfulness, and that esoteric life beyond.

  Camilla Love

  Do you practise every day?

  Sandi Orleow

  No, it depends on the stages of laugh. I'd like to say that the years that I've got and the times I do it are great. Unfortunately, I'm not always that grounded to do it, but I always aspire to get there.

  Camilla Love

  It's on the hashtag goals list, right. If you had to invite anyone alive or dead to dinner, who would it be and why?

  Sandi Orleow

  I think I'm tossing up between David Attenborough Jane Goodall is the theme. Eddie Jaku, who just passed away on The Happiest Man.

  Camilla Love

  Have you read his book?

  Sandi Orleow

  Yes, I do. It's beautiful. I have his book, and I've listened to him talk. And just the perspective that he brings, it kind of always kind of brings you back to the roots of what you need to be looking at. So I think each of those kind of have those commonalities that they've just got such great perspectives and led such meaningful life and would love to be able to speak with them and just kind of hear what their perspectives are looking back on it all.

  Camilla Love

  Yeah. Just the pearls of wisdom that would come for even half an hour with them would be amazing. Absolutely. Wow. My last question is complete this sentence, a career in finance is it gives you the foundation.

  Sandi Orleow

  It sets you up to go into whatever you're going to do. So you'll never look back on studying finance and being able to understand numbers, whatever industry you choose to do, even if it's running your home. So cannot underplay the importance of being able to understand numbers.

  Camilla Love

  Yeah. And we talk about that all the time. You don't have to be a genius. You just need to understand it a little bit. I mean, even going to the shops, you need to understand the numbers. I think that's a really great Pearl of wisdom there's your own Pearl of wisdom that you're giving to everybody else today. So thank you very much. And that's the end of our podcast. And I've just really enjoyed our chat today, Sandi. So thank you very much for joining us on Shares Not Shoes and being so entertaining and just generous with your ideas and thoughts.

  Sandi Orleow

  Thanks, Kim. I love talking to you, as I always do. And I love the name Shares Not Shoes. So good on you, and I love the work that you're doing. So thank you very much.

  Camilla Love

  Well, hopefully we'll invite you back and give us some more pearls of wisdom. For more information on our guests on Shares Not Shoes and further episodes, head to Shares Notchoose.com. And for more information on what we do at F Three, head to F Three.com. Au, I look forward to you joining us. Next episode where we continue to interview some fabulous people just like Sandi here today and give you the inside scoop on careers in finance. Bye for now, you know 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 out careers advice and how finance will be a fabulous career for you.

S2.Ep2: Getting out of your Comfort Zone with Angela Zha

Meet the talented Angela, a university student who enjoys art, creative writing and is enthusiastically pursuing a career in finance.

• Transcript

  The following is a transcript created using AI technology so please forgive any grammatical imperfections.

  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.

  Camilla Love

  This week's episode, we are joined by someone who truly impresses me every day and we get to work together on F Three. Her name is Angela Zha and she is a current student doing commerce at the University of Sydney. Welcome, Angela, and thanks for joining me today.

  Angela Zha

  Thanks for having me today, Camilla.

  Camilla Love

  It's great that you have been able to say yes to my invitation to come onto the podcast. I really want you to share your journey through at University and sort of give people an understanding, particularly through your eyes and some of your peers and your friends eyes, about why doing a commerce degree and why going through University and aiming to have a finance career is a goal of yours. And I've chosen Angela because you're going through lots of things that everyone is going through at Uni every day, lots of different learning experiences, you're trying to get great marks, you're doing different things, you're doing a lot of student societies, you've had a scholarship, you're lucky. And so we'll talk about that in a little bit. And then why you're interested in a career in finance as your next step, in your first big step, I guess, into your career. So I look forward to you telling and sharing everybody with your story today. So maybe we should start from the top and tell me a little bit about you, your background, what you did at school, even some subjects that you did at school and why you chose them, maybe even some extra curricular stuff that you did leading up to going to and hitting University.

  Angela Zha

  Yeah, sounds great. So I would say I was a student who always enjoyed quantitative subjects at school, but it so happened that I always did better in English than math. So always the way, unfortunately. So my choice of subjects in the senior years, it was always guided by what I was interested in rather than what I thought would scale better or what I thought might lead to jobs. For example, I took extension to English because I love the breadth of topics that we got to study, which linked to all sorts of areas like philosophy and history. And I thought that was really interesting. And I loved working on my major work as well. I also took excess.

  Camilla Love

  I said art. Hang on, hang on to the art piece. I am a big fan of art. What did you do for your major work? Talk to me about that.

  Angela Zha

  So it was mostly a piece of writing but I did do some art in it because I thought I would get a bit creative for it and then mix things up. So as part of extension English you do a major work that's either creative writing or essay writing, whatever is your choice. And then I did one which was critical writing but I thought I'd mix some elements of creative writing in there and I wrote some poems, I put in some drawings of mine and then in the end it was very mixed media and it was really fun to do Fab and it's not often like it's funny because you think about it.

  Camilla Love

  You think school is sort of reasonably rigid and you've got lots of boundaries and it's just nice to hear that you're able to sort of flex your creativity and your creative muscle to do some great stuff in your English. Yes.

  Angela Zha

  School is what you make of it.

  Camilla Love

  Yeah, absolutely. So what else did you do at school?

  Angela Zha

  So I took accelerated maths in year eleven and then that left enough space for me to do extension to maths in year twelve because like I said, I really enjoy the quantitative subjects. That was really challenging but I thought it was a really good process because I always have this sense of fulfilment when I solve a really complex math question and I feel so proud of myself.

  Camilla Love

  Do we all? So then did you do any like science and you mentioned history? Did you do any in history as well?

  Angela Zha

  No, I didn't do history and I would say I'm not a very sciencey person. I didn't enjoy it too much in the junior years but I did do a lot of languages so I really enjoyed German so much that I did German extension in high school and also my German teacher was fantastic so it was really cool and I love learning about different cultures.

  Camilla Love

  There's nothing better than having a really good teacher to guide you, particularly when you're in any subject really. But I did German in year eleven and I just wish I had a teacher. As you can tell, when you talk about it you can hear the bright spark in your voice about talking about your teacher. And it's funny how I had one of those teachers in geography and the teacher's name is Mr. Keller and he's like most awesome teacher and he's still teaching geography these days and he's still equally as awesome. So I love those stories because it makes you feel more comfortable. It makes you get better marks.

  Angela Zha

  Yes, definitely.

  Camilla Love

  And so German is very different to extension English. So how did you marry those two up together?

  Angela Zha

  I would say learning German actually helps with my own English writing because as a native English Speaker you don't notice it so much. But there are a lot of different grammatical conventions that you don't exactly know when you grow up. You just use it in everyday life. But then when you learn a different language, you start to learn about former grammatical structures and how syntax and grammar they all come together. And that makes you more aware of your own writing when you do writing in English.

  Camilla Love

  So let's talk a little bit about your math. You liked maths? Did you think it was easy for you to do math?

  Angela Zha

  I didn't think it was like easy, but I think I did well in it. So it was definitely challenging, especially extension too, because I didn't do science and there were definitely physics elements in there, such as the mechanics topics. But I also had a really good teacher and I had really good classmates as well and we were all really supportive, so that definitely helped me get through it.

  Camilla Love

  Great. And now do you have people who are in finance around you? Like, is your mom and dad or uncle? Are they anyone in finance around you?

  Angela Zha

  Not particularly, I guess my uncle is in accounting, but my parents are not in finance.

  Camilla Love

  When I go and talk to schools and school students in years 10, 11 and twelve and you can tell people who are interested in finance around them, they have the language of talking about finance and understanding and interest in finance. But those people who have parents or people who have influence around them that don't have finance, they're interested in other things, obviously. So I always found that when I was talking to kids at school about careers in finance that it was not necessarily a difficult topic to have a discussion about, but rather a topic that is unknown for a lot of people. Did you find that?

  Angela Zha

  I think initially at first, but it did help because I took business studies in high school as an accelerated subject. So it didn't end up counting towards my HSC. But I took it in years nine and ten and there was a finance topic in that and that was my favourite topic out of the whole course. So I thought, yes, I like finance, I want to study it more at University. But I did find out when I first got to interact with the topic, I didn't know too much of what was going on and then it was earning through learning more about it and then reading the news, talking to my teacher that I got the finance terminology and then learn more about the industry, even though when I first came to University, I still, to be honest, didn't know what a person in finance did. And I just chose the subject because I had enjoyed it in high school and I thought it was more maths heavy than some of the other subjects under the business school. I did find that I really enjoyed the subjects. And also one cool thing about the business school is that it offers lots of networking sessions and events for you to meet industry professionals.

  Angela Zha

  So talking to them really opens your eyes, lets you get your foot into the industry, know more about it and find out where you could fit.

  Camilla Love

  Yeah, that's a great way of thinking about it. And maybe we should jump we'll come back to that. I think that's a really important piece. Let's talk about. So you finished school and were you happy with your mark for high school?

  Angela Zha

  Yeah, I was happy with my mark.

  Camilla Love

  Did you get into the first choice of what you wanted to do with uni?

  Angela Zha

  Yeah, I did. And it also landed me a scholarship for University as well, for the duration of my degree. So I was happy with it.

  Camilla Love

  So did you put your hand up for the scholarship or were you given the scholarship? Because I was also a scholarship recipient for my MBA at HSM. But lots of people go, I don't know if I'd ever get a scholarship, but my message is always, you've got to be in it to win it. What's your view on here and how did you go about finding scholarships to apply for and things like that?

  Angela Zha

  Yeah. So during year twelve, our careers adviser told us to go out there and apply for scholarships. And I also went on to the University's website and looked at what scholarships they offer. I did apply for a few, including, for example, the Sydney Scholars Award. I didn't end up getting it unfortunately, but I was awarded the Chancellor's Award at the end of year twelve, so I was fortunate to get that.

  Camilla Love

  And so what does the scholarship mean at University for you?

  Angela Zha

  I guess it means that I'm able to fund my studies more easily and it gives me more chances to meet other people at University. For example, before University started, a lot of award recipients were invited to this event and networking session where they got to meet with each other and discover more that University get access to more resources. So that's definitely been a major help.

  Camilla Love

  Yeah, right. So if you're a student out there and you're listening to what you have to say, is there any advice that you would give people who are looking at scholarships?

  Angela Zha

  I would say, look inside yourself and don't be afraid to talk yourself up, because for the scholarships, you must let them know who you are and let your passion shine through. Some people might think, oh, I don't want to sound boastful or arrogant, but, you know, the University is not going to know about your strengths and who you are unless you tell them. So really let your passion and your interests shine through.

  Camilla Love

  That is a great advice, Angela's advice. And I think that goes for not even people who are at school applying for scholarships. That goes for everybody. So why did you apply for a University? And tell me a little bit about your uni journey. Are you involved in other student societies? What majors are you doing? Why did you choose them? Tell us about your uni journey.

  Angela Zha

  Yeah, sure. So as you mentioned before, I'm doing a commerce degree at Sydney University and I major in finance and economics on the finance side. As I said previously, I've had a bit of exposure to it from high school. And as for economics, Funnily enough, I had studied it in year eleven and then dropped it because I thought it was boring. And then when I got to University I changed my mind and I was like, oh, it's actually not too bad. And then now I'm majoring in economics as well. So there's a bit of a mixed journey there, but I enjoy my majors really much. I think they both have that combination of quantitative and qualitative elements which I enjoy, and they both require you to apply both technical knowledge and interact with other people in a team, which I think is really important these days in the industry. And then within University. I was really excited to join lots of student societies in my first year. I remember at orientation week I went around and then I signed up to all these different societies.

  Camilla Love

  I think I joined the Chocolate Society.

  Angela Zha

  Oh yeah, me too. That was so fun.

  Camilla Love

  So did you get involved in any of them at a higher level? Because a lot of people join as a member, but never really sort of get involved in any of the networking or any of the events that they do or even in the leadership capabilities that are offered by the societies.

  Angela Zha

  Yeah. So in my first year I was an editor and writer for the business school publication called Inside Enterprise. And as part of that I've got to host or co host an event that launched our flagship magazine and also interact with industry professionals as well. And in my second year I was an artist for the University newspaper Honi Soit. And as I mentioned previously, I enjoy drawing and art, so that was definitely something that spoke to my passion. Then in my third year I was a marketing director for the University Network of investing and trading within the business school.

  Camilla Love

  So at University I always talk about using University as a loose framework to learn other stuff that you might not necessarily have the opportunity to learn at any other time. When you sat down and chose your subjects. And obviously we've talked about your majors, what other areas did you say? Okay, I'm really interested in learning in that slightly a bit left of centre or just interesting to me that I'm going to do for sort of passion or interest sake rather than necessarily hitting it on the head for your major.

  Angela Zha

  Yeah. So I took a lot of electives which are not actually relevant for my majors. For example, in my second year, I took this elective called Cultures of Food. That was really fun because the final assignment was that you go to a restaurant, you eat, and then you write about your experience. So that was such a fun assignment.

  Camilla Love

  So where did you choose? Were you a critic or were you just talking about the culture of the food and the culture and the history?

  Angela Zha

  Yes. So I went to this Italian restaurant because you could choose a country to focus on. And I chose Italian food. I love Italian food. And I went there. I had an interview with one of the chefs. I ate, I took photos, selfies, and then I uploaded them, and I wrote about the history of Italian food, how it evolved, and what my experience was like.

  Camilla Love

  That is such a great example of the learning capabilities that you have at University that it doesn't just have to be so serious. You can actually take a slight bent on doing stuff that's really unusual. Like, I think I did French film. Right.

  Angela Zha

  Interesting.

  Camilla Love

  So you never get those opportunities to learn necessarily, in a formal setting about stuff that you wouldn't normally choose. Italian history is rich off, and food is at the centre of it. Just even thinking about conquests and the whole Roman Empire across different cultures. And Italian food is a mixed mash of how it's all been put together. Yeah, I love it.

  Definitely.

  Camilla Love

  So what did you eat? Pizza or set in a very nice accent, too. Thank you. So let's talk about the mix of the scholarship and then your degree at the same time. How do you juggle? Because there's obviously things you have to do for your scholarship. How do you juggle that? As well as doing the normal rigours of what you would normally for your degree?

  Angela Zha

  Yeah. So for my scholarship, one requirement is that I maintain a distinction Wam for the duration of my degree. So that is definitely a requirement on my academic studies. But then also outside of University, I also have other commitments, such as my social life, my part time work, as well as my hobbies, including sport and drawing. So I would say to juggle the rigours of University, it really helps to have a good schedule. I like to keep my calendar organised and plan out well in advance when I would start my assignments or when I would study for exams. And this really helps me to avoid procrastination or last minute cramming when things come up.

  Camilla Love

  Yeah, everyone goes through it, but at least you can plan.

  Angela Zha

  Indeed. And then before an exam period comes up, I do draw up a physical calendar in front of me because I like to see things even when I'm not on my device. And then I would paste that onto my wall and then I would plan out the cake. Today I'm doing this tomorrow. I'm doing that, and I would plan that out alongside with things like running or reading into my daily schedule. So I would know exactly when I would do what. And I would say that really helps me with my time management.

  Camilla Love

  And it's important, particularly if you hold that scholarship, that you are living up to all the criteria of that scholarship. So I totally understand a distinction Wam is very difficult to get. Congratulations on keeping that up over your time at University. It's important. So we talked a little bit about you doing finance in business studies at school. So when you got to University and you've done a finance major, when was it that you knew you wanted to have a career in finance? And why was that?

  Angela Zha

  So I think I wanted to have a career in finance when I got to do internships in it and I got to interact with people in the industry and find out exactly what work they do. So, for example, one internship that I did is one offered by the business school. It's called an internship placement program. And you apply towards the business school just like you do for a job. You submit an application, do a video interview, assessment centre and a final interview. And after all that, I got matched with a bank in the equity research Department. And at first that was really quite challenging because my manager just tossed this company at me and said, Go do an initiation coverage. And I was like, what? All by myself?

  Camilla Love

  What's an initiation coverage? No.

  Angela Zha

  Yeah, it was a really steep learning curve, but fortunately, I had a really great and supportive team around me and they provided lots of resources and past examples of models that they have done. And it also enabled me to communicate with senior executives of the company that I was covering and find out their perspectives. So that all really helped with me completing my task over the course of my internship. And I thought that that was a really great opportunity to learn about what work is like in the industry and to see the dynamics of a team from inside rather than from outside, from the perspective of a student. And then another internship that I did is one with FThree, actually. And that was a really exciting experience. My team focused on a portfolio management case and our task was to research different portfolio managers in Australia and evaluate their investment strategies. This was really exciting because it enabled me to apply what I had learned at University to a practical scenario while working with a very motivated and driven team. That was a really rewarding experience as well, which consolidated my interest in finance.

  Camilla Love

  Great. So let's talk about that internship. Did you have to apply? So let's not talk about FThree for a second, but let's talk about the one that's the business school. Do you have to go and apply for those internships. And how did you go about how did you feel applying for those internships, or is it just part of the course and I just get to do it?

  Angela Zha

  It's not part of the course, unfortunately. I wish it was. Not every student has to do one, but most students do because they offer these on a very frequent basis throughout the year. So it's a partnership that the business school has with companies outside, and you apply to the business school rather than directly to companies outside. And then if you're successful in getting through the different rounds that I mentioned earlier, then the business school will match you with a firm such as I've heard brands like LVMH, Nestle, really big brands out there, and then match you with a company. And then you'll go and do an internship, either part time during the semester or full time within your summer break, and you get to earn credit points for that.

  Camilla Love

  Okay, great. Let's talk about being thrown in the deep end there, because let's do an initiation coverage of this company because you can't just go and sort of lean back onto your University studies there. You've actually got to have a lot of soft skills that you've developed over time to be able to go. Okay, cool. I have no idea about what I'm doing here because I've been just dumped in the deep end. You talked about your team and the team environment that you had. What's the importance of soft skills in a situation like that?

  Angela Zha

  I think communication is really important. You need to communicate well with your team and then ask questions when you need it because the team won't know if you have questions unless you ask them. And I would also say time management is important as well because I had a set deadline for when I would finish my internship, and I wanted to get as much done as I hope to. So I would set goals for myself over every once few weeks to know what I had achieved.

  Camilla Love

  Yeah, great. And I think it's important to have a very supporting team around you to actually go, okay, this person is struggling. I can see that she's struggling here. Let's do as much help as we can because lots of people think that that investment banking environment isn't overly supportive where it actually is. And that's what you're telling me, right?

  Angela Zha

  It is, yeah. One of my colleagues in a different team, I would often see her at noon, just go to the gym, come back changed, and then sit back at her desk and start work again. Or I would see people from my own team go out and have lunch at different hours of the day if they are meeting up with a friend and then come back and do work afterwards. And everyone understands that and is really supportive of that.

  Camilla Love

  Yeah. And I think that that's really important because who you are at work and what you do around keeping yourself sane and healthy and what you enjoy doing is available within work hours. Just you need to sort of give a little on one side to get a little on the other. So I'm a big advocate of using my lunch break. I don't matter how many hours I happen to want to work that day, but just as long as I have my lunch break to go to the gym, I'm perfectly fine and I'm sane. So you mentioned that we met during one of Fthree's work experience placements. Tell me. So you mentioned also about the project that you did. How did you find the process and the environment that you were in? And would you recommend this experience to other Uni students who are listening today?

  Angela Zha

  Yup. So the process was really supportive. Once again, our team was matched with a wonderful mentor. And every week when we have meetings, she would teach us a bit of theory about a particular topic, which might be helpful for our case. But also what she would do is that she would arrange weekly meetings with senior executives from the company who are based all over the globe. So maybe this week we'd be speeding to a top executive based in Sydney, next week in Singapore, the week after in the United States. And that was so exciting because I got to learn about their stories and has opened my eyes to the world out there in finance in different roles. So I would say if you're listening right now and considering FThree, definitely apply for it.

  Camilla Love

  Thanks, Angela. It is really important. So our view at FThree, yours and mine is to ensure that not only are we giving you the practical work experience that you need to put on your CV and give you some of the skills and arm you with some knowledge, but it's also there to give you an understanding of what the value chain looks like and where the problem is within financial services and how it sits within the industry and why it's important. But also too to actually give you the network that you need to start in the industry, which I think is really important because students like yourself and your shoes go, okay, great. I've done my degree and I'd like to go into finance, but I actually don't know anyone in finance. So how am I going to get myself a job? Well, FThree is there to at least give you, if not ten people, 15 people that you would have met along the way. And it's great that they introduce you to their colleagues offshore because different markets are doing different things and people have different stories to tell about their experiences. And where they've come from.

  Camilla Love

  So it's been great that you took that away from a journey.

  Angela Zha

  Yeah.

  Camilla Love

  So I always ask all my guests the same question towards the end, which is what's the best career advice that you have been given and why did it resonate with you? The best and the reason why I'm asking for that, because it's a great culmination of different people's perspectives on careers advice and little Nuggets that you can sort of take away and apply today. So what career advice did you get?

  Angela Zha

  So my manager once said to me, don't be afraid to go outside of your comfort zone and network. Those are something that we touched on previously. But I think this is a really important piece of advice, especially in financial services. It's only through talking to other people that you can find out more about the industry and whether you enjoy the work. And talking to people also helps you build your network. So that when it comes to applying for jobs, the fact that you know someone who works there and can show that you understand the role and explain why that role appeals to you, that really makes a difference, and you will stand out so much more in the application process. Networking also shows that you have the motivation and drive to put yourself out there. And I would say that I sometimes could be quite shy, but as my manager said, people are friendly and willing to help, and the worst that can happen is that they don't reply to you. But there are endless possibilities of good things that can come out of you just reaching out.

  Camilla Love

  Yeah. And that is perfect advice, because I love networking, but I appreciate that there are lots of people out there who are scared of it or don't love it or uncomfortable, whatever. Which way? But Practise makes perfect in that space. And my top tip is just the first thing to do when you're in a room of people that you don't know is to just smile, because that will definitely take down barriers and make your welcoming and just puts a bright spark in everyone's day when you smile. So I think that's a fabulous piece of advice.

  Angela Zha

  Great.

  Camilla Love

  So, Angela, we're nearly at the end here, and we do this quick fire round of you got to say what's exactly in your head to the questions that I ask you for something a little challenging.

  Angela Zha

  Sure.

  Camilla Love

  Okay, good. This is all about allowing people to get to know you a little bit. Okay. So the first question is, if you could live in any country in the world.

  Angela Zha

  What would it be and why… that's tough. I think Singapore because it's such an exciting city with a wonderful mix of cultures. And I also think the food that is amazing.

  Camilla Love

  You should have done Singaporean food for your subject.

  Angela Zha

  I should have.

  Camilla Love

  Yeah, indeed. What is it? The salt and pepper crabs down at the.

  Angela Zha

  Yeah, the crabs.

  Camilla Love

  I haven't been to Singapore in a really long time, but I still remember those food markets down there.

  Angela Zha

  I remember Queuing for ages there. Yeah.

  Camilla Love

  Oh, gosh, yeah. Because everyone heads there. Right?

  Angela Zha

  Yeah.

  Camilla Love

  So the next question is, who’s your favourite superhero?

  Angela Zha

  My favourite superhero is Captain Marvel.

  Camilla Love

  Captain Marvel. Why?

  Angela Zha

  I thought she really shines girl power in the film. She has a lot of resilience and I know that only so far she has only starred as the main character in one movie, but she just really stood out to me when I watched it.

  Camilla Love

  So maybe she should have her own. Should it be the main character in the next series?

  Angela Zha

  Yep.

  Camilla Love

  Okay, next question. How would your friends describe you?

  Angela Zha

  Organised, loyal, diligent, and always willing to help out when they need me.

  Camilla Love

  That's nicely at the moment.

  Angela Zha

  I have FOMO of travelling overseas on the holidays.

  Camilla Love

  Doesn't everybody? Where would you go other than Singapore?

  Angela Zha

  I actually really want to go to New Zealand because I've never been before. I've heard such good stories about it and it's so close, but I've just never been and I really want to go.

  Camilla Love

  It is a great country. It is well worth travelling and spending some time there.

  Angela Zha

  Yeah. I'm also a big Lord of the Rings fan, so I want to go and see where they shop in the movies, see the Hobbit.

  Camilla Love

  It's an amazing country, so well worth saving the money and going to it.

  Angela Zha

  My first investment was an ETF.

  Camilla Love

  That's a great first start. And I'll give you that. That's a great first start.

  Angela Zha

  My favourite book is Gone With the Wind.

  Camilla Love

  Is it?

  Angela Zha

  Yeah. I love the book.

  Camilla Love

  That's very old school of you.

  Angela Zha

  And it would be my favourite movie too.

  Camilla Love

  Really?

  Angela Zha

  Yes.

  Camilla Love

  It's so long.

  Angela Zha

  I know, but it's my favourite movie.

  Camilla Love

  Why? Is it because of the love story or is the fact of the setting of the historical context that it's in? What was the best bit?

  Angela Zha

  I think when I read books, I tend to like the historical genre and so that first of all appealed to me and I think a lot of the themes really stood out and some of the topics that it evokes are just so interesting to discuss as well. And I think it was really interesting to learn about the history of the American Civil War period from a different perspective.

  Camilla Love

  Yeah. And there are lots of great, sort of deep themes that are resonating through that that are still quite current, obviously, today, which is important. If you had to invite anyone alive or dead to dinner.

  Angela Zha

  I would invite Vera Wang. She is a great inspiration to me and she is so entrepreneurial and resilient. And also another fun fact is that when I was a child, I always wanted to be a fashion designer.

  Camilla Love

  Hey, maybe if ever you get married, you could wear one of her fabulous dresses.

  Angela Zha

  Yes. That would be the dream.

  Camilla Love

  Wow. She's an interesting character, interesting cultural background, her impact on American fashion and global fashion. Really fabulous. Fabulous and really great globally known Asian leader, particularly who's female. So they're not necessarily a lot of them in that fashion area at all.

  Angela Zha

  Yeah.

  Camilla Love

  Last question. Describe why a career in finance would be awesome.

  Angela Zha

  So in a few words, it's exciting, it's inspiring, and I would say it's diverse.

  Camilla Love

  Okay. I love the fact that you've used diversity as one of your important points Because that's what we're all about here. It has not shoes in an Fthree and it's very important not only from an agenda point of view but also from a cultural and cognitive point of view as well. I think that the finance industry will be so excited to welcome you in. If somebody hasn't already snapped you up, there's definitely a fabulous and really bright career ahead of you in the finance industry, so I can't wait. When do you finish?

  Angela Zha

  So I finished my bachelor's degree this year, but I'm intending to do honours next year.

  Camilla Love

  So we've got a whole another year to wait, people, before she comes. So exciting. So thank you, Angela, for spending some time with us at shares not shoes today and telling us your journey because it's really important so not only for people who are in the industry to hear your story and understand the complexities of students going through school and University today, but also for those students who are thinking about having a career in finance or even thinking about doing a commerce degree or even just graduating their final years at school. It's a great story that you've had to tell and hopefully you can inspire a new influx of females into the financial services industry through the journey that you've been through and the stories that you've told today. So thanks. It's been really wonderful.

  Angela Zha

  I hope I provided some helpful tips for students out there and thank you so much again for having me today.

  Camilla Love

  No problem, Angela. So for more information on our guests at shares not shoes and further episodes, Head to sharesnotshoes.com and for more information on Fthree, head to Fthree.com au. As always, I look forward to you joining us next episode Where we continue to interview some fabulous people just like you've heard Angela and her stories today and give you the inside scoop into careers in finance. Bye, everybody. The information that is in this podcast.

  Camilla Love

  We always talk about finance in this podcast.

  Camilla Love

  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 and circumstances with that. But this is all about careers advice and how finance will be a fabulous career for you.

S2 Ep1: Defying Imposter Syndrome with Jacki Ellis

Introducing Jacki Ellis, a remarkable woman working in finance at her dream job as a portfolio manager for Aware Super.

• Transcript

  The following is a transcript taken from the episode. It has been created with AI so please excuse any grammatical imperfections.
  

  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 list 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.

  Camilla Love

  Today, I am so super excited to introduce you to Jacki Ellis. Jacki is the portfolio manager of retirement strategy at Aware Super, one of Australia's largest superannuation fund. And Jacki and I have known each other for maybe ten years.

  Jacki Ellis

  Yeah, maybe more than ten years.

  Camilla Love

  We're so young. Jacki.

  Jacki Ellis

  Oh, my God. Stop it. You're making me feel reminding me that I have to come over this year.

  Camilla Love

  Yes, we won't. So today, Jacki, thank you for joining us on Shares Not Shoes.

  Jacki Ellis

  Thank you so much for having me, Camilla. I'm delighted to be here.

  Camilla Love

  Fabulous. So, Jacki, let's start and say, can you introduce who you are and what you do and why you love it?

  Jacki Ellis

  So as you've just heard, I am the portfolio manager for retirement strategy at Aware Super, which is my dream job. I feel very fortunate to have this role. I love what I do. I'm sort of responsible for working out how we, as a super fund of a million members, can do a much better job of personalising the way we manage our members money to meet the specific needs of each of our members, and in particular, how we can help them understand what they need to meet their goals in retirement and give them really clever and smart and personalised strategies for actually drawing down on those savings so that they can live life large in retirement like they no doubt deserve it.

  Camilla Love

  Absolutely.

  Jacki Ellis

  It's very exciting because as an industry, we've spent a really long time working out how to make money and accumulate wealth for members. But as yet, we're not great at supporting members in actually drawing it down once they get to that magical retirement moment.

  Camilla Love

  So retirement is such an interesting space and something a topic that no one really ever wants to talk about because particularly when you're young, talking to a lot of our audience who haven't even thought about retirement. To me, retirement is the party stuff that you've worked so hard in your career to get to and have such a good time at that point. But then everyone's talking about at the moment, will we ever retire? What's your views here?

  Jacki Ellis

  Look, I think that our views of retirement are really starting to evolve and become a bit richer. Previously, it was like you hit a point. You retired, you hoped you had enough money and you kind of made do with what you had when you got there. And maybe for some lucky people, that was inspiring. But often it was sort of a bit of a negative connotation. Getting the age pension for the government was seen as a bit of a handout, and there's a bit of stigma around that. I think that that's really changing in society at the moment. Certainly if you retire the way my mom has, she skis most of the year whenever she can, like sort of eternally jealous about her retirement. Of course, she is one of those lucky people in the Commonwealth Public Service. They got a defined benefit scheme where they have that promised income for life, and that creates a lot more certainty. And I feel like that's inspiration, though. We can make retirement this exciting moment where you get freedom and choice and the time that you choose to retirement, to retire will depend on you and your circumstances and what you want.

  Jacki Ellis

  And maybe you'll choose to keep working for a bit, or maybe you'll start doing other types of work that you've always wanted to do. There's a huge amount of fulfilment we get from working. And so I don't think that the goal is necessarily to stop working for everyone. I don't know that that's necessarily what retirement means anymore. It's more about that moment where you get your sort of financial independence to make choices on a daily basis about what you really want to do. And I think that's really exciting and empowering, and we should be celebrating it as a society.

  Camilla Love

  Indeed. And now I loved when you explained about what you did was all about personalising retirement. How do you do that? Because that's hardly. That's a hard thing to do for 1 million members who are your clients.

  Jacki Ellis

  Yeah, it's really hard for a shockingly large portion of our members. We don't even have the email address.

  Camilla Love

  Details, people, please.

  Jacki Ellis

  It really makes a difference because even if we have any kind of significant event or any kind of change, we have to mail out to so many members because we don't have the email address as it kills trees and it costs money unnecessarily. Please update your email address. But yeah, we have to get a lot better as an industry at knowing our members at the moment. We do that a lot through my team, from a research perspective, and we partner with some really clever academics who are really good at this sort of stuff. To really help understand that we do a lot of member testing now. Human Centred Design is here to stay in the industry, particularly when it comes to retirement, which is really very demand played. It's all about what the member wants. Ultimately, it's their money, their choice, and so we have to really work harder to understand that. And pretty much every other industry out there has gone through that evolution, we expect a lot of personalisation in our daily lives today. Superannuation is no different, it's just a really highly regulated industry, so there are a few extra hurdles to jump through, which I think is one of the reasons it hasn't quite happened yet.

  Jacki Ellis

  But we're well on the way and I think we'll see a sea change in that aspect of super over the next decade for sure. Once you know things about members and once you get better at engaging with them on their terms without all of the jargon and lingo and ridiculous number of acronyms that do my head in, I use Jargon and I don't even realise it's Jargon. It's really funny because I'm the technical person, I'm the investment strategy team. So I do all of the really specifically technical bits and this is wonderful counterpart I have in product who gets me now after working with me for two years and she translates me and I don't even realise it was terrible. So I'm trying really hard to deognize myself as an important step on that process. But it's really hard if we don't know what personal goals are like. We don't know a member well enough to understand what they're actually trying to achieve in retirement. How can we possibly help them deliver on that?

  Camilla Love

  So how are you doing that? Like, how are you getting all the personal information to be able to do that unless you know their spending patterns and personal circumstances other than the dollar amount of their super balance?

  Jacki Ellis

  Yeah, I think it's going to be a combination of engaging with them effectively so that they tell us and really clever, smart nudges that we give them to say, well, given what you've told us about you, if you want to kind of maintain your lifestyle for retirement, which is where most members will start when you sort of talk to them about what they like in retirement, I just really like to keep living as I am as a sort of basic starting point. In many cases you don't need the same income in retirement to maintain your current lifestyle because a lot of expenses disappear for many people, although maybe this will change over time. They'll stop having to pay off a mortgage and things like that. They won't be paying nearly as much tax in retirement in many cases, no tax. Perhaps they won't have dependents to the same degree, although again, maybe that's sort of shifting a little bit and so often a replacement rate is 70% allows you to maintain your lifestyle and then you need to. Oh, I'm sorry, no, I do it again. You can hold me to account. Tam so that's just saying how much of your working life income you need in retirement to maintain your lifestyle.

  Jacki Ellis

  So five point 70% of the income before tax basis, then that will be enough for most people for the masses for them to maintain their lifestyle if you're in the wealthier end, it will be a bit lower than that. You might only need a half the income because you're not sort of theoretically, you're not supposed to be saving as much or a lot of wealthy people's income goes towards savings and sort of not really the point. And then actually the lowest income earners in society. The sad reality or how much of a divergence we have between the richer and the poor. Many of them actually get a pay rise in retirement because the age pension is quite generous relative to other supports in the system. And so often their replacement rate will be well over 100%. They'll be getting more money in retirement. So you have to sort of nuance these things. And that's why we have people like me who really dig into the research and think about it and help bring the richness of those details into the member experience that our marketing and product teams are building.

  Camilla Love

  So you described your job as your dream job. Why is it your dream job?

  Jacki Ellis

  Well, it's never dull or boring. It's just pure problem solving. I get to have this wonderful mix of really geeky number crunching, and I'm a total geek at heart, and I love that. But I also the success for me is making a difference to members. I've got this huge opportunity to really add value. This year, we implemented a new default in super. The default is called my super. So a new default investment strategy for our members that's thoughtful about how their money is invested throughout their working life. And we expect to add about $100,000 to the balance of our younger members by the time they get to retirement. That adds up to, like, I don't know, $20 billion across family members because something stupid. And so being able to make a difference is really amazing. But I also get to network right across the firm. I work very heavily with the product team, with the digital team, with the advice team, with the marketing team, with the policy and advocacy teams all around this really kind of complex and interconnected idea of retirement. We can only deliver on that personalization dream if we're all connected and coherent for that single goal. So I really enjoy the mix that brings all of that together.

  Camilla Love

  Going back in time a little bit. You actually did a degree in finance and psychology.

  Jacki Ellis

  Yes.

  Camilla Love

  So why is that a good mix? And I think I know why that is a good mix. But tell me why you think that is a good mix.

  Jacki Ellis

  Look super fortunate in hindsight, but a little secret. It was completely accidentally. In fact, I was going to become a psychologist. I was, which I would have been terrible at that because I'm a much better talker than I am. Alisa, Lisa, as you would know, I really am. I couch for you. I really care about people. That sort of aspect made sense and people are really interesting but I would have made a really bad psychologist, I think so fortunately for me, my bestie was really into the idea of doing a commerce degree she's a very pragmatic person, very likes numbers and all this sort of stuff, she works at the Absorber of statistics now she really loves numbers and stats and we just thought that you would be way more fun if we could do it together So we made this packed to both do a double degree so we could go through the degrees that we wanted but we could do them together and that was serious, that is how the very deliberate and well thought through and highly strategic way I came to do a commerce psychology degree I should really thank your best friend yeah Coach, which I do all the time because I love where I've ended up in life and a lot of that is the wonderful influence that she has had in my life to shout out to Lauren Ford thank you Dusty the best destiny ever but I love the story that it's always I'm not going to say a mistake but.

  Camilla Love

  You've fallen into it.

  Jacki Ellis

  I've 100% fallen into my career from pretty much every step so somewhere along the line in my degree I just really enjoyed finance and one day I sort of woke up and I thought I just really enjoyed this the most and I went and I spoke to some of the lectures, my favourite lecturers in finance and they were doing some research in Behavioural finance which is just by far one of the more interesting aspects of finance, like why a market is crazy because it's like the culmination of millions of humans making silly decisions that they think logically but may or may not be exactly how interesting I thought oh wow, this is actually a wonderful way I can combine my two interests and so I ended up doing honours in finance and I did my own thesis in Behavioural finance and I totally loved it and then the next heavy accident was that I took so long because I also took some time out at Uni to go travelling and things I took so long at Uni in Canberra, some Canberra born and bred, I love that place, don't knock it and all my friends have left me come back and I thought Well, I want to fly their coup now, I want to hang out with my friends who've just come back So I got one of the few true finance jobs available in Canberra that was working at the Australian Office of Financial Management that sort of is the debt management arm of Treasury I had this amazing opportunity to do some really wonderful grad training through the treasury programme I met some amazing friends through that time too and my first ever boss ended up moving into an asset consulting firm and coached me six months later to follow him. And that was how I ended up in super because I just loved working with him and he was just fantastic. And the way he talked about his new job and the work that he was doing and the ability to sort of make a difference to Mums and Dads, I thought, oh, that's fantastic. And so I ended up there and then my next job was at Mercer again in investment consulting, where I got the absolute privilege of working with people like David Knox, who is a total short leader in the world of retirement and just completely fell in love with that as a problem and such an amazing opportunity. It's a problem that nobody in the world has solved. The Australia's at the forefront and we can't solve it. I am determined and, you know, I always do everything.

  Camilla Love

  I set myself one big hairy goal for the rest of the globe. Here's, Jacki, trying to solve it.

  Jacki Ellis

  That's what I'm going to do. That's probably the rest of my career sorted right there. It might take me that long at I'm it not sure.

  Camilla Love

  And then you'll retire and use your life.

  Jacki Ellis

  I know. And then I'll be like, I'm so glad I did this for myself. So that's a win.

  Camilla Love

  That's fabulous. And then along the way you did some postgrad stuff. You did your CFA.

  Jacki Ellis

  Yes.

  Camilla Love

  Has this been important for you?

  Jacki Ellis

  I think so in a way. Like it was finished studying. It was about ten years, I suppose, or close to it. And some of the detail was a bit rusty. And I have always suffered a little bit from imposter syndrome. I've never really thought of myself as remotely smart. I always just attribute any success to hard work and I know all my friends shake their heads. I know exactly that face. You guys just imagine the face that came into anything right now. That is usually. But look, I mean, that's why humans are interesting, right? We're all slightly crazy in our own way and that's my personal particular bent of that. And so it was really helpful for me. It covers kind of every 101 aspect to finance in a really detailed way and it's very black and white way of learning. I don't necessarily describe that. I think that context and conceptual problem solving is really important too. But in terms of just having that confidence, you across all of the basics. It was really useful. And I think having that sort of breadth and overview of all aspects of finance in the industry is always a really great grounding for anyone to have while they're an analyst. And so you can draw on that knowledge when you're sort of more senior and just your fingers in all sorts of pies all across the firm in the industry. Very helpful.

  Camilla Love

  Now, you mentioned you moved from your first role to your second role due to your boss right at the time. And I just reflect on the role of the mentors that you've had in your career to date and the importance that those type of people are to you. What would you say to the listeners out there today about the role of mentors and maybe even finding one, or what do you think of the benefits of it?

  Jacki Ellis

  Having mentors is really important. I've tended to sort of collect them along the way. I think mostly just because I'm a real coupon person, I tend to sort of really value people and relationships. And so I take that time to build relationships with everyone that I'm working with. And I've had the great fortune of working with some amazing people, including some really senior women who have sort of been there and done it all before and gave me some really great advice. He sort of, in many ways only realised later that they were mentors. It was never a formal. I've actually never done formal mentoring where there's like you're meeting every, I don't know, three weeks and you got an agenda and all this sort of thing. I was just taking the opportunity to have the extra chats or to ask questions or to seek their feedback and building that sort of rapport and trust so that they'll also kind of say, hey, in a minute, what are you doing here? Why do you think about this? Why are you doing this? Have you stopped to consider that maybe you're the person who is responsible for you in your career and you're the only one who can know really what you want and you have to figure that out and you can't wait for someone else to do that for you?

  Jacki Ellis

  If you don't know what inspires and motivates you or why you're doing what you're doing, it's really up to you to find that out, and then you can ask the right questions and ask for the right help and people you kind of can say, this is what I want. It's very difficult for your bosses or other senior people to help you. And I've had the great fortune of managing a whole lot of analysts, including pools of analysts, in my time. And it's a really common thing for people in the early parts of their career sort of almost expect a really high degree of hand holding in terms of what's going to happen with their career and promotions and opportunities. And by far the best thing is to put your hand up and just ask for it. Managers excited and allows you to sort of tilt your career in the direction, things that interest you the most and get you that extra experience that will give you that leg up. And so I'm just a big fan of sort of putting your hand up and kind of going for it.

  Camilla Love

  Yes, indeed. So either asking for help or asking for advice, or I always say, so my version of that is ask the next question. So can I have a coffee? Can I have a pay rise? Do you mind if I have your job? That sort of thing? That's my version of that.

  Jacki Ellis

  Yeah. Well, people actually love to help. It feels really scary to ask. Sometimes people love to help and they just need to know how to help. And I literally can't think of a single time that I've asked for help. And the answer has been no. And even if the answer was no, would have been a really apologetic no. But how about you try this? And I'm so sorry. In this instance, because of X, Y, and Z, and you still end up getting there in a slightly more roundabout way. But if you don't ask, well, that's a no before you started.

  Camilla Love

  Can I tell you a funny story?

  Jacki Ellis

  Sure.

  Camilla Love

  So I was looking for a mentor. This is a while ago, and one of the guys I worked with who I respect highly said to me, think about the most senior female in finance industry and just going up and ask her. And at that time it was Gail Kelly who was the Westpac CEO. So there I was, green eyes and bushy tails going, yeah, I'm just going to ask God College be my mentor. And I got back and no, can I tell you a funny story? Two years later, I went and did my MBA, and there I was sitting next to this person from Westpac, and I explained who I was. And she's like, You're Camilla love. What are you talking about? She goes, did you write to Gail Kelly to ask her to be a member? Yeah, that was ages ago. She goes, that was disgust at a meeting. And I'm like, Holy Moly. Serious. Anyway, that's a pretty funny story. So I did get a note, but I totally understand why.

  Jacki Ellis

  Maybe I've never been ambitious enough to get to know. I'm so not surprised that you were there. I love that.

  Camilla Love

  Well, if you don't ask, you don't.

  Jacki Ellis

  You don't get that's right. Absolutely, indeed.

  Camilla Love

  Anyway, so let's move tact a little bit. And I'm always interested in our guest point of view on what the trends that they are seeing in the financial services industry right now. And that could be anything but particularly from your view, what's out there that people who are looking at joining the industry or who are recent entrants in the industry should look out for?

  Jacki Ellis

  I think retirement is a big trend and that's we already talked about ageing demographics. The system is maturing. So we're finally seeing more and more waves of members retiring with quite decent superannuation balances and where that's quite a sizable asset for them in terms of their retirement. So it's getting greater importance placed on it from all avenues members, government regulators, and also choice is here to stay. And again, that's another very purposeful policy setting from the government's perspective. They want more members engaging with the system and making more choice to help competitive pressures ensure that that trend towards performance orientated cultures where that whole system, as efficient as can be, is maintained. And so I think that's one of the reasons why I'm so confident that personalisation is here to stay in the way of the future for super, because choice will push us there eventually anyway. And responsible ownership is another really big trend where you start to see that sort of positive virtuous cycle of capital coming into play, where we're aggregating up the wealth of millions of members into funds which have become really desensitised to the figures that I talk about these days.

  Jacki Ellis

  My fund has over 150,000,000,000 in assets under management, but we're managing on behalf of our members, and we're expecting to sort of double in the years to come in terms of that size. And so it's a really silly amount of money. And that means that we need to really take seriously the responsibility that comes with investing those assets and make sure that we understand all aspects of how that money is being used. And governance, environmental, social, thinking about societal impacts because the very long term horizon of our members. What's the point of retiring with all this money if you don't really have a planet to retire on, for example? And we have to think about all of the risks. And so increasingly, climate change is part of that opera is pushing funds, and members are pushing funds to think more and more about how we're managing for that and making sure that we're factoring in the risks of investing in coal because of stranded assets and things like that. Property is a long term asset class, and for years they've been leading the investment field in terms of green practises because it makes sense when you're investing in those type of time Horizons.

  Jacki Ellis

  And so that's another trend, I think that's here to stay. Yeah.

  Camilla Love

  And that's particularly poignant given that we've just had the week that's gone. We talk about sustainability a lot on this podcast, and it's nice to see the importance of the use of capital and putting it in the right places to sustain a better planet. And we've talked about it a lot in the episode. But it's also quite nice to think that the fact that going on the days that superannuation as an industry was like what I would deem as sleepy, I like the fact that it's now at the forefront and that people should really be thinking about that as a path in their career, not just something that goes off in your paycheck every month. I think that's great. So I asked this question to all of my guests, which is, what is the best career advice that you've ever been given? And why did it mean the most to you?

  Jacki Ellis

  I had a moment where I was really calling out for perhaps not believing in myself enough and maybe not really having sufficient ambition in the way I thought about my career and what I was trying to achieve and how I was conducting myself in a professional sort of setting and just that idea that I have your sights on the next goal and dress for that success. And maybe that's sort of less applicable today after the realities are locked down. And certainly dress codes have become more casual and we've got much more ability to have our whole selves with us in the office now. But I think it's a mindset that's really important because if you don't believe you can get there, then why would anyone else? And sort of having that just consumption in the way that you're working, that you will get there really does actually make a difference. It certainly did for me, much to my surprise. And actually I was almost annoyed that it did because I was really annoyed by the advice at the time. If I'm honest, sometimes you don't like getting called out. Yeah, that's right. You didn't want to believe it, but it was really true.

  Jacki Ellis

  It had a really big impact, that mental shift. And I think how we visualise ourselves and the things that we say to ourselves and the self talk that comes with that can be a really powerful force for good or a real roadblock. So that's probably the most fundamental thing, especially because of my imposter syndrome. I think it was really important for me to hear that from someone really directly.

  Camilla Love

  And it's good to note that imposter syndrome happens to everyone at lots of points in their career. You're not alone in this. If you're out there listening to it, everybody whether I can't sit on this panel, why would anyone be able to listen to me? Why am I even writing this strategy paper? Because what are my ideas mean? Yeah, it comes from everywhere, and I'm glad that person gave you that advice, Jack.

  Jacki Ellis

  I know, right? It was really good advice. Hard to hear, but it was really good advice. And I think the best advice is hard to hear, and you have to be really open to that, and you have to seek it out, and you have to kind of be willing to really embrace those gems and seek feedback all the time, just normalise that process. That's the beauty of learning, right? You're not trying to be perfect. You're just trying to be better than you were.

  Camilla Love

  Such great advice. Maybe you could have been that psychologist.

  Jacki Ellis

  Maybe a coach, maybe talking versus listening thing.

  Camilla Love

  Sure. Okay. At the end of every episode, we do this quick fire round. Have you listened to any of our episodes?

  Jacki Ellis

  Do you know what this is? Yeah, I'm ready. Hit me with it.

  Camilla Love

  Okay. If you could be any animal, what would it be? And why for sure?

  Jacki Ellis

  A Penguin? Because I really love Penguins and I really like the idea of sliding around on my belly on the ice. It looks really fun. Although I have to say, with climate change, melting ice caps and also just how hard Penguin life is, I'm not sure that it's a really sensible thing to want to be kind of fun. It does look fun, right? I want to do that all day. Yes, exactly. Dance around, slide.

  Camilla Love

  And so I went to the Zoo with Sabrina on the weekend and we get some Penguin. But no Penguins. They're not good. Who do you admire the most?

  Jacki Ellis

  I know these questions are usually talking about the famous people, the Balmers of the world, but I actually source my inspiration locally. I'm a real people person. I love my friends and family. I pick out pieces I admire from the people I know best. So I admire my husband's endless calm and consideration of others. I wish I was a calmer person. I am as a result of him, but I'm nothing on his scale. You would be one of the people in my life that I gave my camera. I know that sounds corny, but I just love your energy and commitment to making a difference and somehow managed to stay organised through all of that, which I never achieved.

  Camilla Love

  It's organised chaos.

  Jacki Ellis

  Organised chaos is better than just straight chaos, which is probably more true for my reality.

  Camilla Love

  If you could invite anyone to dinner, alive or dead, who would it be and why?

  Jacki Ellis

  Just at the moment post lock down. One of my oldest, very close friends is going through breast cancer at the moment and I haven't been able to be there. She's down in Canberra. We've been locked down, so if I could have anyone to dinner, it would definitely be her, so I could give her a big hug in person and see how she's really doing.

  Camilla Love

  That's beautiful.

  Jacki Ellis

  But she's doing great.

  Camilla Love

  Well, cross fingers. My favourite book is.

  Jacki Ellis

  Oh, I have always been a sucker for period dramas and I just love Pride and Prejudice. I always have. I must have read it a million times. And I really like Mr Darcy. Yeah. I don't know why we love Mr Darcy, but everyone does. I'm not going to go internally on that, but I just really like the sort of strong characters that female characters at Jane Austen wrote into books in a time when it was very difficult to be strong female and just, I don't know, the romance of the period combined with that. I've always loved it.

  Camilla Love

  So if you came back in another time, you'd come back in Jane Austin time, then?

  Jacki Ellis

  Only if I could be one of her book characters, maybe. I'm not sure that it was a great time for women generally.

  Camilla Love

  Not at all.

  Jacki Ellis

  I'm not sure. Maybe the future would be more interesting to find out about. See if I crack the retirement code.

  Camilla Love

  Yeah, we'll crack that one first and then we'll crack the time travel one.

  Jacki Ellis

  Yeah.

  Camilla Love

  Summer, winter. Autumn or spring?

  Jacki Ellis

  Winter. Hand down. I love skiing. Oh, my God. Just miss it so much right now.

  Camilla Love

  One day we'll get to do it.

  Jacki Ellis

  One day we still haven't have we? Cannot believe this year.

  Camilla Love

  But we were locked down.

  Jacki Ellis

  I mean, we've tried several times. It's going to happen. It's going to happen.

  Camilla Love

  Okay. Next year.

  Jacki Ellis

  Next year. Let's do it. Logged in.

  Camilla Love

  Tell me something that no one else knows about you.

  Jacki Ellis

  No one else. Oh, my God. That doesn't exist. I don't think I'm such an open book. Everyone knows everything about me. I mean, things that would surprise people today would be from my distant past. I was a springboard diver. Did you know? Were you? I did the double back pike thing. Yeah. I could do, like, the inward hike, one and a half of the three metre and things like that. I could dive off the five minute. I got a silver medal at the Australian Inter Schools Championships. Really? Well, no, not really. I grew up in Canberra, so opportunities are limited. Maybe if I grow up in Brisbane.

  Camilla Love

  So next time I want to see one of these.

  Jacki Ellis

  Yeah, well, a little bit rusty, but we can always try.

  Camilla Love

  There's always a moment. My hidden talent is.

  Jacki Ellis

  My hidden talent is talking my son out of a tantrum. I'm the only one who can do it. They are really like, he's one determined little lad and those tantrums are epic. And he's so funny, especially through locked eyes. So funny. And he'd be like, mom, the tantrums are back. Help me. It's so funny. And I've always managed to crack the code.

  Camilla Love

  Eventually. Maybe you can come to my place.

  Jacki Ellis

  Sure. I charge by the hour.

  Camilla Love

  Free for friends, right?

  Jacki Ellis

  Yeah. Maybe my biggest investment mistake was to tell you what the worst investment I made recently was through lockdown. I invested in a trampoline for our backyard, for my kindergarten son. Vain hope that it would give him something to do. And all of those hours we were in work meetings and couldn't pay him attention. He was trying to, I don't know, entertain himself. But unfortunately, the Apple doesn't fall far from the tree. He's far too extrovert. And he refuses to jump on the damn thing without someone else with him. And he hardly ever used it as a result. It was the worst.

  Camilla Love

  So it doesn't count if no one's watching.

  Jacki Ellis

  No. Why would I play with toys without people to play with? And I'm like, I hear you, mate. It's really hard to. It's really hard to complain when that's your personality coming out back at you. My favourite song is probably anything from Julia and Angerstone. I love them. And maybe Bella in particular. That was my wedding song.

  Camilla Love

  It's really special for me. That's so nice. The last question is complete this sentence.

  Jacki Ellis

  A career in finance is never boring, sometimes challenging, but an amazing opportunity to make a difference.

  Camilla Love

  Jacki such a great way to end. And I loved our chat. I Think We've Given, as Always, Just Some Surprising. I Didn't Realise That It Was Like A Pact With Your Mates Which Made You Do Psychology Because That's What I Really Wanted To Do. And Then Into Finance. I Love The Fact That Your Worst Investment Decision Was Buying A Kid In Trampoline.

  Jacki Ellis

  Really?

  Camilla Love

  And It's Great To See That Super, Which Has Moved Forward And Trying To Reach For Better Retirement Outcomes For All Members And Personalising Them Is Really A Goal And An Achievable Goal, Which I Think Is Super Exciting. So Once You Get There, You Let Me Know.

  Jacki Ellis

  I Will. Absolutely. And For Everyone Out There, Pay Attention Early To Your Super. For Every Dollar You Invest In Your 20s, It Will Grown To At Least Around $4 by The Time You retire. It's An Amazing Way To Get Ahead In Life And Also Give You That Extra Freedom And Flexibility To Have Time Out Of The workforce later For Whatever Reason You Might choose And Still Have A Great Retirement Outcome. So Engage Early, make The Most Of It, and Don't Succumb To that. Oh, It's My Future Self Problem Kind Of Thing That We Tend To Do As Humans.

  Camilla Love

  That Future Self Comes Around Too Fast, huh?

  Jacki Ellis

  Oh, My God. It Has For Me.

  Camilla Love

  Wendy. So Jack, it Was Really Great To Chat and thank You For Being Funny And Entertaining As Usual. And I'm Just Really Glad That You Can Help Inspire The New Generation Of Talent Coming Into The Industry And What We're Trying To Do Here At Shares Not Shoes. So thank You For Being Open And Honest And Being Just Generally Jacki Ellis.

  Jacki Ellis

  Really thank You So Much For Having Me. It's Been A Blast As Always. And For Anyone Still On The Fence, Do It, just Do It. It's The Best.

  Camilla Love

  Just Do It. Exactly. So for More Information About Our Guests On Shares, Not Shoes And Further Episodes, head to SharesnotShoes.com. And for more information On F three Future Females In Finance, Head To F Three.com Au. As Always, I Look Forward To You Joining US Next Episode Where We Will Continue To Interview Some Fabulous People Just Like Jacki And To Give You The Inside Scoop On Careers In Finance. Bye. For now.

  Camilla Love

  You Know 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 It's Finance Would Be A Fabulous Career For you.

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