Deborah Kent understands that the recognition and attention that goes along with being a finalist in the AFA Female Excellence in Advice award might strike some potential nominees as overwhelming, but the upside is that there’s also an educational aspect to it.
A director and financial planner at Integra Financial Services, Kent says the awards process provides insights that “will help them in their business in the future”.
“It’s a very intense application, I have to say,” she says. “It wasn’t just a few words on a piece of paper. I devoted a whole day to it, and it took me pretty much the whole day. There were references you needed to get. There was a process around it – a very robust process, I have to say. Extremely professional.”
From supported to single
Kent (right) believes the awards will have the longer lasting effect of creating a group of high-quality role models for other female advisers – as well as a pool of potential mentors. She says she did not have a mentor when she started in financial planning, as a salaried adviser with St George, but she would have liked one later in her career.
“Going out on my own, I think, yes, a mentor would have helped me,” she says.
“I’d gone from an environment where I had all the assistance and everything around me, and clients came through the door because it was a bank – open the door, sit in front of Deb, do the deal – and it just flowed through, to suddenly you’re on your own.
“I [went from] a paid position to being on my own – no money, no clients, no contacts. I started all over again. And that’s where I would have loved a mentor because that first year or two were tough. It was bloody tough. You’ve gone from being one of the biggest writers in St George to no clients, no nothing. And of course, you weren’t allowed to go after [St George] clients, for obvious reasons.
“A mentor would have been great for me at the time. And I was studying as well, because the new regime of study came through. When I started, you did a couple of courses, and that was it. Then we had the DFP [Diploma of Financial Planning] and the CFP [Certified Financial Planner], so here I was growing a business, trying to study – and I actually had a family as well.”
Mentor appeal
Kent says she has “mentored a number of women in business”, but not specifically in financial planning. She is happy to be seen as a role model for other women by virtue of being a finalist in the AFA award, and she would “absolutely” be prepared to act as a mentor to other planners.
“It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a while,” she says. “I’ve tried to put a couple of mentoring groups together in the past, through past licensees, but it hasn’t really come off because of timing and resources. But I do believe there is a need for mentoring in this industry – mentoring women – if they are starting in a business. Not so much going and getting clients, but how do they balance it all? How do they do it?
“Too many [women] come into the industry, do a darn good job and then leave, and don’t come back.”
Not self-selected
In common with other finalists, Kent did not nominate herself for the AFA award.
“I think that’s the normal procedure –you tend to be nominated,” she says.
“It was Mark McShane, a young man who is our practice-development manager at Garvan. I actually got nominated last year but I didn’t go through with it, because I was busy with other things. When I got a second nomination I thought, maybe I should do this.
She wholeheartedly supports the AFA series of awards.
“They’ve got the Rising Star award, which recognises young people getting into the industry,” she says.
“They’ve got the Financial Planner of the Year award, and now they’ve created this Female Excellence award.
“I think what this award does is focus on females in the industry because we’re not as prominent – some of us aren’t – as we should be. I’m quite happy to put my face in the media quite a lot, but some women don’t like to. They like to get on and do their own thing.
“But so many good, good, good women are out there doing great things and running fabulous businesses, and we don’t know who they are. So the award has dragged all these people out. I’ve sat with five other women who I’ve never met before, who are fantastic, who run great businesses, and I’m thinking, my god, I didn’t know they were out there.
“I think this is what the award has done. It’s recognised females, and brought them out to say hey, I’m here, and I do a darn good job. Too often we pull the papers apart and we see the same old blokes, the same old faces. Now it’s time for the women to get out there and say, I’ve got an opinion as well.”
