Olivia Maragna loved being a farmer’s daughter. Rising early on the weekends to help plant sugar cane, trailing after her father with a load of irrigation pipes on her shoulders, rushing home from school to help with the animals – these are some of her happiest memories.
“My father was of the opinion that once you were physically able to lift something, you were big enough to help out on the farm,” Maragna recalls.
“I loved it because it was a great way to spend time as a family.”
She and her two brothers and two sisters were all required to muck in at the family’s fruit, cattle and cane farm, 2.5 hours north of Brisbane.
Maragna was good at sports, and became particularly adept at shot put from all the hours she spent hurling pineapples in the trailer.
“I have a memory of my dad singing songs while I picked them,” she says.
“I could hurl a piece of fruit like no other.”
She also remembers the thrill of helping out at the family’s roadside stall, where Maragna discovered her ability with numbers.
“I was young but I never had any trouble counting back change in my head,” she says.
“And it was very rare that I didn’t get 100 per cent on my maths tests, it was something I was good at.”
Her dad was convinced she would become a farmer like him, but her mum was keen for her to get an education.
Being an accountant ‘frustrating’
When she graduated from high school, Maragna took up a Bachelor of Business majoring in accounting, taxation and business law at Queensland University of Technology. She wanted to be an accountant and took a job with Deloitte working with small businesses in taxation and self managed super funds.
“It gave me a good grounding in how to structure things, but I would find myself drawn more to the financial planning divisions,” she says.
In the end, her role as an accountant became an exercise in frustration.
“I would be dealing with people’s taxes and get frustrated because there was only so much I could do,” she says.
“When you are an accountant, you are dealing with what has happened and there is not much forward planning.
“Often I would think that if I had known about a particular problem six months ago, I could have helped the client.”
Not long after, Maragna was poached to work in the wealth management division of a stockbroking firm – a decision that changed the course of her life.
It was here that she met her husband, and they would later decide to start their own business.
“While I was at the [stockbroking] firm, September 11 happened and stocks crashed,” she says.
“We had clients calling in saying they were on anti-depressants and they just wanted to talk to an adviser, but some of the advisers were putting their heads in the sand.”
It’s about relationships
The experience taught Maragna everything she needed to know about client relations.
“It was the best learning experience for me because I learned how, morally speaking, it’s important to treat clients,” she says.
She left the firm in 2003 to start Aspire Retire Financial Services with her husband, and she hasn’t looked back.
Maragna won the Telstra Queensland Small Business of the Year Award in 2009 and these days can only take on about 10 per cent of all enquiries.
Close to 70 per cent of her office is made up of women, and she hopes her high profile in the industry will act as an encouragement for more women to join the ranks.
“Financial planning is a great career for women,” she notes.
“It’s about relationships, which women get a lot out of. Men do, too, don’t get me wrong, but the profession has a lot of characteristics that women would get a lot of satisfaction from.”
| Planner Profile
Olivia Maragna Name of firm: Aspire Retire Financial Services Name of licensee (if not self-licensed): Self-licensed Years in the industry: It’s been 19 years since I worked on my first SMSF client. Co-founded Aspire Retire in 2003. Academic qualifications Has a Bachelor of Business, majoring in accounting, business law and taxation. Professional association memberships: ICAA, FPA, AFA, SMSF Association. Other memberships: BFP |
