IT wasn’t until she left the banking world that Peita Diamantidis realised the bubble she had moved into.
“There is a lot of smoke and mirrors in corporate banking,” she says of her stint in investment banking and corporate finance more than a decade ago.
“After I left, I couldn’t believe that I thought it was real.
“What I enjoy about what I do now is that it has a real impact on the individual. It’s similar work in terms of the skills you use, but it’s smaller scale and it’s much more human.”
Diamantidis arrived in the corporate sector via a Bachelor of Commerce Degree in actuarial studies and finance at Macquarie University.
“I did actuarial studies because it stood out in the sea of bachelors of business,” she says.
“And I was really strong at maths at school and actuarial studies is the math’s lovers’ maths. It’s really geeky stuff.
“And I am sure it helped me land a couple of interviews because it was so niche.”
She secured a place with the Commonwealth Bank’s graduate program and went on to work for Bankers’ Trust in their investment banking division.
It was tough, rewarding work: Diamantidis was in her 20s at the time and she gained confidence via a combination of watching those around her and listening to her gut instinct.
“If I didn’t have the answer then I learned to say to people that I needed to go away and investigate what they’re telling me and come back to them with a response,” she says.
“People love it because they know you’re not just telling them what they want to hear, you’re taking it seriously.”
But ultimately the job was unsustainable.
“Some weeks I was doing 120 hours a week and if you do the maths then that is two nights when you are not going home, you are just taking quick naps,” she says.
“That kind of life can’t continue forever, and when I looked around at the more senior people I couldn’t see any real evolution in their learning.
“They were just paid more and they went to different meetings.”
It was at this point Diamantidis realised that she was less of a pure mathematician than she might have imagined, and a large part of her craved that connection with people.
Breaking down financial jargon
Since starting Caboodle Financial Services a decade ago, she has become passionate about breaking down the jargon and inscrutable planning speak that infects parts of the industry.
“We use acronyms that we don’t even know we are using, so it’s no wonder people don’t come to us for insurance advice,” she says.
“It’s like when you go to another country and they speak a foreign language; well, planning is another language to people, too.”
In a bid to break down these barriers, Diamantidis wrote Finance Action Hero, which puts fundamental planning concepts into plain speech.
“Lots of people go through their life not understanding what the industry is putting out there,” Diamantidis says.
“And the public sees us as largely unapproachable. We need to be professional in terms of integrity, but warm and down to earth with our language.”
Most recently, she has become especially focused on targeting millennials for planning advice.
A 2016 Investing in Millennials report unearthed some interesting data and turned many of the stereotypes surrounding young people on their head.
“We found that two-thirds of respondents would prefer to learn something new face to face,” she says.
“And the most interesting revelation to come from the study was when we asked people to build their perfect financial planner.
“They could choose any trait, but the most common stipulation was that the planner have a sense of humour.
“This tells me the importance of storytelling to relate to young people.”
Planner profilePeita Diamantidis Name of firm: Caboodle Financial Services |
