Financial advisers are renowned for their colourful past lives, and former factory worker and sessional tutor Mirko Cugura is no exception.
Cugura was looking for work in the early 1990s recession and there wasn’t much around.
After graduating from university with an economics degree, he strung together some odd jobs, working the night shift in a factory attaching handles to plastic buckets, then in a service station, then a six-year stint at an IT company.
In his early 20s, Cugura was tutoring La Trobe University students while earning his postgraduate qualifications. Being a tutor led him to toying with the idea of becoming an academic, but he decided a life in the ivory towers wouldn’t be for him.
“I didn’t want to be one of those guys with tweed patches on my elbows who had spent 35 years in the one department,” he says.
But it was the academic route that ultimately led Cugura to explore a career in financial planning.
“I talked to people around me about what to do and considered stockbroking for a while…I started a graduate diploma in applied finance and ended up transitioning to financial planning halfway through because I really enjoyed it.”
When he finished the diploma, Cugura took a job as a salaried adviser with a large institution that was “great sales training” but, he says, ultimately dispiriting.
“I quit after five months because I didn’t feel that I had the knowledge or the right to be telling people what to do with their money,” he says. “I was back to square one and wondering if I had made the right decision to leave IT.”
Next, however, came a fortuitous encounter with the directors of Innate Financial Services Group, which was then called Retire Care.
“I had a great feeling about them right away, and I really appreciated how they put the client first and were very focused on adding value to clients’ lives,” he says. “I told them I would be a partner with them one day, which was a very bold thing to say.”
That was 19 years ago and not entirely off the mark: Cugura is now a director at Innate.
The self-licensed Innate employs 12 people, and has two offices in suburban Melbourne, with a chartered accountancy arm.
Innate has $500 million in funds under management and, since rebranding from Retire Care, has focused more on mid-career, white-collar workers.
“Our demographic used to be retirees, but that has changed to more affluent, white-collar professionals,” Cugura says. “At 47, I am the oldest director at the company and this is reflected in our slightly younger clients.”
In 2014, Cugura also achieved certification as an investment management analyst with the CIMA Society of Australia.
Earning a CIMA accreditation requires, in part, that advisers study and sit a test.
“If you’re involved in any aspect of constructing multi-manager portfolios, then I would recommend the certification,” says Cugura, who has since moved on to the board of The CIMA Society of Australia.
“It requires advisers to work in accordance with a strict code of ethics, as well as providing reassurance to clients that their money is being looked after.”
Name of firm: Innate Financial Services Group
Name of licensee: Innate Wealth (self-licensed)
Time in the industry: 19 years
Academic qualifications: bachelor of economics, graduate diploma of econometrics, graduate diploma of financial planning
Accreditations: Certified Investment Management Analyst; Certified Financial Planner, SMSF specialist adviser; Certificate IV in finance and mortgage broking
Professional association memberships: Financial Planning Association, CIMA Society of Australia, Fellow of the Financial Services Institute of Australasia, Finance Brokers Association of Australia, Self-managed Superannuation Fund Association, Real Estate Institute of Victoria
Other memberships: CIMA board member
