Adam Hurwood has little trouble coming up with a career highlight.
In fact, he has many.
Only recently, he helped ease a man into retirement who, many years prior, had sat before him with a strong income, but few assets.
“He was in his mid 40s and didn’t have much of a retirement plan,” Hurwood notes. “But now he is going to travel around Australia.”
And then there was the time in 2007 that Hurwood established his own business, Altitude Financial Group, of which he has been a director for a decade.
“I wanted to run my own firm and it worked well because there was a split of the partnerships and we were able to bring over some of the existing clients,” he says. “And it gave us the chance to set up a firm in the exact way we wanted to.”
This meant a proactive approach to clients, and freeing his planners from burdensome paperwork.
“We use paraplanners and that means that our planners get a lot of one-on-one time with clients,” he says. “We are able to devote ourselves much more to the client’s needs and it is much more enjoyable, too, because a new client doesn’t mean extra paperwork and plans for us.”
Hurwood is also a big fan of hiring graduates and training them, rather than poaching mid-career planners.
“We prefer to train the planners ourselves and because we are also an accounting firm and this is how it’s been done in accounting, we like to hire graduates and train them,” he explains. “We support them [in obtaining] their diploma of financial planning and their CFP, and we believe it is important to raise the educational standards in the industry. It’s something we’re really supportive of.”
In some respects, Hurwood is living the life he always imagined.
He grew up on a small farm in Gympie, Queensland, and was attracted to the self-sufficiency and independence farm life offered.
“My dad was keen for me to get off the farm because it was a small farm and there wasn’t a lot of money in it,” he recalls. “That suited me because I wanted to go to university, but I was also keen to build and grow something.”
Eager to run his own business one day, Hurwood did a bachelor of commerce at the University of Queensland, but upon graduation he still wasn’t sure what he wanted to do.
“I did work out that I didn’t want to be an accountant, but I saw an ad in the paper for an account and a financial planner at this one firm,” he says. “And I called my friend who happened to work for this company and I asked him what a planner did and he said, ‘They’re the ones who do the proactive work for clients and they make the money’.
“So I applied, and I was just lucky to get the job, and I have loved it ever since.
“I have always enjoyed problem solving and every client [provides one to solve].”
Hurwood is in the process of applying for an independent licence for Altitude Financial Group for “branding and greater control”.
“Securitor has been a great training ground, but I think once you have your own resources, it’s worth trying to go out on your own.”
He would like to see more planning firms of 5-10 advisers occupying some space in the middle ground.
“At the moment, we have too many micro firms and too many massive firms,” he says. “We need more of the middle-sized firms that are big enough to have a team of dedicated advisers and are able to scale, but small enough so they don’t lose that connection with the client.”
| Adam Hurwood
Name of firm: Altitude Financial Group Time in the industry 18 years Academic qualifications: Bachelor of commerce, University of Queensland; Graduate diploma of financial planning, Securities Institute (now FINSIA) Professional association memberships: Financial Planning Association |
