Wealth manager

Name: Rebecca Fairlie.
Age: 29.
Job: Wealth manager.

What qualifications do you have?
A Diploma of Financial Planning (DFP) from Deakin University and Certified Financial Planning (CFP) status, which is the highest qualification in the financial planning industry.

Where do you work?
I work in the Wealth Management Division at Macquarie Bank.

What attracted you to the job?

I started my career in lending. I took an interest in financial planning after seeing how diverse the role is.

Sometimes I joke that I’m a financial planner, accountant, bank manager and counsellor. No two clients’ situations are ever the same, so I knew that the role would remain challenging every day.

What if you had to choose another career?

I love being outdoors and staying fit so, if I wasn’t a wealth manager, I’d like to be a professional athlete or health and fitness instructor/trainer. I’m actually an accredited fitness instructor and I instruct boot camp before work.

Best part of the job?

Making a real difference to a client’s financial position and seeing the positive results and having happy clients.

Worst part of the job?

The paperwork.

Advice to others wishing to pursue a similar career?

I’m part of a new program in Macquarie, which teams people with less than five years of experience in the industry with senior wealth managers. You get a broader range of experiences and you get to deal with a wider range of interesting clients with different needs earlier in your career than you would otherwise.

The Diploma of Financial Planning is a great introduction to the industry, because you can get a feel for whether it really is for you — or, even better, if like me, you have experience as a paraplanner, to put the theory into practice.

What’s the best investment you have ever made?
I believed in the growth opportunities in Asia and India for some time before it became mainstream. As a result, a number of my clients have enjoyed some fantastic returns.

Future goals?

Continue forging strong relationships with my clients and helping them achieve their goals.

The Sunday Telegraph, April 16, 2006.