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Name: Karen Abbott

Company:  Finsec Planners Pty Ltd, Corporate Authorised Representative of Genesys Wealth Advisers

Job Title: Financial Adviser, Principal

Website: finsecplanners.com.au

Blog:  finsecwomen.com.au

A bit about the business…I’m one of seven partners who provide financial advice at Finsec planners.  Like every other financial practice we cater for the general Financial Planning issues people have, however we have developed specialist expertise within self-managed super funds (SMSF),  transferring pensions of UK migrants, SMSF’s and solutions for SMEs.

Recently, we’ve created a unique (yet fun) approach to advising business and professional women who are faced with the challenge of juggling their time between their career and their family. We help and empower them to make smart decisions with their money so they can have financial security and be able to focus on their priorities in life.

What motivates you? Having a career that I love and am passionate about means I want to go to work every day.  With clients depending on us, it drives me to want to do better and create a great business which enriches people’s lives.  Being a great role model for my children and others is also a pretty big driver.

How do you define success? Success is a very personal and should be different for every individual, that’s what makes us unique.  For me, it’s doing the things I do every day because I truly want to, not because I have to.

What is the most important lesson you’ve learnt during your career? Do what aligns to your values and what you enjoy doing.  Working for someone else didn’t really satisfy me as there was no reward for the extra effort you I put into a job.  It was daunting though, transitioning to becoming self-employed.  You often need to take risks and go beyond your comfort zone to really be successful and achieve your business goals.  Once you take that leap, and have confidence and conviction in what you’re doing, you won’t look back.

What’s been the highlight of your career so far? Finsec Planners won ‘Member Firm of the Year for 2009’. The Genesys Wealth Advisers dealer group have about 80 Member Firms and there are a lot of really good firms within our group, so it was a real honour for us. We have been in the Top 2 firms nationally, 4 of the last 5 years, so to win last year was fantastic.

Achieving the perfect balance between my career and family/ personal time.  With the support and understanding of my business partners, staff and clients, I’ve been able to achieve that all elusive work-life balance.  

What is one of the big perks of your job? Time flexibility, being self – employed with a great team to support us means that I can take time out for personal things.  We encourage trust of time with our staff as well, if they need to leave early one day or come in late, we trust them to make up the time when they can.

What is the worst job you’ve ever had? I worked as a graduate Business Credit Analyst for a bank. The work was interesting as I used skills learnt in my accounting degree, yet quite repetitive.  The worst part was the negative office environment created by the people I worked with. They constantly complained about how much they disliked their jobs and the company they worked for, yet still came to work every day. I found it difficult to work in this environment and when I started disliking it also, I took action, and left.  Surrounding yourself with negative people can only bring you down and I wanted to go up.

If you're a Premium member you can read more about Karen in the spring issue of Latte.

You can connect with Karen here.