Forging ahead through the battlelines

As national president of the Association of Financial Advisers, Deborah Kent has seen one of her most challenging years with grit and tenacity, while also endeavouring to persuade more women to assume leadership positions in the financial services industry, writes Malavika Santhebennur.

The Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) was witness to what was one of the most tumultuous years, as it weathered the storm that was the Life Insurance Framework (LIF).

It was a delicate balancing act between different sections of the financial planning industry, and at the helm of this balancing act was Deborah Kent.

The former national president, and director and owner at Integra Financial Services, was on the frontline of the battleground between those who negotiated the terms of the LIF reforms, and a group of risk advisers from the Life Insurance Customer Group (LICG), who vehemently opposed it.

"I always said one of the things we wanted to do and I wanted to do in my time as the president of the AFA is to do as much as we can to try and bring trust back into advice and get more Australians seeking advice," she said.

"What we've had to try and do in balancing what we can for advisers to make sure that whatever changes are happening in the industry, we can get a fair and reasonable outcome for everybody."

When LICG member, Mark Dunsford, proposed to change the constitution of the AFA board so that it would be forced to oppose the LIF for three years when negotiating with the federal government, it was up to Kent and her team at the AFA to organise an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) where members could cast their votes on the issue.

In her role as president, Kent had to make difficult decisions about the path the association would tread on to ensure what she believed would lead to a satisfactory outcome.

Consumer and government sentiment were at the centre of the forces that were pushing the industry to become a profession, and as someone who was in the capacity of a leadership role, Kent said she sometimes had to make contentious decisions that could prove unpopular with certain sections of the industry.

"I'd be telling fibs if I didn't say that in the leading up to the conference and having to deal with the EGM was a difficult thing. We would have preferred not to have had that happen but it did."

Behind the scenes, the organising of the EGM involved effort from head office staff, took time for the AFA to organise, and the board also had to consider cost factors. When Dunsford ultimately decided to withdraw his support for the resolution, Kent had to make a call to proceed.

"I believe we had to run the EGM as it was and let the members' vote be played on the basis of the democratic right of our members," Kent said.

"They had taken the time to do that. Yes I have to balance up what is the right thing to do but at the end of the day I was the president of the association at the time. I have to consider all of the membership, not just parts of the membership."

"This has been the balancing act all the way through in being the president of an association where we're on the road to professionalism.

"And I do want to use the word profession because we are a profession. But we still in some areas are not seen that way and we have to make sure that we all, industry, whether that's associations, advisers, licensees, step up and support what is being pushed to us, which is to be a profession."

OTHER ISSUES

With the LIF reforms and the controversies surrounding that consuming the association's time and media headlines over the past few months, Kent said it was easy to forget an even more important issue like increasing the professional educational standards financial planning industry.

She labelled it as more important because while the LIF would affect a smaller section of the industry, higher education requirements would affect the entire industry, particularly those advisers with minimum educational qualifications.

"My role in that, again, as the president of AFA, obviously I've been involved in the negotiations with government and all other stakeholders in dealing with this particular issue, again to try and get the right outcome because we've got to get the right balance," she said.

Kent said while she and the association wholeheartedly supported higher education standards, she was always cognizant of the wealth of experience accumulated by advisers over decades who may only have the minimum requirements.

"My role has been more around how do we get a fair and reasonable balance for those advisers who don't have the qualifications, and allow them to still be able to operate, and not put advisers with years of experience through a degree?

"We have to make sure that advisers who have good experience can still be around. We just don't want to lose that experience just because of the education standards," Kent said.

A CHAMPION FOR WOMEN

As a financial adviser and an AFA national president, Kent has made strides for women in the industry, by initiating AFA Inspire, a community of practice that provides a chance for women in financial services to network, and have access to coaching, mentoring, leadership, and personal growth.

The community also encourages women to step into leadership roles and encourages them to put their hand up for awards through an annual excellence award.

"I do encourage women to step out of their comfort zone and go into awards because even if you don't win, it's what you do with what you've been awarded even as a finalist. It can lift you to a higher level by going into an award and even just being a finalist," Kent said as a 2012 finalist of the Female Excellence in Advice Awards.

She has also launched an online video mentoring series, ‘Dare to Dream', to encourage women to be courageous and resilient, and develop the confidence to put their hand up for leadership roles such as board directors. Judges commented that her desire to encourage women made her a standout in the category.

"I hope that I am becoming a role model for those women who think they can't do these sorts of things like maintain a high level of board position because they can. They just need to believe in themselves," Kent said.

Hear Kent talk about her 12-month highlights, in the video below. 

WOMAN OF THE YEAR

WINNER

Deborah Kent
Director and owner
Integra Financial Services

FINALISTS

Esther Althaus
Founder and financial adviser
Perspective Financial Services

Catriona Fay
National manager, philanthropy and non-profit services
Perpetual Limited

Camilla Love
Senior manager, institutional business
Perennial Value Management

Fiona Macgregor
Chief customer and innovation officer
TAL

Philippa Sheehan|
Managing director
MyPlanner Australia

 Alexis George
Managing director, wealth Australia
ANZ