Why this accountant of 20 years is moving into advice

Speaking with ifa, associate and professional year (PY) candidate at Rise Financial Jodie Lane explained how she found herself starting a new career in financial advice following more than 20 years as an accountant.

Lane started her career working in an accounting firm after completing her university studies around 22 years ago. Now, on top of beginning her career in the advice profession in February 2024, Lane is approaching two decades working for the Australian federal government in a strategic finance and policy role.

She is also approaching almost 15 years working for Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand as an assessment marker and auditor. Additionally, she recently became an investment board member for the Public Trustee and Guardian for the ACT as of July 2024.

Discussing the events that led her to joining advice, Lane said that despite her long career in financial services, prior to employing a financial adviser at the behest of her brother, she thought an adviser simply provided assistance with budgeting and “didn’t really know what the value proposition was”.

“It wasn’t until I myself had a fantastic experience as a client of an adviser that I even realised that was a job. That was a fantastic process, really not at all what I expected, and really opened my eyes to the value that an adviser can bring to your life,” Lane said.

Following that experience, she discussed working in the profession with her adviser, Rebecca Pritchard from Rising Tide, sparking her interest in that career path.

“I had a chat to Beck and said, ‘Hey, wow, this is amazing. You get to do this work? Is it as fantastic as it appears to be? And she said, ‘Look, yeah, it is. There are, of course, bits of every job that are a bit of a grind, but yeah, I feel like I get to help people every day, and I love it’,” she said.

Lane said that, despite having a well-established career in accounting, she has always gravitated towards the “people side of finance”, which ultimately led her to pursue a career in advice.

“There are a lot of compelling reasons not to shake things up as much as I have, but at the end of the day, I’ve been really fortunate to work in my accounting career with some amazing agencies and people and on really worthwhile initiatives. But I guess, there are some limitations to corporate finance, where you serve at the pleasure of the agenda of the day,” she said.

“Sometimes, that means that there’s a lot of work that goes into something that doesn’t eventuate, and sometimes it can feel that you’re a little bit removed from the impact or the actual people. I guess my thinking was, the time is going to pass anyway. I’d rather be making incremental progress than none at all.

“So back to a continuous improvement mindset and just put one foot in front of the other and get through it. You know, future me might decide to do it or not to do it, but I’ll just keep chipping away and trying to find out more and more about what that career would actually feel like and look like while I keep pointing in that direction.”

Lane said that she had concerns about beginning a new career, worried that she would be “effectively starting from a blank slate” and that everything she had done up to that point “would have potentially been a waste”.

“I’ve spent a long, long time in client-facing roles. So, through life experience and work experience, just talking to people a lot, that is really useful, and even though it’s a slightly different setting, there’s still a lot of crossover,” she said.

Reflecting on her experience in advice so far, Lane said that “having that direct link to work with people and help them achieve their goals” has been the most fulfilling aspect of the job.

“It is even better than I thought it would be,” she added.

“If someone’s made the time to seek out an adviser and trust you to work with them and achieve their goals, that’s amazing. You don’t get that in many jobs … and helping them to achieve something that they didn’t think was possible, that’s phenomenal.”

Speaking to those who may be considering following a similar path and changing careers into advice, Lane said: “Come on board.”

Despite not having fully completed her studies yet, she said “It’s well worth it already”.