Melbourne-based adviser 'hit the ground running' with launch of White Rabbit Advisory

After starting her career in the advice industry more than 10 years ago, Nicola Beswick left FMD Financial, where she was a senior financial adviser, to launch White Rabbit Advisory, officially open for business as of 3 March.

“It was the right time and the right opportunity came along. It’s always been something that I’ve had in the back of my mind that I’ve always wanted to do and it all kind of aligned,” Beswick told ifa.

“I think it was that natural underlying thought that I’ve always had in the back of my mind when I entered into the financial planning profession.”

Having spent a decade as a lawyer prior to taking the leap into the financial advice profession, Beswick is now capitalising on her knowledge and legal industry contacts to help clients manage their finances after going through a legal journey.

“I’ve been very fortunate to develop these relationships and help a number of clients through the journey. When they essentially get referred to me by these lawyers, these people have been through just incredible journeys, right?” she said.

“And people, sometimes they’ve been through a good 12-month journey to get this payout, and they’re looking for someone to help and guide them for the next chapter, particularly if something’s happened and they’re not able to work again.

“It’s being that person that they need to guide them through their next chapter, because it’s never straightforward.”

Beswick explained that she is primarily focused on “real high empathy but really interesting strategic work”, though she is not going to pigeonhole herself either, noting the extremely high demand for financial advice in Australia at the moment, particularly around those key life moments.

“You can always help someone, right? You can always do something to help someone and put them in a better financial position,” she said.

“I can see White Rabbit growing, particularly because we know that there’s a lot of demand for advice and good quality advice. I can certainly see that on the horizon.”

While currently handling the large majority of tasks in the business, acting as owner, adviser and support staff – with some assistance from her husband Mark and her father – Beswick said she intends to bring on administrative staff very quickly, freeing her up to focus on her clients and building the business.

“For me, it is very much continuing on that path of really trying to focus on that customer service piece and growing and building something that is really client-centric and making sure we can help look after as many clients as possible,” she said.

Embracing her desire to help people through financial advice, Beswick has been a staunch advocate of the Pro Bono Financial Advice Network (PFAN) over the last five years and despite the heavy load of being a business owner, she plans to continue her work with the group.

“I’m very fortunate with PFAN. We have an incredible board and we all bring different skills and talents to PFAN. I’m lucky in that PFAN has got to a position now that we do have that team, we’ve got that administrative support behind us,” she said.

“We have a paid person who does all our admin work now so we can focus on the strategy side of building PFAN and continuing to build on what we want to do there without having to worry about that admin so much.”

Though still in its very early days, Beswick said that the business is “ever evolving, every week things seem to change and develop and decisions are made and every day it just looks different”.

“I’ve hit the ground running,” she added.

Not looking to slow down, Beswick said she is embracing the mentality of: “I’ve done this. What’s the next thing? What am I working towards now?”