I quit my job. But not without a financial plan.

I didn’t notice it at first. It sort of just crept up on me, slowly. Then ‘wow’, it was so obvious. How had I not noticed it before? 

‘Where are the women?’

I started in the finance industry as a young, eager-to-learn, graduate. At the fresh age of 21 my first job was at Milford, arguably NZ’s top funds management company. To paint a picture of what young Vic looked like, let’s just say she had spent more time drinking than studying at university and was about to get the fright of her life working a full day. 

The job involved making coffee, clearing the mailbox and answering phones. It was far from glamorous, and in all honesty not particularly exciting but at least I was going to be learning from the best-of-the-best. On my first day I took a riveting call from an old retiree who was trying to reset the password to his account. He genuinely asked me five times “So do you mean a capital 3, or a lower-case 3?” 🤦 It was then that I made myself a promise to not ben the run-around girl forever. I wanted to be managing money. I wanted to be making big investment decisions. I wanted to climb my way to the top, and be one of the best fund managers in NZ. I always thought it was weird that there weren’t any women in senior roles, but at the time I didn’t realise that this was an industry-wide problem. 

Fast forward to today, and I have had the privilege of working at some of New Zealand’s top funds management companies. I’ve managed millions of dollars across and had an incredibly dynamic 13-year career. I travelled to some incredible countries. I sat in front of leaders of billion-dollar companies and yet the further I progressed, the more often I asked myself  ‘Where are the other women?’. The majority of my colleagues, throughout my entire career, have been men. Don’t get me wrong I have worked with amazingly talented people, but there have been too many times where I’ve been the only female in the room. I’ll never forget sitting in a boardroom full of men (40 to be exact), and being the only woman. It was then that I decided something had to change. 

I wanted young women to feel like they had a place in the finance industry. I wanted there to be more female representation across the board, from runaround coffee girls, to full blown fund managers. I wanted wealth creation to be more gender-balanced, because the older I got, the more I realised that this wasn’t only a problem within the industry, but outside of it too. I wanted my friends, and my family to know how to grow their wealth. To feel comfortable talking about money, and to know how to make clever decisions with theirs. I wanted to help level the playing field, not only for my generation, but for all of the women to come. 

To-date, The Curve has been an incredibly rewarding and humbling journey. The messages we receive from you, our community, make every day worth getting out of bed for - as cheesy as that sounds. I am incredibly proud, excited (and admittedly a little scared), to say that I have decided to resign from my job in funds management, to go full-time at The Curve. It’s taken me a while to build up the courage to finally take the leap, but god it feels good. Trust me when I say that though that this was not a decision I took lightly. I’ve had a stable job my entire career and more importantly - a regular income. This consistency is all I’ve ever known. So although deciding to turn my side-hustle into my ‘full-time hustle’ scares the bejesus out of me - it's a risk that I am super excited to take. And it’s a risk that I need to take to follow my passion, and make necessary changes for the women behind me. 

In typical me fashion, I didn’t make this decision overnight. I planned, budgeted, and saved in order to make sure I was financially prepared for this leap. To ease the stress, and make it less scary I knew that I needed a plan - a financial plan. I decided that I wanted to have $100k saved as a kind of ‘safety net’. I’m incredibly proud of myself that I successfully managed to save that amount in just over two years. It wasn’t easy, but I know it will be worth it. Having that $100k as a ‘semi-emergency fund’ will help me to focus on growing The Curve rather than focusing on ‘how will I pay my mortgage’. People say, there is nothing more motivating than realising your hard work is responsible for your next paycheck, so here I go into the big bad world of full time side hustle. 

"If you don’t jump, your parachute will never open"

I don’t know what the future holds, but all I know is that The Curve has already evolved into something that I couldn’t have ever imagined. Our community is so dedicated to learning and levelling up. Thank you for trusting me, it has been a privilege so far to teach you, and I can’t wait to dedicate even more of my time to do exactly that now that I am full-time!!

Lots of love, 
Vic. xxxx