My Journey

We were the Class of ‘84, and although we may have felt a small rebellious connection with the movie of a similar name (https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/class_of_1984), We were perhaps a little too domesticated and ambitious to take this fork in the road. Accordingly, 1985 saw me commence my double degree in chemistry and biochemistry which progressed shakily until about halfway through the course, and after completing about five months of full-time and voluntary lab assistant work at the Murdoch Institute of Research at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, I set my sights on pursuing microbiology and biochemistry. That was until one of my older siblings (who at the ripe old age of about 24 was setting up an accounting firm with a former colleague) said “why don't you give accounting a go, and if you like it, you can do your degree part-time”. Fast forward almost 35 years, being with one employer (through its various mergers and mutations), including nearly 10 years of part-time graduate and post graduate studies, over 22 years as a Partner, and still working with that sibling, I find myself again pursuing the road perhaps less trodden (sorry but Robert Frost was embedded in my brain in year 12 – thanks Mr McMahon). Life is always full of all forks in the road, being the choices we make every day, and with some more significant than others. We recently prepared a little stack of these choices which included selling our home in Melbourne and relocating to Portarlington on the Bellarine Peninsula; taking the next developmental step in the still fairly new and fresh dream venture of my wife (www.yarnmecalm.com.au), and as the topic of this blog, my departure from my career of multiple decades to begin a new and exciting venture. During my recent tenure, we made a decision some years ago to establish a finance broking division within our firm. The reason at the time was that we were frustrated with our clients receiving bad advice from finance brokers who resembled far too closely the dreaded "secondhand car salesman”, who typically were focused solely on the transaction without any consideration of the well-being of the client. With this decision to combine our extensive accounting, tax and business knowledge to finance and mortgage broking, I established the then named "CDB Finance”, obtained by qualifications and accreditations, and began assisting clients with residential, commercial and equipment finance. This continued for a few years until a bit of a change in the strategy whereby we aligned ourselves with reputable and trusted finance and mortgage brokers with whom we were able to work closely to ensure that our clients were well cared for by aligning the Finance & Mortgage expertise with the Accounting, Taxation and Financial Planning (wealth creation and protection). Now, as I take this new path in my professional journey, I have re-established my finance and mortgage broking registrations and accreditations, and with my depth of knowledge, experience and qualifications, I look forward to providing our clients with solutions to help them achieve their goals and ambitions. Equally, I relish the prospect of building productive relationships with like-minded professional services businesses owners, to partner with them to achieve the desired outcomes for their clients. Additionally, in residing now on the Bellarine Peninsula, with our businesses, Kista Finance and Yarn Me Calm, and ourselves personally, we seek to become an active part and contribute to this amazing community in a meaningful way. The journey continues…………….

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