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For decades, advisers have relied on bonds as the go-to counterweight in a balanced portfolio. But as the correlation between bonds and equities turned positive in 2022–2023, shock ensued; and many investors are rethinking what they thought was a truism.
Receiving and giving back drives the advice career path forward
Peta Nunn had a problem. She was a first-year mathematics student at university, but wasn’t enjoying it. “I was good at maths, and I enjoyed it, but I quickly realised that there was very little scope in maths for the personal skills, or any of the things that I really enjoyed,” she says. A friend, whose father was a financial adviser, told her that she was starting a diploma of financial planning through Deakin University. “She said, ‘Look, I think you’d be really good at this, you love numbers and you’re good with people; why don’t we do it together?’ So, I started doing that course, and absolutely loved it.”
Not long into Nunn’s course, an Adelaide financial adviser, Rosemary Osman, was named Telstra Businesswoman of the Year. “I was very impressed with that; seeing a female in that position was pretty amazing,” says Nunn. Impulsively, she wrote Osman a letter, asking if they could have coffee.
“I thought she would be a wonderful person to engage with, so I wrote her a letter asking if we could meet for a coffee. I had a coffee with her, which was amazing enough, and we talked about how I might get into the industry. The next day, she called and offered me a job,” says Nunn. “I was absolutely amazed.”
Working with someone who was a successful adviser, and practice owner, was more than a foot in the door – it was a complete grounding in Osman’s belief in the combination of thorough technical knowledge and the importance of relationships in advice.
“That was the combination of the numbers and the people skills that I had been hoping to find in a career. I have built my career on that; you cannot help your clients achieve their financial and life goals without building a very close relationship with them. Relationships and trust are absolutely the key in this industry,” says Nunn, now a Director at Perks Private Wealth in Adelaide.
Nunn eventually left Osman’s firm, feeling she should try life in a bigger firm. “I went to Mercer, and then, 20 years ago, I came to Perks.”
There, her mentoring continued. “Greg Perks started Perks as a charted accounting firm 40 years ago. He’s been a wonderful mentor as well, he’s given me great lessons along the way in terms of balancing your career and lifestyle, and how you can develop those trusted relationships. In advice, sustainable success is built on expertise, integrity, and meaningful connections. And now I impart that to my team.”
For Nunn, the focus on the ‘team’ is a core part of her philosophy. “We believe that wealth management is a journey, not a transaction, and we take a deeply personal approach to helping clients achieve their financial and life goals. We think the same way about developing our people. Embedded in what we do is a constant focus on giving our people the opportunities to step outside their comfort zone and ‘have a go,’ in a safe environment.”
This is simply “giving back” what she has received through her career. “Both Rosemary and Greg pushed me, but made sure I knew they backed me. I’ll always let younger people in my team come into meetings and deliver part of the strategy to a client, and then it’s about giving them feedback and just helping them to get better and better all the time,” says Nunn.
It isn’t only her advice team at which this is directed. “It’s everyone. The team makes everyone stronger. You’re a better adviser with that team around you, but it’s also about building-in the same opportunities for all the support staff, and making them know how central they are to the success of the firm. We like to build relationships between our clients and everyone that works here, from the person at reception, people who answer the phone, to our Client Service Managers. I want my clients to know who they are, so that the clients know they’ve got a team of people working for them, that they can engage with.”
The value of this approach was starkly demonstrated to her when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2024. Amid her personal worry, she was able to concentrate wholly on her treatment, as much of the client contact was taken care of.
“A lot of the mentoring I’ve been doing has focused on really being true to ourselves, trusting our values to take care of our business. I’ve always tried to ensure that I remain authentic to myself and genuine, because then you naturally attract clients who you want to deal with. If we remain true to who we are, we’ll naturally attract those clients that are a good fit, which then means that you’ll end up with these fantastic client relationships over time,” she says.
And that paid off for her in spades, last year. “I didn’t have one client who begrudged the fact that there were days where I wasn’t able to work. Nobody cared, one, because they trusted the team, and two, because you’ve built up those kinds of credits over the years of showing that you’re reliable, you’re not going to let them down. It’s really important to be able to do that.”
Paradoxically, 2024 also brought Nunn a professional highlight, being named on the 2024 Barron’s Top 150 Financial Advisers, a prestigious national listing where she was the only female adviser in South Australia represented. Having come through her treatment, that recognition has her more excited than ever about the profession, and the prospects for female advisers in particular.
“There’s a massive opportunity for women in financial advice. We only represent 22 per cent of advisers, but there is a demand for us, because clients are demanding to see it. I have it all the time that people click my profile on our website because they want to speak to a female,” Nunn says.
“There’s a massive demand for advice in general, and with the inter-generational wealth transfer, much of that will end up in the hands of women. I think advice is a great industry for young people anyway, but what really excites me is the opportunity to get out there and speak to young women – I’ve done it at my old school – and really light the fire, to help them understand, ‘wow, that sounds like a really interesting job’.”
