Home / People / Amie Baker: From furniture fabric to a financial advice career

It was a long and circuitous route to financial planning for the busy mother, but after seeing the harm financial distress could cause, Amie Baker was determined to help people stand on their own two feet.

The upholstery trade does not jump out as a logical place for a financial adviser to get their start in the profession, but that’s Amie Baker’s origin story.

Trained in the performing arts, Baker was working in hospitality, but found she had plenty of time during the day before her evening job started. That’s when friends asked her to help in their upholstery business.

“I didn’t know much about upholstery, but I found myself coordinating all of the ordering and the finances, and all of a sudden, I was the book-keeper,” she says. “I got curious about the business’ decision-making, and I realised that I loved the numbers. I ended up effectively the financial controller; of course I wasn’t qualified, I learned on the job. But I started to understand how money worked.”

Not long after, Baker was pregnant, and took a job with hours that suited her better, in the St. George Bank call centre. “My job was to call people whose loans were in arrears, and get promises from them to pay. I was actually terrible at the job, because every three minutes, I was supposed to get a promise to pay, but I couldn’t help myself, I was having long chats with the borrowers, trying to fix their problems. The human side of the problem fascinated me, and I wanted to help them resolve it.”

Her superiors noticed. “One of my managers started talking to me about this thing called ‘financial planning.’ She said, ‘You need to do this, it’s right up your alley.’”

Within six months, Baker was studying remotely for a degree in financial planning and business, through RMIT. In 2004, St. George moved her into the Wealth team, where she started in insurance.

Three sons arrived between 2004 and 2008, but with her flexible hours, Baker believed she could do it all. It came as a shock when, in 2008, after her son was treated for hip dysplasia, the bank suggested she take a sabbatical; although challenging at the time, it was serendipitous as it kicked off the process that culminated in her establishing her own practice, Aspire Wealth and Protection – despite emerging from a divorce as a single mother – in July 2013. Since 2018, the practice’s name has been Rekab Advice.

In 2017 Baker remarried, having her fourth child in 2019; she is now part of a “beautiful, blended and very busy” family life, mother of four children and two stepchildren, and married to Brett Baker – who joined her business in 2020. Brett, the former co-founder of Evergreen Consultants, former head of advisor (sic) services at Citigroup and director of institutional business development at UBS Global Asset Management, is responsible for portfolio construction and investment research.

The couple have built an active investment philosophy, based around managed accounts. “Everything in our portfolio is actively managed, even the two ETFs we have. We take great pains to make sure our clients understand this approach and are happy with it. Of course, some of the managers we use have high fees, but we concentrate on the net return after fees. Our clients are most motivated by the fact that we’re doing our best to deliver good returns through management philosophies that we have researched thoroughly, and that we believe in. We believe in paying for fund manager skill.”

Baker is a firm believer that a person’s life journey shapes how they deal with other people and situations, and that her journey has made her a natural financial adviser and money coach.

“I’ve been a single mother, I’ve been divorced, I’ve started businesses, I’ve had to strategise and plan to manage my finances,” she says. “I get it. I’m absolutely passionate about helping people reach their financial goals. I’ve also become a Certified Money Coach, to further help people reach their goals through awareness of their habits, exploring what is holding them back, and working on significant steps to change – this works hand in hand with a financial plan.”

Baker recently launched Centsability, a new division of her business, focusing on money coaching and financial literacy, where she hosts a podcast. She is also National Community Chair of the FAAA’s Inspire Community, established to provide a supportive and inclusive community for women in financial services, and a director of The Equanimity Project, a charity working to reduce domestic abuse and homelessness. 

Recently, she has garnered some of the industry’s highest recognition, including the 2022 Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) Female Excellence in Advice award.

The recognition from the industry is “nice to have,” she says, even though it’s “a bit of an ego stroke”.

“The individual recognition is lovely, but you almost feel like you’ve won it for all the hard-working advisers doing the right thing and adding great value to their clients.”

And that’s what fires Baker up. “I wish all the politicians would go and sit in an adviser’s office and actually see what we do, the service that we give to Australians, and realise how important it is that people achieve financial well-being,” she says. “It’s such an important thing for someone’s health, and mindset, as well as a wonderful outcome for society and the economy. That’s what really makes me proud.”