What's your job about?
I work within Restructuring Advisory team which is part of the broader Financial Advisory service line. My role and team is focused specifically on personal insolvency. We work with individuals who experience financial hardship and go through bankruptcy. To give some context, an individual can make themselves bankrupt or a creditor can file a court order. A Trustee, who is the Partner in my team, is appointed to investigate the affairs of the individual and seek recoveries for creditors.
When a bankruptcy file comes through, we need to first conduct some investigations looking into vehicles, bank accounts, properties, shareholdings, and directorships. Based on our investigation, we then determine what assets can be realised for the benefit of creditors.
I’m currently working on selling a multimillion-dollar property, realising interest in a Deceased Estate and recovering voidable transfers.
It’s been an interesting ride so far. A week into starting my grad program, due to covid we shifted from working full time at the office to full time working from home, At the start, I found it a bit challenging to adjust but the team found unique ways such as virtue coffee catch-ups, after work Zoom drinks and games to help us the new graduates stay connected.
What's your background?
During year 12, I was very indecisive about what I wanted to study at university. I enjoyed my science subjects but couldn’t stand needles which led me blindly into a Commerce degree (I had no idea what ‘equity’ was!) In my first year of university, I discovered my interest in finance and decided to pursue a career in that industry.
During my time at university, I worked as a maths and English tutor and also a finance intern at Film Victoria. Looking back, I would have liked to have gained retail or hospitality experience as I’ve enjoyed hearing all the interesting stories from friends who have worked in these industries!
At the end of 2nd-year uni, I was fortunate enough to land a vacationer role at GT within my current team and from there I was offered a graduate position for 2020. Having the vacationer experience made the transition easier as I was already familiar with the systems and processes, the people and could jump right into the work.
A somewhat humorous and ironic uni story…..
In my 3rd year of uni, I completed a subject abroad at Harvard University with a friend of mine. We planned to choose the ‘easiest’ subject so that we would have more spare time to travel around the USA. We ended up enrolling in an R subject which wasn’t quite as easy as expected but this has provided us with a solid foundation in programming; a skill that is becoming more and more useful!
Could someone with a different background do your job?
Yes! Whilst most people in the Restructuring Advisory team hold a Business / Commerce degree and whilst knowing your assets, liabilities and equity accounts are useful, I do believe any type of degree can get you here, all you need is the willingness to learn, good communication skills and ability to be emphatic.
A lot of on-the-job learning takes place as a graduate. Starting out, I had a lot of one-on-one training sessions with various senior colleagues in the personal insolvency team who were more than willing to step me through the processes and answer my countless questions.
What's the coolest thing about your job?
I love the very personal and human aspect of my job, I get to help real-life people going through real-life problems. For an individual going through bankruptcy, we help remove the stress of creditors chasing them.
As every individual is different, every bankruptcy file is different too; bringing diversity to my job is the other aspect that I love.
It is not common for bankrupts to reach out and express their gratitude for administering their bankruptcy but when they do it assures me that I’m where I should be.
What are the limitations of your job?
99% of the time the people I engage with are lovely and you have genuine conversations. However given the nature of work, it can be expected that you will be faced with challenging conversations with distressed bankrupts, agitated creditors and various other stakeholders. Often they just need someone to listen to their situation and allow them to express their emotions and voice their opinion. This is something that I am working on learning to handle.
3 pieces of advice for yourself when you were a student...