Champions of Diversity: Ash Pakis, Panache Financial

Growing up as the only child of two drug addicted parents, living in a caravan with no running water or electricity for much of her childhood and attending 9 different primary schools before the age of 14, was not the childhood Panache Financial Director Ash Pakis wanted or chose.

But rather than dwell on her past, she uses her early experiences in life, to be an empathetic broker who embraces diversity and sees opportunities with clients where others may only see challenges.

The whole philosophy of her mortgage broking business is to help customers who don’t have financial knowledge to make the best decisions for their circumstances and get ahead in life. In doing this, she says it’s important to see the person beyond the circumstances because sometimes they are living a life that is not of their choosing.

“I always have time for clients, no matter what their story is,” she said.

“99.98% of the time we view someone, and we make a judgement on them without even knowing their story.Diversity for me is about not making a judgement – people are an open book to me.”

Ash says her approach has been influenced by those people willing to help her flee a toxic home environment and who supported her with compassion and empathy,while she lived aged 16, on her own in a caravan and worked part-time in a fish and chip shop to pay the rent so she could finish high school.

“I had no choice for so many years in my life, but through my broking business, I am giving other people a choice in how they can build a financial future for themselves,” she said.

“I’ve got a couple that I’ve been working with now for four years.They have a bad credit history, a bad drug abuse problem, he’s been to jail three times – but they were open with that, and I have no problem sitting across the table and helping them. Now they are on track to buy their first house together within the next 12-18 months.

“Most people would see that, hear his story and think I don’t want to deal with that – what a nightmare- but it’s not really a nightmare for me – what he has done and what he has gone through is not my trauma to take on – but I can help them turn that around by achieving their goal of owning their first house together.”

Change has been a constant in Ash’s life, so she says one of the things that she loves most about working in broking is that every day is different.

“I don’t get bored, and I don’t get distracted – change keeps me focussed,” she said.

While Ash is naturally inclusive of different people, she says the mortgage and finance broking industry really needs to embrace inclusion to encourage a greater diversity of brokers into the industry as it creates so many more opportunities to work with a broader group of customers.

“If more customers saw brokers who looked more like them, they’d realise that anyone can get a loan you don’t need to be incredibly wealthy – you can build wealth over time,” she said.

“Brokers have helped more people understand the finance industry because most people think that a financial planner and a mortgage broker do the same thing and they don’t.”

As a Goulburn-based broker, Ash says regional Australia is still a bit backward when it comes to diversity, but she believes the younger generations of women now running businesses in regional areas will dramatically change the landscape over the next 10 years and that will have a big impact on expectations of what female customers want from brokers.

She says stopping the “fluffiness” of women’s events and promoting a sense of community over competition are critical steps to breaking down the barriers and making the mortgage and finance industry more inclusive to women and diversity more broadly.

“Broking is still very much a boy’s club – we need to change the thinking on what success is,” she said.

“It has got nothing to do with the money it brings – as a woman we like to achieve and be recognised and like to be able to help people. I think about my business as being like my baby – my staff are like my kids – it’s a family and we don’t need to be doing all these long hours and working on weekends to be successful.

“We also need to recognise the many females that work behind the scenes supporting successful broker businesses.I couldn’t get half the things done that I do without the support of Kathleen who works in my business. There needs to be more recognition and celebration of women like her.”

And finally, what is her secret to success?

“Not giving up – nothing is challenging to me and that’s probably because of the life that I have lived,” she said.

And what about her advice to her younger self?

“As women we need to financially protect ourselves and we also need to be able to feel ok asking silly questions – don’t be afraid to seek knowledge and also invest your money a lot earlier,” she said.

“And always enjoy the good times and be forever young.”

Champions of Diversity is brought to you by Teachers Mutual Bank Ltd and is part of MFAA’s Opportunities for Women initiative. Find out more about the initiative and read the 2022 report.