Penny Finance Founder and winner of the 2023 Young Professional State Excellence Award for VIC/TAS, Morgan Owen is living proof of the value that diversity brings to the mortgage and finance industry. Like many women and younger people who become brokers, she did not follow a traditional career path from banking into broking.
The fitness industry was her first calling until she was encouraged by one of her mentors to pursue mortgage and finance broking, recognising the potential they had seen in her disciplined approach to both her career and finances.
By her early 20s, she had already purchased a house and investment property and was always the person in her friendship group who others sought out for financial advice.
“I was always interested in finance so I thought it would be cool to also do this as a job,” Morgan said.
“I had also just completed my MBA and one of the things that was an absolute goal of mine in my career was to have an impact on the world.I feel that I get to do that every day in this industry by helping fast-track people into property ownership.”
After a couple of false-starts working in other broker businesses which weren’t the right fit for her value proposition for customers, Morgan made the decision to launch her own broking business and Penny Finance was born at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
She now has a fully online broking business and a team of six women all of whom come from non-banking backgrounds. Two of her team are currently training to become brokers.
“I hired all of my team based on their character, ambition and values alignment,” Morgan said.
“You can teach the technical skills, but the softer stuff is really important to me, and I think it is the thing that is missing in a lot of broker businesses.”
Morgan believes her empathy is her “superpower” in broking and her business philosophy is all about helping clients build financial literacy.
“We don’t just focus on the transaction we focus on the full financial picture in their life,” she said.
“ A lot of brokers won’t meet with a client until they have a deposit. But I’ve createdprograms and tools to help clients start from the very beginning and figure out their budget, figure out their cashflow and get them to a point where they can save a deposit and then buy a property.
“I wanted to take this approach from the very beginning, but I kept getting told that it was a dumb idea because they didn’t have any money and wouldn’t be able to buy a property, but I kept saying but with the right support, in time they will.”
This approach is embedded in everything that Morgan does in her business starting with her name.Penny actually stands for:
P – Personalised experience
E – Empathy as a superpower
N – Nurture through education
N – Nimble solution finders
Y – Ying to your yang.
As a young, queer gender cis female broker, Morgan is acutely aware of how different she is to what “standard” brokers look like and because of this she has taken an approach in business where all clients, regardless of their identity and circumstances can feel safe and comfortable accessing finance.
“Every time I speak to people, they feel connected, they feel that I get them, what they are trying to do and where they are trying to go,” she said.
“You don’t want to treat your clients as just some kind of number in a cog because what we do is a volume game and although you need to build the numbers in terms of clients you can still do that in a way that doesn’t make them feel like they are just another transaction to you.”
Morgan says that accepting difference is so important to making the mortgage and finance broking industry truly inclusive to everyone.
“As a queer, cis gender female I've always felt like I had to change and adapt to suit my environment,” she said.
“Thinking I had to do that so that people would like me (and I was really, really good at it) - it was my survival mechanism and for a long time I didn't even know I was doing it. This was debilitating, this was exhausting and this led me to make bad decisions about people and led me to a deep depression for quite a number of years.
“Diversity to me means creating a safe space where people can be authentic – not to have to wear a mask and not have to pretend. I look very, very different to the standard commercial broker that sits in the finance world. I would love to be able to impact that.
“But I’m not sitting and waiting for the industry to embrace me. I’m pushing myself out there and I know it will only be a matter of time.”
Creating a safe space for diverse people is something Morgan also promotes outside of work through her involvement with Pride Cup, a non-for-profit organisation that strives to make LGBTIQA+ people feel safe across all sporting codes. A chance meeting last year with Pride Chair, disruptor and keynote speaker, Holly Ransom, at the MFFA National Conference, led to an offer to become the Treasurer.
“I grew up playing lots of sports, I represented Australia in European handball, and I played competitive basketball well into my 20s, all the time being in the closet about my sexuality, so this organisation really struck a chord with me.”
She believes a greater diversity of brokers in the mortgage and finance industry will not only increase competition but ensure that a greater number of customers get access to finance based on what they really need and what really aligns to their goals.
One of the things Morgan believes would help make the broking industry more appealing to more diverse brokers is to break down the barriers that force people to feel like they don’t belong.
“It’s taken me a long time to build my confidence but that has had to come from me and my internal ambition,” she said.
“I have definitely been in precarious situations; I’ve definitely been made to feel like I don’t belong – it’s taken me a long time to stop caring about what other people think.”
She believes there is no single model that will increase the diversity of the broking industry, but she is a big advocate for bringing women into broking businesses from non-banking backgrounds and training them up to be brokers.
“With my model and my Penny Finance brand, being able to bring people through and broke under my brand - you are not just on your own in your business – you have support around you and I do feel that I have a network that I can lean on,” she said.
Morgan believes that her secret to success comes down to a combination of being driven, having a good work ethic and being a visionary.
“I’m constantly looking for the next big thing,” she said.
“I don’t get bogged down in thinking I can’t do something, I err on the side of I can, and I’ll work it out.”
And finally, what’s her advice to her not so younger self?
“The importance of not sacrificing boundaries by being too empathetic, trusting my gut instinct more and slowing down and being more patient,” she concluded.
