More pathways needed to encourage women to commercial broking, say brokers

The comments were made at the NAB Commercial Broker Women in Finance event in Sydney on Tuesday (11 October), where lenders, brokers and support staff from across the commercial broking space discussed their career journeys, challenges and how they balance work and family life.

The high tea event, held at Doltone House in Pyrmont, included a panel discussion between three of NAB’s senior leaders in commercial finance (NAB’s head of specialised, private and regional and agriculture Anita Hyde; NAB’s state business bank executive, ACT and southern NSW, Naomi Stuart; and its executive, trade and working capital business and private banking, Jackie Cooper) and Isabella Constantinou, commercial broker and the associate director, sales at Simplicity Loans & Advisory.

During the panel discussion, Ms Constantinou highlighted that she believed more needed to be done to raise the profile of commercial broking as a career option to women — noting that she had “fallen into” the industry out of university but hadn’t known that commercial broking was a profession prior to joining.

The Sydney broker (and finalist for the Commercial Broker of the Year award at the Women in Finance Awards 2022) who joined the industry five years ago straight out of university — told delegates that she had first entered the industry after answering a job advertisement for an office assistant role at Sydney-based brokerage Simplicity Loans & Advisory.

However, following an interview, she was instead offered a graduate analyst role before quickly working her way upwards to becoming a commercial broker as an associate and associate director.

While she noted that there were more women becoming commercial brokers, the sector was still highly male-dominant.

She commented: “What I’ve learned over the last couple of years is there’s not a lot of women doing only commercial lending transactions in the broking space. I’ve had quite a journey through my career since I finished uni and it’s been incredible and intimidating and a bit scary but it’s amazing.

“I spent the first six months being a sponge, learning everything about broking because I honestly had no idea what broking was or what anyone did in it.”

The commercial broker added that she hoped more could be done on an industry-wide level to showcase pathways into commercial broking to school students and university students (particularly women) as it can be “incredibly overwhelming”.

“It’s not like residential lending, where there’s just one sort of pathway, there’s so many different areas [of commercial broking] and I think it’s really important to identify what your niche is and what your strong points are in the industry.”

Several other female commercial brokers in the room concurred, flagging that while in-roads were being made to formalise pathways into commercial broking (for example, CAFBA’s new education program and the Women’s Commercial Finance Forum), more women could be recruited into the industry if it was made more widely visible at a younger age.

Ms Constantinou added: “I love that I can be a part of encouraging more women into the industry. I just wish I knew about it sooner!”

As well as discussing recruitment into commercial broking, the panellists also set out the importance of having strong mentors and leaders in the space.

NAB’s Anita Hyde concluded: “I think why we’re so passionate about this at NAB is because we work in such a fabulous industry. So it’s just bringing more and more women to the forefront and making sure we’re talking about our stories and our journeys.”

[Related: Finalists revealed for Women in Finance Awards 2022]