3 minute read
Profile: Anthea Gardner
How did you become involved in financial services – was this something you always wanted to do?
When I was at school, I wanted to avoid financial services completely because my dad was a bank manager. I saw how hard he had to work and he was always studying – I didn’t think that was cool when I was growing up. His sister, my aunt, was a teacher and she was the cool one. I thought I’d be a teacher but my dad didn’t approve – he suggested when I went to varsity, that I study something I could convert into teaching if that’s what I really wanted to do later on.
My dad was the first ‘non-white’ bank manager in South Africa – that’s how the newspaper article put it. This was around 1979 – and I believe having him as a role model to show that there are no limitations on what you want to do has stood me in good stead today. I started off doing a psychology degree at varsity, but it wasn’t forme so I started studying finance. Then I decided that I wanted to go overseas to the UK. My father loaned me money for this (I paid it back later!) I was working for a wine company in London that had been started by traders from a company called Tradition. It was suggested to me that I become a trader as I was told that I had the right temperament.
I decided that the world of finance was cool and I came back to South Africa and studied. One day I was driving home and there was a derivatives trader, Mark Khalil, on the radio doing market commentary. I telephoned him and told him I wanted to have a similar career. Although he didn’t have a job for me, he contacted people he knew at HSBC and that’s how I got into finance that I now obsessively love. I’m not sure I believe in fate but when I look back I think it was meant to be, that I was meant to go into finance.
What obstacles did you face on your career journey as a women?
I don’t think the obstacles were obvious but one of the things I became hugely aware of is that women and men are different and that the world of finance is male dominated. For a woman it’s hard to fit into a male environment. I think I had to become more aggressive in my approach. What is interesting is that when I came back to South Africa and I started an asset management business, I felt that women were comfortable investing with me, and that has been a business enabler.
Why did you write Make Your Money Work For You?
I wrote the book with my sister in mind. I manage her family’s money and one day when I was a guest on a radio show, I discussed shares and I then got a message from my sister – she had no idea that my job involves analysing shares. I tried to explain to her and my brother-in-law what I do, but they didn’t know what I was talking about. There was a knowledge gap. My sister is in marketing and it’s not her everyday job to find out what a unit trust or ETF is – she just needed someone to explain to her. I wanted my sister and my clients to read the book. I know that there are a lot of books on investing out there, but I wanted to write a book that would be easy to read, one that would enable investors to have enough information to know what was going on when they sat down with their financial advisers.
There are two things that scare people: the world of investing and numbers. In my book I try to make people feel comfortable with both. I’m saying to readers “don’t let finance scare you”.
I didn’t write the book for women only, but I grew up thinking that finance and banking were for men while teaching was for women. I don’t want my nieces to grow up like that.
Do you own any Bitcoin and what do you think of cryptocurrencies?
I don’t own any Bitcoin, I’ve avoided it; although I think that its platform, Blockchain, is brilliant. Half the attraction of Bitcoin was that people thought it was going to change everything! Did we really think that central banks would sit back and let someone else take over the printing of money?
ANTHEA GARDNER CEO, CARTESIAN CAPITAL AND AUTHOR OF MAKE YOUR MONEY WORK FOR YOU
