PROFILE

From journo to regulator

Paul Gregory’s life journey has been an interesting one. Daniel Smith talks to him about how journalism set him up for his current role with the FMA.

BY DANIEL SMITH

If eyes are the windows to the soul, then Paul Gregory’s windows have windows. The glasses he wears have large black edges that seem from another era. The thick frames and the engaging dark eyes behind them make Gregory seem more a newspaper mogul in the 1950s than a man altering the shape of New Zealand financial services.

The newspaperman comparison is not just artistic licence, Gregory started as a journalist, working as a self-described “ambulance chaser” out of the Hawke’s Bay and Hamilton newsrooms of The New Zealand Herald in the 1990s.

When asked if the move from journo to financial services was always part of his plan, Gregory gives a resounding “no”.

“I was going to be an award-winning journalist on staff at The New York Times as far as I was concerned. I had done journalism for over 13 years in the UK. After coming back to New Zealand in 2002 I wanted to continue with journalism but there just weren’t any jobs available.”

So in the early 2000s, Gregory found himself pivoting into a role as media relations manager at Westpac. Of the move, he says that he had to overcome a learning curve to match the skills he developed over a decade in journalism to the new world of media relations in financial services.

“There is a different relationship to information. As a journalist you have no relationship to the facts, the skills are all in synthesising a story out of the scraps of information that you have. Whereas a media relations manager, the challenge is the exact reverse, to make sense of the vast amount of information you have.” But once Gregory got to grips with the new role he discovered that, “In this kind of communications role, the further upstream you can get in a decisionmaking process the more effective you can be. But you have got to earn that.”

After realising this fact, the trajectory of Gregory’s career in this space has been in part a constant drive to get further upstream, closer to the decision making, closer to the action.

His reasons for doing this come from another point he realised in his early days in the industry, the importance of financial decisions on the lives and the future of ordinary New Zealanders.

“Financial products and financial services are the main way, and in some cases the only way that New Zealanders engage with their future whether they realise they are doing it or not.”

This idea of the importance of financial services in the life of everyday New Zealanders is something that became ingrained in Gregory during his stint working with the Guardians of NZ Superannuation. He started in the role as head of communications in 2009, before moving closer to the investment action, eventually becoming manager of portfolio intelligence in 2012.

Of the move, Gregory says “The involvement and ability to influence and add value was really exciting for me. When the opportunity came up to join the investments team, I jumped at the opportunity. I was lucky that the super fund had sufficient imagination to let me go and have a go.”

Once in the role, Gregory dived headfirst into the gritty details that came with investment portfolio intelligence. “The role was basically fastening myself to the end of a hosepipe of information that was coming down from investment managers at the super fund. The issues, the opportunities, the changes. It was like a gigantic police blotter except for investment managers. You rapidly do triage and figure out what is normal, what needs to be elevated, what needs to be followed up.”

Here again, Gregory found that his early days in a newsroom had prepared him well for the financial world. “Again those innate journalistic aptitudes of being able to rapidly pore through vast amounts of information, some of it quite complicated, and parse it out into what actually matters, and communicating that with people to help them make decisions.”

The culture of the place [FMA] was part of the reason I came back because it is a really great place to work

After his stint at the super fund, Gregory made the move to Pie Funds, where he started as group head of investments and eventually became COO.

Gregory says that “At Pie Funds I had been involved with highly active concentrated managers which was an interesting experience to bring to the FMA. Together with being involved in another type of investment organisation. Whereas the super fund had an institutional process and a very explicit long-term purpose, Pie Funds was a smaller, boutique highly active fund manager with a small loyal group of investors that was quickly expanding. Despite the differences, it was a high care factor at both institutions.”

Before working at Pie Funds, Gregory had a two-year stint working in communications at the FMA. After the experience of helping lead Pie Funds through the tumult of March, Gregory made the shift to go back to his old stomping ground, re-joining the FMA as director of investment management in November 2020.

“When I came back I just got straight back into it. There were still a lot of the same people as when I was here last time, a lot of the leadership team and the key subject matter experts were still around. The culture of the place was part of the reason I came back because it is a really great place to work.”

I think investment managers, financial advisers, and the regulator are all trying to do the same thing. The industry wants to be trusted, it wants to be strong

But other than the culture, the role offered a chance to get back to the action. “To again be close to the decisionmaking around investment, that was a great opportunity.”

Gregory again wanted to use the opportunity of being close to the action to change the way New Zealanders engage with financial services for the better.

“A financial product or service, these are things that are New Zealanders' main or only concrete engagement with their future. The regulator has a key role to play to make sure that as little harm as possible occurs to New Zealanders that use these products in the course of using them. These products are complex, abstract, and boring, therefore there is a lot of potential for harm to occur over a long period of time if they are not designed, sold, and managed with the fair treatment of the people using them in mind.”

When reflecting on his career, Gregory does not go past those early journalistic tendencies as some of the main contributors to his success.

“What I have found helpful are those core journalistic aptitudes. Strong intellectual curiosity, I just want to get involved and understand everything, which I am sure has been a pain in the arse for some people. I can and do talk to people from all walks of life, which is again a journalism skill. I can assimilate and synthesise large amounts of information quickly into what matters and what can help people make decisions.”

Looking towards the future of financial services in New Zealand, Gregory is confident that we will see the average Kiwi continue to develop trust and confidence in the industry.

“I think investment managers, financial advisers, and the regulator are all trying to do the same thing. The industry wants to be trusted, it wants to be strong. Our view is that that is a great outcome for New Zealand’s economic prosperity. The way to do that is to treat people fairly.”