Financial planning for the young professional: Q&A with Fox & Hare's Co-Founders

With their peers disengaged from, and often confused about, their financial wellbeing, Jessica Brady and Glen Hare combined their industry experience to launch Fox & Hare, a financial planning firm that focuses on the particular needs of young professionals. They tell Industry Moves about the research that they've undertaken to better understand their clients, speak of the challenges of setting up a new business and share what they believe to be their point of difference in the market.

GLEN HARE

With their peers disengaged from, and often confused about, their financial wellbeing, Jessica Brady and Glen Hare combined their industry experience to launch Fox & Hare, a financial planning firm that focuses on the particular needs of young professionals. They tell Industry Moves about the research that they've undertaken to better understand their clients, speak of the challenges of setting up a new business and share what they believe to be their point of difference in the market.

What lead you to found Fox & Hare?

Jessica: For me, it was that I had spent over a decade helping people, help people. I had no real interactions with the end customer. I wanted to have meaningful contact with clients and truly feel that I was adding significant value to their situation.

**Glen:**I wanted to empower and educate an under serviced, younger client base.

What is Fox & Hare's point of difference?

Glen: Firstly, the demographic of client we service, typically 25-45, the fact that we're unaligned to any major institution and that we utilise technology from not only the wealth industry but implement best practice client experience technologies from various service firms.

Jessica: I think our big point of differences is that Glen and I both fall within the demographic that we work with. We speak their language, understand their frustrations and know how they want to be communicated with. That has resonated incredibly well with our clients. Personally, I have had many younger women approach me to say they wanted to get financial advice from someone like them who they felt comfortable with.

How has your previous experience prepared you for embarking on your own venture?

Jessica: I think our individual skill sets have really helped us shape the business. We have used our previous corporate experience to make sure we are building the most robust and sustainable business possible. My previous role at Zurich saw me presenting on many topical industry issues and meant that I spent a large amount of time researching industry best practice which has obviously been very useful for us.

Glen: The majority of my clients at Macquarie were financial planning firms. This gave me real insight into what worked and what didn't. Drawing on this, we believe we've built a best of breed client experience and service offering.

"I wanted to have meaningful contact with clients and truly feel that I was adding significant value to their situation." - Jessica Brady

What kind of research have you conducted to find out what kind of financial advice is most important to your clients?

Jessica: I think it's incredibly important to never assume you understand what your target audience is looking for. We held two externally facilitated focus groups with our people from our target demographic over a 12-month period to ensure what we were building was going to resonate with them. We were blown away at the amount of incredible insights we captured and it has certainly shaped the business to be what it is today.

Glen: Over the last couple of years, while building out our value proposition, we've held a number of focus groups made up of our ideal clients. Simply asking those that would be ideal clients of the firm is incredibly insightful. A couple of the people that attended the focus groups have since come on as clients.

What are some of the specific issues that same-sex couples face when it comes to their financial futures?

Jessica: There are certainly estate planning considerations for all de-facto relationships that need to be discussed, considered and a robust estate plan should be put in place. We have found our clients that are in same-sex couples really just want to know they are working with people who are supportive of the broader LGBTIQ community.

Glen: Until the right for same sex couples to marry is legislated, the main focus areas with same sex couples involve estate planning.

What is the most challenging aspect of setting up your own firm?

Jessica: Things take so long! It has certainly been a big learning curve for us. We have a large focus on using technology to improve our client experience and it has been a long journey to get us up to speed with the various technology pieces we use.

Glen: With so many amazing technology applications available, picking the right ones, that would service our clients best, can be a challenge. We also need to ensure that our back office is as efficient as possible.

What has been the best piece of advice that you have received?

Jessica: This is like picking your favourite child! I think it would be a combination of "always be curious" and "you make your own luck."

Glen: Ensure your personality comes through in everything that you do.

What's something that most people don't know about you?

Jessica: I love lists! I write lists for everything.

Glen: There isn't really anything, I'm an open book.