When Judy Poole looks back over her career, she realizes that for around 20 years, she was stalled in a holding pattern.
“I didn’t ever have a plan; I never looked to the future,” Poole said. “I just reacted.”
The 61-year-old financial adviser started working in financial services when she was just 17; CIBC hired her out of a high school typing class. She worked in administration, then became a trainer and recruiter before rising to bank manager. Later, she worked on the investment side.
It took a “nasty” recruiting experience for her to realize she needed to take charge of her career. She and 22 of her CIBC investment colleagues had been recruited by the Bank of Montreal. But without buy-in from branch-level employees, “we were guaranteed to fail – which we did. Within 18 months we were gone,” Poole said.
She realized she needed to make a plan for her career.
“I was 46 years of age, and one of the motivators for me was that my late mother, at 46 years of age, became a journeyman printer,” she said. “For both of us, it would have been quite smart if we’d done that a little earlier in life.”
“The banking career and the exposure and the training – that was a good thing. But I didn’t need 20 years of it. Ten would have been fine.”
Poole became a broker and now works for Raymond James as an independent financial adviser, a role that gives her a huge amount of independence.
She now realizes that she failed to take control for so long because she didn’t have confidence in her own abilities.
“Nothing in the banking world at that time said to me, ‘You’re great, we’re grooming you for better things,’” she said. “ I think women understand a little bit more now – or I hope they do – that they can do whatever they want.”
In the early stages of succession planning for her businesses, Poole wants to be able to hand it off to a younger woman, and now makes a point of mentoring potential successors.
“Somebody believing in you makes a huge difference,” she said.
On women in financial services | “It’s absolutely the perfect job for a woman, because for the most part in any of the roles, you have flexibility and autonomy. It works well around raising a family and [has high] earning potential. There just are no limits to where you can go with it.
Has a work or life challenge taught you a key career lesson? Contact Jen St. Denis at [email protected].
