A mortgage veteran has reflected on her extensive finance and broking career spanning three continents.
Helen Avis (pictured above), Smats Group director of finance, began her mortgage career in the UK, before venturing to Singapore in 2003 to take up a new and exciting global opportunity.
“I met with the executive chairman Steve Douglas of Smats Group who offered me a role and after being in the job for about six months – he convinced me to join the company and work in mortgages,” Avis said.
“It started with me and one assistant to begin with and we grew the business from there. Steve is a tax accountant specialist and we built the business in Singapore around providing tax advice and arranging mortgages for people initially. Fast-forward 19 years and we now have offices in 13 locations around the world that we service our clients from.”
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Avis said there were now over 100 people in the global finance company working in offices located in Asia, the US, the UK, the Middle East and Australia.
“There are 12 people in my lending department made up of eight processors and four brokers and Singapore is our head office,” she said. “I am based in Perth, but I am going back to Singapore in October to see clients which I am very much looking forward to.”
Avis said she was thankful for technology during the pandemic as she was still able to communicate with her clients and colleagues across the world.
“As long as I had my phone, computer and notebook – the three tools I needed in my role, then I was able to get my job done,” she said. “Pre COVID-19, many of my clients would prefer to meet over Zoom or Skype rather than meet me in person. Technology helps us to connect with our clients and our teams, so we just adapted accordingly.”
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Avis was the recipient of the MFAA’s National Excellence Residential Finance Broker of the Year award in July.
“I was totally shocked and could not believe I won,” she said. “I had no speech prepared as I did not think I would win. It was an overwhelming and amazing feeling to win, quite emotional really.”
Avis said her advice to her fellow brokers within the industry was to work hard and work consistently.
“During my career I have never put myself forward for any awards because it is not really my thing being in the spotlight,” she said. “At the end of the day it comes down to hard work, giving your clients the best experience and outcome possible and looking after and doing a good job for them. Client satisfaction is key.”
