Jen Dalitz

Jen Dalitz, founder and CEO of sphinxx


Jen Dalitz's biography >>

10 things I love about banking and finance

by Jen Dalitz, founder and CEO of sphinxx

I have Ben Crabtree to thank for my initial career choice – and thank him I would, if I only knew how to find him! On a cold South Australian winter’s day, in the Year 12 common room, I was flicking through the SATAC guide (the tertiary admissions course list), completely uninspired. Ben was a fellow student and - out of the blue - he suggested, “You’re good at Maths, why don’t you do accounting?” And so I did.

This truly was the extent of my career planning, but boy am I happy with my choice. A Bachelor of Arts in Accountancy later, it seemed the world was at my feet. On reflection, I couldn’t have picked a better foundation course for a career in business. Here are just some of the reasons why I believe this to be true:

  1. You get paid well to sit down all day! Having worked my way through uni first as a check-out-chick and then in a busy city café, it was just luxury to secure my first office job as an Assistant Accountant. My job was to process all the balancing entries to the general ledger. Tedious? Maybe. But it was the easiest $25 per hour I’d ever earned (at a time when I was paid $11 per hour to be on my feet all day on a supermarket checkout and it only got better from there!).
  2. In general, you’ll work with nice people. From that first internship through to my graduate role in commercial banking, suddenly the grumpy customers in long queues seemed a world away. People smiled and chatted with me and treated me with respect – a far cry from the attitudes of supermarket and café customers who for some reason assumed they’re smarter than the people who serve them.
  3. The hours are good. I hated taking the bus home after late night hours at the supermarket, in the dark, on my own. As a young woman, working business hours from Monday to Friday was a safer option for me (and also aligned nicely with my social calendar!)
  4. You get to play with lots of money! Even if it’s not your own, it’s quite nice spending your days playing with money. And there will be lots of it, if you end up in banking or finance. I remember the first time I was working on multi-million dollar credit submissions – there’s something exciting about the scale of that.
  5. Numbers are a universal language – so if you understand finance you can work almost anywhere. In the course of my career in finance and consulting, I’ve worked on projects in the USA, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan and the UK – all the while staying in nice hotels and sometimes travelling business class!
  6. Finance skills are always in demand – in the boom times there’s more jobs in audit and accounting; and in the bust times you can switch to insolvency!
  7. A job in banking and finance opens doors. Whether you want to stay on the accounting side, or you want to diversify and learn more skills, when you start in a finance role in a big company or bank or government agency you will also have access to a plethora of alternatives. So you move jobs over time, without moving organizations. It’s also possible to enter the banking and finance sector without a major in accounting. Leading employers are looking for a diverse skill-set, so a business or economics degree with other majors, or a degree in humanities, law or engineering may all be appropriate.
  8. Variety is the spice of life. In my time in banking and later consulting, I worked with organizations from diverse industries, sectors and geographical boundaries. Within my career, I’ve worked as an accountant, in banking, as a business consultant and in general management roles – all of which have built on the foundations my accounting degree gave me.
  9. It’s taught me to manage my own finances. In times when many Australian women will live their final years in poverty1, I have a good understanding of the financial system and how I can build a solid financial position for myself. As a young woman, my career choice has given me financial independence and this was also particularly important to me.
  10. You can often work flexibly. Being largely back-office in nature, I’ve found that my career affords me a level of flexibility that is particularly important now that I’m a mum. Finance skills are always highly valued and sought after, and with the accessibility of online systems now, I’ve been in a good position to negotiate flexible working arrangements including working remotely and working less than full time hours as I’ve needed, which has been particularly helfpful.

In short, if I had my time over I’m quite sure I’d make the same choices. A career in banking and finance has given me so much opportunity – much more than a simple girl from a small country town could ever have imagined. And you never know – it could just be something you’d enjoy too!

1 The Gender Gap in retirement savings, http://www.hreoc.gov.au/sex_discrimination/programs/gender_gap.html

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Biography

Jen Dalitz is obsessed with getting more women into leadership roles, in our workplaces and communities - that’s why she started sphinxx and why she writes about, speaks about, mentors and consults on topics related to working women.

Jen is an award-winning businesswoman and regular commentator in media publications such as Business Review Weekly, The Australian Financial Review, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Courier Mail, Adelaide Now, In The Black, The National Accountant, Marie Claire, Madison and Working Women, to name a few.

Prior to founding sphinxx, Jen’s career in finance and consulting spanned 16 years, international borders and a host of Fortune 500 companies. Away from sphinxx, Jen is the mother of a small child and runs a farm in the country.