The end of my Avanti Finance chapter

The start of the story

I came back from my family and fun filled Christmas break to reality that felt less like a bump and more like a crashing 12ft wave. You see I'm really good at putting things in boxes and I'd stored away one box so far away in the back of my mind that I barely remembered it existed.

What was in this box you may ask?

The box contained the fact that I was scheduled for a spinal fusion surgery for the 3rd March, at the tender age of 39. This would be my second surgery only 15 months after the first.

I'm sure I've read somewhere that you keep getting given the same lessons until you learn them. Well the spinal surgeries definitely feel like a lesson I hadn't learnt.

I LOVE my job, so after the first surgery I came back to work with gusto after 5/6 weeks, and whilst the surgeon told me not to lift, bend, or overdo it, I recall bending and lifting within a few days of that first surgery. I didn't listen, and so I am being given the lesson again with the second surgery.

This is my last chance to fix my broken back. But, how do you stop someone who LOVES her job from coming back too early?

For this all to make sense there's a part of my story I need to be up front about. My inner turmoil at the start of this year wasn't all about the back surgery. Last year I'd also been working with my coach Rachel Wooten on my mission and how 'big' my game was going to be.

I had an epiphany during that time where I knew, from deep within my soul, that my mission was to put the humanity back in to financial services, globally.

Now, that is indeed a very big statement, and a seed that I was committed to growing over the next 12-18 months. As part of this epiphany I'd also applied to be a fellow in the Edmund Hillary Fellowship , which focusses on incubating solutions to global problems that make a lasting impact on the world. I'd found out just before Christmas that my application was successful.

So I was facing into a number of factors:

1. I needed to take enough time to recover from surgery
2. I wanted to nurture the seed of my mission to put the humanity back into financial services globally
3. I knew that we had courageous and audacious goals that we wanted to achieve at Avanti Finance which required my full attention and focus

So I looked at lots of options, devised lots of plans.

And then I stopped.

And from that place deep within I knew what I needed to do.

I took the heartbreaking decision to resign from the job I love.

And so as I write this I am 10 days post spinal fusion surgery. I'm doing my best to rest, and to learn my lesson this time, but also be curious and open around nurturing my mission.

My Avanti journey

In mid 2015 I got a call from my good friend Ceri Horwill who said that one of her contacts, Mark Mountcastle, had just started as CEO of Avanti Finance. She explained that from talking with him it sounded like he needed a "Sasha". Mark and I met for coffee, and the rest is history.

I have always said that Mark was courageous on the day he decided to hire me as Avanti's new Head of Operations on his Executive team. I say courageous as we were (and are) definitely more different than we were alike. It takes a great deal of foresight and awareness to deliberately hire for difference rather than similarity.

You see, I nearly always turn up to meetings with an A3 pad and colouring pens, my hair colour never blends in, and I'm the voice for the people and customers of the business first and foremost, even though as a qualified accountant you'd assume I'd be more numerically minded. I can't say I'm your typical financial services executive.

I believed in the Avanti story that Mark shared with me, and I could see the potential for the future- a finance company that continues to authentically focus on it's people and it's customers- particularly when they don't fit in to a box. The best way to see this is through the values video below- take a look.

In that video I say "I bloody love this place", and I still do. This has been one of the hardest decisions of my career. In a post to my friends on the morning of my last day I said,

"Today marks the end of my chapter at Avanti.

To say I’m sad is the biggest understatement.

I’m trying to figure out whether the analogy is it feels like ripping my heart out or leaving my baby, but you get the drift.

The analogies may sound rather dramatic, but it's genuinely how I felt.

As part of my Masters in Advanced Leadership Practice I wrote a thesis on Entrepreneurial Storytelling in New Zealand. I discovered that for entrepreneurs the identity of themselves, and that of their business, are as one. This makes sense really given an entrepreneur is focussed on manifesting an idea that started in their mind.

What I hadn't appreciated though was that the same thing can happen when you lead a growing and transforming business. My own leadership identity and that of Avanti Finance felt, and still feels, inextricably linked, and forever changed through the time spent together.

How a leader's identity links to the organisation

Avanti Finance is a business that delivers on more than just it's numbers. It is a place that lives and breathes it's values, where people can bring their whole selves to work, and customers know that we will connect and listen to their story at a human to human level, not based on black and white score cards.

The team are genuinely awesome and I have learnt so much by walking alongside them for the last four and a half years. I feel very lucky and thankful to have been part of the story.

Late last year Avanti Finance won the Financial Services Federation Outstanding Corporate Citizen Award. Winning that award was one of the best moments of my career so far.

I think that the award shone a light on the value of balancing the reality of being in a for profit business, with recognition that contributing to your customers, people and community also makes good business sense. From a personal perspective it helped solidify that I had delivered on my leadership promise for the business.

Whilst in a #financialservices business there is of course a focus on the numbers, I balance this conversation and bring the voice of human connection and #empathy, #authenticity and #storytelling to the Executive table. In doing so I help to make sense of the future that doesn't exist, so that people can contribute in the now, and see where they fit for the future.

So, with great gratitude to all who were part of this chapter, I'll take a pause and focus on recovering from the spine surgery before I turn the page. The next chapter is going to be a big one!

#leadership #edmundhillaryfellowship #humancentredfinancialservices #peoplefirst #empathy