Profile: Pauline Vamos
By Lucinda Schmidt | theage.com.au | 26 March
When the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia approached Pauline Vamos last year to be its chief executive, she was pretty sure they wouldn't want her. "I'm bi-coastal," she says, explaining that she spends one week a month in Perth, where her partner lives, and the rest of the time in Sydney.
"But the more we talked, the more we realised it was a good fit," says Vamos, 47, who has worked as a lawyer, insurance broker, superannuation and funds manager, compliance consultant and regulator at the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
Her week in Perth is spent catching up on the thinking and strategic aspects of her role. "It gives me a break and it gives my team [of 44] a break."
Superannuation has changed hugely since Vamos first joined AMP in 1983, during the final year of her arts-law degree at Macquarie University (she finished it part-time).
At AMP she worked as an administrator for large industry funds, using punch cards to keep track of the multiple categories of benefits and employer contributions. Females had to wait longer than males to become members, in case they became pregnant and left their jobs.
After a stint as a lawyer at life insurer City Mutual, Vamos became pregnant and left her job. It wasn't to become a full-time mum but because in those days it was difficult to work part-time. "You got the shit jobs and I liked the big jobs," she says. "It was a different world."
The answer to combining work and motherhood was to set up an insurance broker business with her then-husband in 1986, just as indemnity insurance was emerging as a new area.
She fondly recalls one of her clients, a Sydney gun club, requiring $30 million in transit insurance to transport an imported batch of guns from the wharves to the clubhouse.
Vamos spent four years as a broker, then sold the business after she and her husband divorced. Much of the time was spent in the mad working mother juggle: her first daughter slept as a baby in the bottom drawer of her filing cabinet, she employed a receptionist who doubled as a nanny and she installed in her car an early model mobile phone, which was the size of a brick and cost $3500.
After a year as an insurance litigator at the national law firm Phillips Fox, then seven years as head of compliance and legal at Friends Towers Provident, Vamos was headhunted by ASIC in 1998 and became the director of financial services regulation.
She made her name implementing the groundbreaking Financial Services Reform Act, as well as the managed investments regulatory regime.
"It allowed me to put compliance on the map," she says of the six years she spent as a regulator.
By 2004 she wanted a change. "I didn't know quite what," Vamos says. "When you've been at a regulator for a while you can lose touch with the real world." She took the tried and true path of consulting, spending three years advising super funds, financial planners and trustees about compliance.
Then came her latest role, which Vamos began last September. As head of the industry body representing super funds and members, Vamos says she'd like to see everyone contributing 15 per cent of their income to super by 2015 and receiving affordable advice. "We want to start setting the agenda for super."
The big questions
Biggest break Getting the job at Friends Provident Tower in 1991, aged 31. It gave me the opportunity to move into senior management very quickly.
Biggest achievement The work I did at ASIC on the Managed Investments Act and the Financial Services Reform Act. It brought the industry and the regulator closer together.
Biggest regret Not spending more time with my dad before he died three years ago. I was in Hong Kong [when he was diagnosed with cancer]; he said not to come back for him. But I should have come back for me.
Best investment My kids [aged 19 and 21]. They're great adults, I don't have to worry about them. The other one is the houses I bought in Sydney and Perth.
Worst investment I bought some mining stocks when I was in a share market group at AMP. I spent $2000 and lost the lot. I had all my eggs in one basket and it's one of the best lessons I've learned.
Attitude to money When you are responsible for yourself and you look after other people [as a single mother and as an employer], you develop an enormous respect for the value of money.
Personal philosophy I always try to do the right thing by myself and other people. What is the gut feel? Does it actually feel right?
Best advice received If you're wrong, you take it on the chin. My dad taught me that.
First published by TheAge.com.au on March 26 2008
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