Episode 47: From Fashion to FinTech, Heather Anne Hubbell: Phundex
In Episode 47, Caroline talks to Heather Anne Hubbell, a serial entrepreneur and experienced strategy consultant. Heather Anne founded the FinTech platform Phundex, a central collaboration platform she set up in \ April 2020. It focuses on managing transactions and activities in real-time with the whole team, working with stakeholders both within and outside the organisation. It centralises and streamlines processes and cuts out inherent risk, ensuring data integrity, effective communication dealing with administration and reporting to all interested parties.
Episode Transcript
00:00.00
carolinesclub
This is episode 47 of how to keep your money I'm Caroline Garnham a private client lawyer specializing in international trusts and succession planning I set up Caroline's club as an interdisciplinary club of private client professionals where networking works. It's a space where we can listen learn from each other and connect with professionals. We would like to work with I'm joined remotely by Heather and hubble I hope I've pronounced that correctly, a serious entrepreneur and experienced strategy consultant There is so much that can be said about Heather Ann that I thought I would start with where she is now and then work backwards Heather Ann is the founder of the fintech platform fundex which is a central collaboration platform. She set up in April Two Thousand and twenty it focuses on managing transactions and activities in real time with the whole team working with stakeholders both within the organization and outside its centrallines centralizes and streamlines processes and cuts out inherent operational risk. Ensuring data integrity effective communication dealing with administration and reporting to all interested parties. It's ideal for startups professional services trust funds management and administration wealth and asset management venture capital and family.
01:32.21
carolinesclub
Office businesses Heather Ann welcome to how to keep your money you say your mission is for fundex to become the single de facto platform to do business and manage transactions across the investment cycle tell me more about this marvelous mission and vision you have for fundex.
01:51.52
Heather_Anne Hubbell
Thank you very much. Um I spent years working on Multi-jurisdictional transactions with lots of counterparties and many of that started when we were doing it with emails so managing the processes and those.
01:52.20
carolinesclub
I.
02:07.30
Heather_Anne Hubbell
Keeping track of where the documents were could be mind-boggling at times and how often did a document get lost. Oh I didn't see that email or werossed so I thought wouldn't it be cool if we could centralize and create a place to manage all of that and give everybody some transparency and clarity on what was happening. And so fundex was born. It's meant to be business. Friendly. It was made designing it as a business person. Not a tech person giving you a central place to do board minute preparation closing a transactioning acquiring a business bringing on clients. Um. And all the information's in 1 spot documents um data forms. You can even use it as a virtual due diligence room.
02:53.42
Heather_Anne Hubbell
Importantly, we designed it to make sure that organizations that have regulatory obligations can meet those around their data management control who can see what in the documents it doesn't matter if the team member is an external advisor. Or an internal team member. It gives you the opportunity to make sure everything's all in 1 spot and what we felt was if everybody knew they could go there to manage their own transactions and work on client transactions that'd be really cool. So that's our vision for fundex.
03:22.70
carolinesclub
Wow, That's pretty impressive and did you do all the building the tech yourself or did you hide it in or.
03:29.30
Heather_Anne Hubbell
Ah, no, we have an amazing tech partner and who have created a robust platform that's got full security so that we know that it's safe for our clients and who have been incredible from a user experience. Perspective. We worked with some really interesting people in the business world and asked questions about what it is that they wanted to see and how they wanted to do things So It's user driven in terms of how we designed it and how we continue to make changes to it.
03:56.68
carolinesclub
So your real challenges was to get your vision across to your web developer which is I heard from experience.
04:01.77
Heather_Anne Hubbell
Yeah, the the and then the the bigger challenge was actually working out what we wanted to do to manage the data and give the permissions for all kinds of people to access the platform and for it to be smart enough to know. Is this me accessing my things or is this me accessing somebody else's on their behalf as part of their team and then and then it was let's make it easy for people to use it because if it's tech then you don't want people think it's tech. They just want to think this is making it easier for me to do my business.
04:29.10
carolinesclub
Well my hat's off to you I Tell you you say that you're a tiny family office and like to work with like-minded clients and business partners who work together and support each other whether financially emotionally or strategically. This is not either either. This is not easy either tell me more about this ethos.
04:49.45
Heather_Anne Hubbell
No, it's not yeah so we want to work with people who are like that us you support and respect each other's businesses get to know them as individuals and look for ways to work together collaboratively. Um. No matter what kind of operation you do or kind of business you're in and you know it it could be as simple as supporting a colleague who's got some family stresses to deal with or it may be a business-related issue and we think about our network as ah as an ecosystem. Not about checks and balances but really pivotally, it's about long-term relationships and they may never involve into a transaction or a deal but that's okay, even just being able to say to someone Gee. You know you should talk to so-and-so so making those introductions or. You need a sounding board I'm happy to do that can be really rewarding for everybody. We may never close a financial transaction but we gain measurably by working with people and ideally becoming friends. You know Carolyn when it's your own business. You tend to work really long hours. So hard to do that when you're working with people that you like to work with and just this past weekend we did a brainstorming session with some colleagues out of out of the country and they raised an issue and we kind of thought about it and within 15 minutes we'd come up with a really cool solution. That's the power of a collegiate and collaborative network.
06:20.67
Heather_Anne Hubbell
That's how we like to work.
06:20.85
carolinesclub
I Like this is this theme. You've brought up about working with friends. There's ah, there's a part of my training program which I've just finished the cpcp training program where I say that it's sometimes business transactions Involve disputes. And sometimes sometimes luckily in my experience not very often and hopefully less than than more you've got to walk away. Um, so you've got to keep a little bit back rather than you know come around for drink and and I'm going to pour out my heart to you and you're going to be a my buddy.
06:55.50
Heather_Anne Hubbell
Yeah, yeah, there's there's a balance there you you iteratively evolved those relationships. We've got a friend now that we were introduced to in a business environment and had a couple of business meetings with them. And then worked out that actually we didn't want to do business with them because it didn't work for either of us. But we've become really good friends so that's ah, a scenario where what was a business networking event actually drove a personal friendship and yes, you're right? You do have to maintain some um. Separation between personal and business particularly when you're working on transactions where we see it working. Best is you've closed a transaction. It's worked well and you think Gee I really enjoyed working with that person. Maybe we should do something socially as well. It's a balance. We've been doing it a long time. So we think we've got it right? Most of the time ever once in a while. Doesn't work quite the way you expected. But then you do a level set reset and think okay, let's let's get back on track now.
07:54.46
carolinesclub
You say you're ah you are a reformed lawyer and risk manager and still you started your career in the fashion industry which incidentally I had my first job in fashion but not quite as extensiveibly as you did um.
08:00.51
Heather_Anne Hubbell
Um.
08:08.80
Heather_Anne Hubbell
I Love that.
08:10.94
carolinesclub
But that's that's my first job after reading psychology at university tell me a little bit about this journey.
08:17.37
Heather_Anne Hubbell
Yeah, it's it's one I get asked quite quite regularly so back in the myths of time I actually studied and worked in toronto in the fashion industry I went to a poll attack. Um, and i. Loved the design and the color and the buzz around it we were right there in the industry learning about it. But I really quickly realized that actually I was much better at the business side. Um, and so that's the side I concentrated on but the lessons I learned about. Design and color and presentation have been building blocks for everything I've done since then and I've applied them in some crazy places. Um, at 1 point in law I ended up using it to help put together packages for a class action suit to make them easier for people to read and understand. Guess in those days I learned to tell a story and I've continued to do that in the intervening years after I had my first child I set up an independent fashion consultancy and then I morphed into helping my husband with his business which was a real estate development business seemingly nothing to do with that and then that morphed into a law career. Working in private practice and in-house. Um and working out ways to do that more efficiently even though it was pretty paper heavy in those days and and thinking about what did I do presentationally in those early days that I can make it this stuff that I'm doing a lot a little bit more interesting that then moved into an independent risk rule.
09:44.78
Heather_Anne Hubbell
Within a bank and the first thing we started doing was how can we make this easier and simpler and be more consistent globally and then fast forward to the financial crisis and consulting became a really interesting place to be it sounds like a strange. Set of steps to go but I've always looked on the basis of if someone offers me an interesting role there I think I can learn something that sounds like a really good opportunity I'm going to go for it rather than putting together a standard career path and saying this is the way I'm meant to do it Obviously that's given me a breadth of experience that. Someone wouldn't normally have as a former lawyer.
10:25.39
carolinesclub
Well I must say you're not, You're not scared of stepping out of your comfort zone which is a.
10:31.98
Heather_Anne Hubbell
But you can't be really you you can't be you have to It's a it's a truism for many years ago. Um, when we were doing hiring you know, ah a fellow would apply for a job if he had 4 or 5 out of the 10 things that required and figured he could you know make the rest of them work. A woman wouldn't apply for anything unless they had 8 ight nine or 10 of the 10 items on the list and I started really early saying go for broke. go for big go bigger go home what's the worst you can do is be told no, then you can ask why and figure out how to do it the next time.
11:03.39
carolinesclub
Well done I applaud that and you've worked for global financial institutions such as eylloyd's banking group city and rubber bank as well as private clients and regulators in numerous countries focus on. Focusing on structured finance international capital market transactions risk regulatory compliance as well as running your own consultancy hubble ventures limited in both Jersey and the Uk working for big firms has its pros and cons as does working in smaller companies. And in your own firm tell us about your experiences of the highs and lows um and and what can you share with us.
11:52.44
Heather_Anne Hubbell
Um, well working with large firms gives you great opportunity for training and working on really big deals that you might not otherwise get to in smaller organizations. You get the advantage of working with some really experienced colleagues. Um all over the world and. There's a bit of a safety net if things don't go according to plan. There's usually somebody else. You can bring in There's a team you can bring in or there's somebody who's done it before and seen it going sideways and can say hey wait hang on in a second this is where you need to go so those are big big picture tickets I've done some really interesting jobs and I've ended up working all over the globe. Sounds really glamorous to be on a plane three weeks out of 4 it's really not um, but sometimes being physically in with the teams in their location is the things that makes the difference and in a big organization that's possible to do downside on on a big organization is you might have less flexibility. Because there's certain criteria requirements that you have to do if it's a regulated entity. There may be things that you you have to focus on in a particular way or can't do because of ah of a regulatory requirement. So there's some. It's it's slightly more difficult in some respects to to um. Be independent and to drive things forward the way you want to I've worked on some amazing transformations for some of the largest organizations in the world often finding it pretty physically demanding exhausting even times.
13:22.26
Heather_Anne Hubbell
Given mistakes but incredibly rewarding to see complex things come together with huge numbers of people that's really you know there's there's a plus and a minus of that. It's positive and negative at the same time you get a great learning experience and so I encourage anybody who's got the opportunity to spend at least a few years during their career working with a big. Company to understand the pros and cons themselves and see what you can take from there. Um smaller organizations give you more ability to influence how the business is run take a bigger part in the decision making. You may or may not be exposed to such large deals but you've got a bigger role. There's more you can do you can feel like you're making a bigger difference in the organization on the other hand, there's less quote unquote air cover if something goes awry you probably have to fix it yourself. Um. But there's more flexibility about how you solve those challenging those challenges it's um, it's demanding in a different way. You're more personally and emotionally invested in the business in some ways because you've got. Um, a bigger stake in it or you've got more exposure in the organization. But when things go well, it's clear. You're the one who made the difference and that can be quite quite satisfying going from there to your own business. You've got all of the great things that your own boss you get to make the decisions.
14:49.37
Heather_Anne Hubbell
But you and your team and their families or your responsibility. So You've got a lot of of balls to keep in the air and in many cases you're making big decisions for your clients and so it's really important for them that you're doing the right thing as Well. It's exhilarating demanding. Scary rewarding all at the same time. Um, and I think that at some point in your career. You should try and do a business of your own even if it's only a short period of time because it helps you bring out things you didn't expect or you could do.
15:23.38
carolinesclub
Well I concur with every single one of those comments large organizations and the small and your own. Um I could add to that as well. Let's have a little look. You've provided director and governance training to regulated fund administration. Trust company and corporate services business in Jersey and globally for the past five years including a specialist practitioner training trainer with a school of international financial services and a specialist trainer with bpp teaching a subject demands. Not only that you know about the subject. But understand it in depth tell me a bit about your experience experience as a trainer.
16:06.83
Heather_Anne Hubbell
It's interesting I don't actually see myself as a trainer. Um I'm typically working asked to help people with governance and directorship questions and I like to focus on the topics that I understand but are important to me. That I have a ah passionate view about and that ideally I've done myself. Um I think of it as helping share experiences that I've had importing importing information that I've got and helping people take advantage of that experience. Um. To know what things have worked well and hopefully avoiding things that haven't worked that maybe will be issues for them. Um, you know teaching somebody what they need to as a director can be pretty dry and I try not to be so dry about I try and give practical examples I actually was doing.
16:50.86
carolinesclub
So.
16:59.42
Heather_Anne Hubbell
Session this morning with a client here in Jersey in person with a board and it it went all over the place we knew we had topics. We want to cover but we managed to cover them in a way that made sense for them and I think when you really understand. And have lived that dream so to speak it makes it much easier for you to offer that support and guidance and training in a way that is is immediately beneficial to the folks that were part of it. In fact, as we were sitting in this session. They came up with something and I said and that could be this and they went. Oh. We never thought about that. Actually maybe we could deal with that this way and so during the course of a 2 hour session they came up with 2 things not that they were new in the session. They just hadn't put them together in the same way that they were going to go away and try to so to solve a challenge that they had. And I thought to myself great that I've I've done something today I've given them something positive. They can take away from They don't feel like they've been stuck in a room for 2 hours listening to something that's really boring and they've actually spent some time together as a group learning about it without he actually realizing they were learning about it.
18:05.95
carolinesclub
And.
18:07.90
Heather_Anne Hubbell
Sharing thoughts talking about ideas and actually solving some things they hadn't realized that either. They had a problem with or had no idea how they should deal with so it's pretty satisfying.
18:15.54
carolinesclub
Excellent now this is the bit where I'm not going to spare your blushes Heather what stands out about you is the extensive and glowing recommendations you have received from fellow practitioners. With whom you have worked and who have enjoyed working with you Dr. Colin Lawrence who was a client of yours says that you are an outstanding program manager and have been a perfect implementer of translating the strategy into a clearly defined project plan. You have excellent so ski over the lot ski stakeholders. So I can't say that ah stakeholder skills manages the program within budget and can adapt to changing circumstances. Clive Stanton who reported to you has said I am endorsing Heather Anne particularly for her strategic planning and business transformation experience. Although there are many more endorsements on Linkedin and you can look at them yourself I will mention just 1 further endorsement from Bernadette Vla who said Heather Ann is a joy to work with and for. She combines professionalism and pragmatism with strong risk business knowledge and ability to deliver Heather and these are our great endorsements. Are you able to give us some tips on how to get the best out of team members and clients to get these sorts of glowing reports.
19:47.44
Heather_Anne Hubbell
Um, so first of all I would never ask somebody to do something that I wouldn't do myself and I make it very clear to people I'm working with I'll roll up my sleeves and dig in just like they will and we're there as a team together. There's no I in team I know it's trite. But actually it does make a difference and I approach every project transaction with what is each person trying to get out of this and how can we make sure that not only do we close the deal or finish the process but everybody learns something in the process and. Has a bit of fun if they can too. Um, you may have seen that video clip of Obama in the middle of ah of ah, a political event that was going on stopping to ask the janitor in the building. How things were going. That's my approach. I want to know that the people in working with whether that my colleagues or my clients feel like it's a safe environment to work in. They're supported making it a better place for them to work. Um working out if they're having a good day or a bad day and whether there's anything we can do to help that. And that if there's things we need to consider this came out long before diversity and inclusion. But you know are there factors. We need to think about to make it easier for people to work with us or work for us and really making people feel that they could trust that I I knew what needed to be done from a leadership perspective.
21:19.83
Heather_Anne Hubbell
But it was willing to give them the opportunity to do the work themselves empowering them to make decisions making sure they understood what that remit was and being there to support them. Um, in some cases. It was giving a bit of air cover if they felt they needed it. In other cases. It was supporting from the background someone who maybe wasn't quite where they needed to be but could be and giving them that little push up without making it obvious to everybody else. Um, it's really important that that works for the clients as well and clients come back because they feel comfortable about that. Um.
21:37.98
carolinesclub
Um.
21:56.68
Heather_Anne Hubbell
But you don't see on Linkedin is something that I'm actually really proud of and it's going to sound a little odd I think but a number of times in my career I've unfortunately had the experience of having to let somebody go either because of performance issues or because of economic circumstances. And I've always taken the approach that as I'm in the management team I know early. What's going to happen. So if it's somebody who's really not performing where they need to I'll be sitting down and saying look. Let's take a look at how things are going. How do you feel? It's going. Do you feel like you're getting everything you need and. But do you understand what goods looks like so that when you're being asked to do something you know what it is. You're trying to provide working through that and I've had a few people we've had to put on some kind of a performance review and we've actually sat down and set out a plan and we've worked through the key things I've sat down with them every single month. On the day we said we would and looked at it and told them how they're doing and people have transparency am I doing okay am I not doing okay is there something else I can be doing and what does that good look like I can. Honestly say of all of the people that I've ever had to let go whether they didn't make it through their probation period and sometimes very senior roles or whether they just didn't make it through performance review or we had to let people go because of economic circumstances.
23:22.89
Heather_Anne Hubbell
There's only 1 person I've ever done that with who I no longer speak to everybody else has I've maintained as a business colleague have come to me for mentoring and advice and I think would be happy to say they enjoyed working with me even if. The end of that circumstance wasn't quite where they expected it to be for me that means I must be doing something right.
23:46.79
carolinesclub
Well done Heather and I think that's ah, that's well worth worthy of ah applause. Um, what a person.
23:54.12
Heather_Anne Hubbell
Ah I sorry Kar I'm just over speaking I where I I find that spending that time nurturing a business relationship skills development in your team making sure that people are good at working together whether it's internally or with clients. It's pivotal to my approach and while some people might say look it's that's not bottom line actually for me, it makes the difference on whether I'm enjoying work and the people I work with are enjoying what we're doing and that's pivotal.
24:26.38
carolinesclub
You like living in Jersey so ah, allegedly according to locate Jersey it is a place where you do not need to lock your home or your car. Although you've lived and worked in Canada and the UK where you raised 2 children.
24:26.77
Heather_Anne Hubbell
Yes I do.
24:37.13
Heather_Anne Hubbell
True.
24:44.27
carolinesclub
You now live and work in Jersey tell me a bit about Heather and the person juggling home and work commitments and why you choose to live in Jersey.
24:54.22
Heather_Anne Hubbell
Um I spoke spent most of my early career as a working mom. Um, and in those days there wasn't work from home and working remotely. You were either in the office or you weren't it was challenging but I was lucky enough to work with family businesses or. My own where I could flex and have a little bit more ability to start a bit later or finish a little bit earlier around um child care and child illnesses and so on that made it easier for me I also made decisions about where we lived so i. Qualified as a lawyer in a community. The largest community outside of Toronto and when it came time to learning to to qualifying as a lawyer itself. All of my friends said oh you've got to go to Toronto. You're wasting your time to stay here and I said no I started law school with a husband and 2 children. I'm going to finish up my career as a lawyer with a husband and 2 children I don't feel I can do that by moving to Toronto will never see my kids so I took a pause around what I was doing I qualified as a lawyer I got great quality work but I wasn't commuting an hour each way every day and I spent time with my kids when they were fairly young. I've also been incredibly fortunate that my husband has shared the load not always at the same time and we joke that we have taken turns being Mr or Mrs Mom or dad over the course of time sometimes this is your year or years sometimes this is my year or years. Um, we spent.
26:27.45
Heather_Anne Hubbell
Kids early years in Canada and they grew up in a community of 350000 people so we moved to the Uk I said I don't want them to live in London because they won't have the access they would have had um that gave them the ability to do what they wanted to do and dad was there for them meant that I commuted long hours. But everybody got together and spent time on the weekend. So we we took that time as parents and as as work to make sure that we each had the opportunity to move our careers forward and the kids understood it was a partnership and they got to see each of us doing things we wanted to do. They saw. Some of the sacrifices we all made but also the benefits we got together and I think when I watch them now as as working adults raising their own families I see that same ethos which is pretty satisfying. Um, we moved to Jersey about six years ago because we got an offer an opportunity and we could do the same kind of work we were doing in the yeah Uk but instead of that hour commute into London it was. It's a 20 minute walk we also love the community ethos. It really reminds us of when we were doing business in the 80 s and 90 s in Canada Networking and referrals you have a coffee with somebody and they say oh you must speak with so-and-so so and they actually pick up their phone and call them or send them an email and say you must speak to so- and so and sometimes before you finish your coffee. You've got a meeting in the diary with the next person this is so lined with their ethos.
27:59.73
Heather_Anne Hubbell
Actually felt like we were coming home when we moved to Jersey.
28:03.12
carolinesclub
That's absolutely charming Heather and thank you I'd love to speak more with you. But I think we're we're running out of time which is a great disappointment for me. It's been lovely to have you on how to keep your money It has been a pleasure to speak with you. You and I have many things in common starting out in fashion advising on governance and importing knowledge and experience with others whereas Heather Ann speaks with directors and corporate governance governance I'm keen that all private client practitioners. Learn how to use tried and tested psychological techniques I have that led to earn more and more so that you can earn more and work less when recently launched Cpcp accreditation program. If you've won an award and would like to be interviewed on our award-winning podcast series please contact me at Caroline at caroline's.club you'll get a free membership trial and introductory discounts for your colleagues and contacts. But you do not need to have won an award to become a member find out more by visiting. Caroline's Dot Club website Heather and thank you so much for talking to me. Thank you and you.
29:13.43
Heather_Anne Hubbell
Caroline. It's been my pleasure. Thank you very much have a great rest of your day.
