John Hicks

Founder and Independent Financial Adviser

My name is John Hicks and was fortunate enough to grow up in England (about 30 miles from London) before going to a historic university and emigrating to Australia in 2006.  

I was always a finance nerd as a child, saving hard and buying my first shares at the age of 12. I have also had a high level of empathy and with hindsight, realise it was probably always my path to end up in a role where the focus is both on understanding what really matters to people and using finance to empower them.  

After University (Economics), I enjoyed an initial foray into accounting which gave me solid foundations but didn’t feel right as a career for me and then I stumbled across financial planning. Accounting had been more about looking back and adding up how people had already used their money but financial planning wasn’t like this. It was about looking at forward to plan for the future by taking control of the things you could still change, I loved it. 

I started my financial planning career officially in 2007 at a small practice with a strong strategy focus in Canberra. We worked with a wide range of people with a focus on retirement advice. I subsequently moved to Melbourne and was able to work at two much larger practices with particular emphasis on Self Managed Super Fund (SMSF) advice and small-to-medium sized business advice.

After 17 years experience in in financial services, I opened my own independent advice practice away from some of the pressures I came to believe were not aligned with giving the best advice.

Outside of work, I am happily married with a fast-growing child. With my personal time, I am a keen follower of Crystal Palace in the EPL, an avid fiction reader and ardent lover of great “street food”.