My Net Worth: Adrienne Begbie, managing director, Prospa

Adrienne Begbie has more than 18 years of industry experience in small and medium-sized enterprises, banking, sales management, management, insurance, and loans in places ranging from London to Sydney. Her role at business lender Prospa enables her to have an in-depth insight into the New Zealand small business world, understand what makes small-to-medium sized businesses tick, what keeps them up at night and what the current trends and sentiments are. She lives in Auckland with her husband and three sons.

I grew up in Greymouth, so I'm a West Coast girl. The funny thing about coming from Greymouth and now living in Auckland is it kind of gives me credibility around the country. When I go to conferences or have speaking engagements, I get people assuming I’m a Jafa, and then they think it’s awesome when they find out I’m a Coaster.

There are 11 of us kids in our family. I was one of the three born to our parents, and then my parents started adopting when we three were just littlies. As we were the oldest, the way we conducted our lives was the big kids looked out for the little kids. 

When I was little, I always wanted to be a nurse because my mum was a nurse, and also because of all of the good things that you think about to do with that role, such as helping babies. But then I discovered that blood comes with the job, and I can't do blood.

Growing up, there were always people running around and the house was full of people. My mum's one of nine as well, so we had lots of cousins, aunties and uncles and grandparents.

I left Grey when I was 17 and moved to Napier. I lived with my aunt initially, and then decided to go to England with my other aunty when I was 19. I lived in Kent and got involved in business. I was at that time in freight forwarding and just worked my way up. 

When I came back to NZ, I got into mortgages. I was about 26 and was running a mortgage company and then went to work for Genworth Financial. I was there for 11 years. They took me to Australia as they were looking for people to run the distribution team. 

After a while there, though, I wanted to come home. I had two kids by then and one day, my big boy said to me, “Dants with me, mama”, in such a strong Australian accent. I told him we don’t say dants, we say dahnce. That was the driver to come back.

One of my customers at the time was Resimac, which dealt in home loans. They had bought a business here but weren't going to run it, so they put a proposal to me and I ran that business for eight years in NZ. It’s very successful today.

Then Prospa found me and asked if I could do for them in NZ what I’d done for Resimac.

I love Auckland. I've worked all over England, and lived in Sydney for some years. But I love it here. It's a small city – although New Zealanders don't look at it that way – and it's beautiful. So close to all the water, the beach is always nearby, and, generally, if you can work around the traffic jams, you can get anywhere.

My oldest boy is 18 and has finished school now, but I used to read his school reports and think, "Oh goodness, they’re exactly like mine were." Teachers used to write that I always achieved and did well at school, but could have done so much better if I had applied myself and studied more.

I was always part of a gang when I was growing up. And I was always a leader from very early on as well. I think that was probably driven by mum and dad having all the [adopted] kids and us. By the time they had all the kids, we older ones were driving, so we would take them everywhere. We would check out the sports and parties and things. So I think that leadership part started very early.

My parents taught me about the humane part of life. My mum was in the social welfare and nursing environment, and dad used to work in the railways. My grandad was in the Stockton mines and my nan, she was a poker player and was also one of the top NZ dart players. 

My parents didn’t really teach me a lot about money. They never had any. I think dealing with money is something we've had to learn and we continue to learn; I wish I could have learned about the share market and all that stuff early on. 

Empathy, kindness and actually working with people and treating people like people – that’s what my family taught me.

I do everything fast, and I think a lot of that just comes from my upbringing and the businesses I've been involved in. 

I'm also a bit of a Pollyanna, so I do have an optimistic view on the world and tend to be positive rather than negative as to what's going on.

I’ve really had only three main jobs throughout my career, and all three have given me the profile that gets me approached for positions. I haven't applied for a job since I was 26 and I’m 52 now. Every business that I've worked in, I have built up, and I've left it in a great position, and that's why I get targeted for new roles.

One thing I tell a lot of young ones with social media and things today is to protect your brand. NZ is small, and so is Australia. So you protect your brand and do the right thing and it will always come back to you.

But also as a woman, and as a woman in business, you've got to put yourself first. If you're not looking after yourself physically, and mentally, and having your friends, your family and support around you, then nothing else is going to go right. So you've got to make sure that you exercise, make sure you eat well, look after yourself, and then everything else will follow.

The aspect I love the most about NZ is the people. I've worked in London, Kent and Sydney, and when I came home from Australia, I realised how easy it is to do business here – if I want to talk to the CEO, I just ring them myself. It's so easy to get in front of people. 

People here are lovely. Yes, there are some horrible ones, but generally people are down to earth. They’ll talk with you, they’ll come up with ideas to do things, and it's just so much easier to do business in this environment.

As told to Ella Somers. This interview had been edited for clarity.