Most Influential: Pauline Vamos

PAULINE Vamos is pleased to have won the title of most influential person of the year in financial services — not so much for herself, but because she represents the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), a regulator that has had its problems with the industry in the past.

Nominated for her work in making the Financial Services Reform Act (FSRA) both comprehensible and workable for advisers, Vamos says her focus this year has been two-sided.

“Part of my role is to implement the infrastructure to assess licences. We have been building internal capabilities and I have been working on changing the culture within ASIC.”

Vamos has also been instrumental in improving communication between the regulator and the industry. She has been responsible for producing guides that explain the FSRA and speaks to the industry at least monthly, both at an association and adviser level.

“I’m trying to make sure the right questions are raised with the appropriate people in ASIC,” she says.

Vamos started in the industry with AMP. She went on to become a corporate lawyer with City Mutual and helped to introduce the Insurance Agents and Brokers Act. At one stage she owned a life agency and general insurance brokerage in partnership with her then husband.

“I sold insurance, I lived off it, I understand it,” she says.

Later she worked for Philips Fox as a litigation lawyer and following a divorce, moved to Friends Provident as an in-house lawyer. When Friends Provident became Tower Life, Vamos was made head of compliance and legal.

“Because of my diverse industry experience, I was made an offer from ASIC,” she says.

And the rest, as they say, is history.