Brien Mahoney celebrates 50 years at Guardian Trust

Brien Mahoney celebrates 50 years at Guardian Trust

They say the average person will have between six and seven careers in their lifetime today. It is not often you hear of someone who has held the same career for 50 years, and less likely for it to be with the same company. Brien Mahoney started working at Guardian Trust straight out of high school, aged only 16. In his final year of school he would trawl the newspapers looking for a job and it was a position advertised by Guardian Trust that caught his eye; largely due to the different job description it offered.

He says that from where he is now, “it seems like yesterday” he started with the company.

The chartered accountant was encouraged to move around the country to improve his career prospects at an early stage of his career. This became a highlight of his time with Guardian Trust as he shifted with his wife and three children around New Zealand.

For Brien, the favourite aspect of all his roles at Guardian Trust has always been the direct contact with clients. Even as he moved into management roles, it was this contact with clients that he loved. Trust relationships are often enduring, being passed down through generations; as a result, some of his current clients have been with him since the beginning and span three generations.

“The business is essentially a relationship business,” he says. “Fronting and being involved at a personal level with clients, is where I have always been most happy.”

Learning has not come to an end for Brien, who has had to adapt to industry and technology changes throughout his time at Guardian Trust. Just last year Brien went “back to school” and completed qualifications to become a registered Authorised Financial Advisor; a qualification that has now become mandatory for financial advisors.

As a young man starting out at Guardian Trust, the company put Brien through a one month programme at Outward Bound. Little did he know at the time, that this course was going to start a lifetime love for the outdoors. A keen mountaineer and climber, Brien has climbed around the world, exploring along the way. Inspired so much by what the programme offered, he went on to Chair the Outward Bound Trust and is still a trustee to this day, which is also complimentary to his line of work.

With no immediate plans to clock out anytime soon, the process of slowing down is eventually inevitable.

“I can look back at my 50 year association with Guardian Trust as an arrangement where I think value has been given and value has been received. Our honours are even and I could walk away and feel happy with what has happened at both sides,” he says.

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