Duncan Hughes

I live in Sydney now, but I grew up and went to school in Newcastle. I came from a Christian family, went to private Christian schools, and got to Year 12 having been very sheltered and protected. I realised that I was well-placed for leadership in the sixth grade when I was voted school captain—and then voted school captain again in high school.

After high school, I got a civil engineering degree, mostly because I always wanted to be an architect. I was good at maths and physics, but I worried that I wasn’t artistic enough to be an architect; I didn’t think I could dream up the things I admired. I chose engineering for the opportunity to work on design projects but using my analytical, numbers background. 

I really struggled halfway through university. I’m a gay man, and at the time, I wasn’t out by any means. I was struggling with my sexual identity and my mind was not on uni. The last few years were a real grind – it took me 5 years to do a 4-year degree, but I got there in the end.

After uni, I started working at a small engineering firm and did a lot of design for Westfield shopping centres. I flew all around Australia doing that sort of stuff, but I actually didn’t really like it. I went through a period where I wasn’t very happy. 

I started confiding in my best friend Jayden Cheers, who worked in finance at Allianz (and has since married my sister!). I told him I wanted to do something different but didn’t know what. He encouraged me to explore the world of finance.

Duncan and Jayden 

At the time, it was really scary to turn away from engineering and start from scratch. There are a lot of engineers in family; my dad, my uncle, two of my cousins.  I’m lucky to have had the support of my family because I went from living at home in Newcastle with mum and dad, to moving to Sydney on a starting salary, trying to make it work. I didn’t want to start from the bottom, but that was what I had to do. 

Jayden ended up introducing me to Tommy Lim, from SF Capital in Sydney. Tommy gave me my first job in his business as a finance analyst and he trained me up to become a broker. Next, I joined eChoice as an in-house broker and that’s where I really found my love for teaching and mentoring. I helped new brokers, helped with policy, and I really enjoyed that aspect of the role, to a point where I enjoyed that more than writing my own business. 

Duncan in his broking days with Tommy Lim of SF Capital

Being able to share knowledge with people is special and important to me. I get a lot of enjoyment out of other people’s success, more than my own (although I do enjoy my own, too). Where I can support someone and see them succeed, that gives me a lot of fulfillment.

And that eventually led to me becoming a BDM. I always thought I would quite enjoy being a BDM; I really looked up to my BDMs as a new broker and appreciated how much they helped me. Broking’s not easy, but if you have good BDM support, it can make you look like a superstar to your customer. 

I saw a BDM job opportunity with Suncorp Bank in June 2021 and called straight in for an interview, then got the job.

Then-State Manager in NSW John Finucane asked me: ‘Why do you want to do this? You’ve got an engineering, broking background’…But I realised I didn’t want to be bro