What will your legacy be?

By Daven Moldrich, retired Westpac banker, currently mentoring. 

Tell us about your career, Daven.

I started at the Bank of NSW, (which later became Westpac), in 1973. I then had nearly 40 years with Westpac in multiple areas of the Bank. The beauty of the size of Westpac is the wide range of diverse roles I was able to take on.  My roles ranged from being a Corporate Manger, Regional Commercial Manager, Head of HR in Corporate & Institutional, Private Bank Director and Head of Sales for Corp Super. Across the roles I was heavily involved in people leadership, customer sales and strategy. I also enjoyed an 8 year external stint with a Trustee Company, primarily as their General Manager HR and Sales before heading back to Westpac.

What did you do during the retirement phase at Westpac?

When I decided to retire in 2016, at 61, I thought it was the end of my career. However, one of the GM’s approached me to work out a way in which I could continue helping the Bank connect with BT products and the benefit to their business customers. I negotiated a consultant role working my own hours, providing individual one on one coaching to bankers on how to get to know their customers better. I thoroughly enjoyed doing this for 4 years and then Covid hit.

What do you gain from the mentoring work you still do?

As well as the coaching, for a number of years I had taken a number of Bankers under my wing to mentor them. Primarily my goal was to take smart individuals and help them become the best of what they can be. Mentoring has been my way of giving back to an organisation that gave me so much in terms of my career, friendships and personal growth. Being able to help individuals grow and achieve both personal and career goals is deeply rewarding. Mentoring has become “My Legacy” and I love being able to use my 40 plus years of experience to help others. I love it and though my retirement years, it continues to keep my mind active.

What 3 bits of advice would you give people who are nearing retirement?

Firstly, see retirement as your third stage of life after education, career/family. Embrace it as a new phase with countless opportunities to explore what you really want to do.

Next, work out your own legacy and how can you help. This could be for individuals or businesses. You have built up so much experience and knowledge and regardless of what you think, people and organisations want to capture that experience and knowledge to help guide them.

The above 2 points are the “what”. And the third tip is to build the “how”. Make a plan for yourself, talk it over with others and don’t over engineer it. Keep it simple.