Our People - Rachel Doblo (Group Managing Director)

Today IQ Capital is an award winning financial services firm that’s been operating for 14 years. What was your vision when you first set out?

I was a department manager at a successful mortgage business in Brisbane. We had a very strong customer service ethos and I built strong relationships with my clients. As a result I had many clients seeking advice from me in other areas of their financial welfare and quickly realised that the financial services sector was very compartmentalised and segmented. I saw that clients were often receiving contradictory advice from one professional to another, yet they needed access to all of these services in order to implement different parts of their overall strategy. I often saw clients become confused and frustrated with how many businesses they needed to deal with and ultimately give up on their strategy. I shared this frustration and set about creating a detailed business plan that incorporated all the services and professionals in one organisation offering a truly holistic and collaborative service where clients goals and objectives remains the focus of one aligned team. This became IQ Capital Group and the foundation of our service offering in the IQ Capital Blueprint.

What are the key components you feel have allowed you to take your vision and make it a reality?

As I had been at the coal face of this industry I understood from a clients perspective what they wanted. I also understood the idiosyncrasies of the complex regulatory environment that is financial services. My business plan made clear the service expectation of our clients and who was needed to be able to provide this to them. I then set about understanding the compliance and regulatory obligations in delivering this service in order to integrate these elements and create IQ Capital Group. 

Staying focussed and not deviating from my business plan way key then add to that definitely a lot of passion, drive and resilience that made it a reality. Many years have been invested in creating a collaborative team that share these core values and building trust in my executive team to deliver this service with the same conviction I have. The financial services sector is one of the most regulated industries in the world and we have experienced many challenges through market cycles, industry reviews and even a Royal Commission. It is important to me that we embrace regulatory changes as well as cultural shifts in the workplace. I am a very involved managing director and I believe we need to constantly evolve and grow in an ever changing landscape and instead of deviating from what we set out to provide to our clients we add to it through an ongoing commitment to growing and refining our services further. 

How has IQ Capital navigated the Covid crisis?

Firstly, understanding how it has affected our clients. Whilst some were immediately impacted others have been looking for opportunities. It is important to me that we understand the position of our clients and make sure they get the service they need. I am very pleased that on balance the vast majority of our clients are well placed to be able to navigate this volatile period. Like most of us, many of our clients are reflecting on what is important to them and are engaging with us in order to reset or adjust their immediate and long term goals. For some this is simply looking to refinance and take advantage of incredibly low interest rates, others are looking not only looking to take advantage of this but also see numerous government incentives as an opportunity to assist their children with their first home purchase for instance.

In order to be able to provide this ongoing service it was also important that our staff were comfortable and secure in their environments. We have obviously adhered to all advice regarding health & safety and made sure our workplace is above and beyond acceptable standards as well as discussing what our plans as a business are for the foreseeable future and continuity of service.

What does the future hold for IQ Capital?

I have been working for some time on a rebrand and refresh of IQ Capital Group. After being in business for over 14 years I felt it was time, then when Covid-19 came along we shelved the project for a period to focus on our clients but as the mood shifted from initial concern and confusion to one more introspective and hopeful the timing seemed perfect. For me it is a demonstration to both our clients and staff that we still take our brand and service seriously, that we still want to evolve and will continue to grow and are as committed as ever to our core values and the IQ Capital blueprint.

Whilst this is an extremely challenging period for many of us I truly believe it is also a period for strong ethical companies to grow, compound their service and status in their arena and engage with new clients as well as nurture our existing. IQ Capital group is one of these companies.

With this in mind we continue to review our service offering and will introduce new products and services as we move forward. We also never rule out expanding into other service areas and will engage with our clients on what they need or ask of us and continue to look at what else we may have to offer or believe we can improve. At the end of the day the genesis of IQ Capital Group was in recognising the lack of and need for a better option.