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 broking for the rest of my life. I have a big love for the finance industry and brokers are my people, so if I get to speak to brokers and support brokers, that’s where I feel comfortable and that’s what I really enjoy. I started at Suncorp Bank as an office-based BDM and progressed to a fully-fledged BDM within the business.
Duncan with Suncorp Bank NSW State Manager Abe Mathew
I want to stay in the BDM space and I’m interested in some kind of leadership role in the future. I look up to our state manager Abe Mathew and the journey he’s been on. He was a BDM for a long time, and he followed the right people in his career; Head of Broker Partnerships at Suncorp Bank Troy Fedder, as an example.
When it comes to what fulfills me outside of work, I love coming home to my partner Anthony and our Golden Retriever and making dinner. I love cooking – my friend and I were even selected to film a segment for a season of ‘My Kitchen Rules’ but unfortunately the series was cancelled at the time. When it relaunched, the timing didn’t work for us to participate.
Duncan and his partner, Anthony
Besides cooking, I have another passion project that started with my brother having his own doubts about his future career path. One day, I asked what would make him happy and he told me he’s always loved coffee. I ended up encouraging him to set up his own business, selling cold brew coffee. He’s got a food science background; he set up a lab and distributed to fairs and markets around Newcastle. In 2015, we opened a café in Newcastle called ‘HuBro’ – which is short for ‘Hughes brothers’.
And it all ties into our family history. My great-grandfather and his brother moved from Scotland to Newcastle and together they built their fortune as businessmen. Their business name? HuBro. So we pulled the logo off their old toolbox and revived the name.
Duncan and his brother, Tim, outside of HuBro café in Newcastle
It was really cool to see that come to fruition and be a community-focused café, supporting local. Although I wasn’t actively working in the shop, when I was broking in Newcastle, I used to take my clients and meet them there. So I treated HuBro as my office–sort of a Newcastle ‘Finance & Coffee’ situation 😊
Seeing something we’d created together, seeing dogs and surfers out the front, loving it. That gives me a lot of pride that we were able to do that.
The aspects of the coffee shop reflect the things I love about supporting brokers - working with them to create something for their customers.
