Invast Global, an Australia based multi asset class prime brokerage and financial services provider recently made public that it has a new Director for its prime brokerage services. Invast Global is a wholly owned subsidiary of Japan headquartered financial service provider Invast Securities Co., Ltd. The firm made public via an article published in Australian business and finance newspaper The Australian Financial Review that it has hired former Rugby player and commentator Rod Kafer to serve as the director of its prime brokerage services. However, it should be noted that this is not Mr. Kafer’s first rodeo into financial services market as he served as proprietary traders before starting his career in sports industry as professional rugby player. It is not Mr. Kafer’s first high level managerial role either as he has served in capacity of Managing Director for two of the firms co-founded by him for a total duration of more than 9 years. While the move was made public by the firm and achieved more attention owing to its release in financial daily newspaper, it was first revealed to public via changes made to Mr. Kafer’s LinkedIn profile.
He had commented about his new role in LinkedIn stating, “I have enjoyed the game of rugby as a player, coach and commentator for over 30 years, I am now delighted to be working with the innovative and entrepreneurial Prime Broker team at Invast Global. Delighted to have had the opportunity to join a rapidly growing, innovative group at Invast Global, an alternative Prime Broker. Its a great business, an even better team, destined for great things and I am looking forward to contributing”. Rod Kafer quit his position with Rugby Australia earlier this year in the month of April and has taken a break for couple of months before focusing on his re-entry into financial services industry. Speaking about his new role at the firm during an interview with Australian financial newspaper, Rod commented that he wasn’t “even contemplating it” before his conversation with Invast Global’s CEO Gavin White hinting that he had never thought about re-entering financial services market post quitting his job at Rugby Australia. His exact words about his new job and meeting with Mr. Gavin White was Quote “We literally met for lunch, and he said ‘if you want to do it, let’s do it’, and I said, ‘I’ll start in two weeks time’. It’s those great moments in life where it’s almost spur of the moment, let’s do it, let’s have a challenge”.
When speaking about what motivated him to carry on with a new venture at this point of his career and his re-entry into financial services industry he commented, “I’ve loved my time in rugby, it’s such a wonderful thing to be involved with. And I had a real specific role at Rugby Australia. At the end of it, I didn’t actually feel like I could make too big a difference there. It didn’t provide me the opportunity that perhaps I thought it would. One of the great pieces of advice when I was finishing my career – and it stuck with me ever since – was ‘don’t let this sporting career be the highlight of your life, because you could end up being disappointed for the rest of your life, and never being able to achieve the highs of perhaps what you did”. He also added, “Rugby has a great inherent network that underpins many of the boardrooms over Australia, If we said that rugby has its foundations sitting within the private schools of Sydney and Brisbane in particular, and some in Melbourne as well, many of the people out of those schools have historically found a career in financial services or some area and there is a pathway there”.
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