“You are coming in for training, and when you are ready,
you will be a teller.”

So said the bank’s branch manager, who just happened to be Alanna’s mother. Sure enough, while her friends were working in restaurants and retail, Alanna was hired by the bank on her 16th birthday. She did indeed become a teller. A great one. And by the end of university, she had advanced from a teller in retail banking to an officer in commercial lending. 

But it was more than her mother’s insistence that made Alanna so successful. “I love people,” she says. “That is why I became an advisor. Going above and beyond to build solid relationships is important to me, which means that instead of selling, I am more of a coach or counsellor. I focus on making sure the client thoroughly understands their options.”

Alanna is fascinated with learning about people, hearing their stories and even living vicariously through them. It is this empathy for others that led her to study health science in university, with the intention of being a chiropractor – until she fainted at the sound of a patient moaning in pain and decided to change to a degree in health administration. 

Could her vicarious impulse be behind her fascination with Hallowe’en, her favourite time of year? As she puts it, “We get to pretend we are somebody else.” It is a love from her childhood, and which she has passed down to her own daughter, complete with a big annual party.

Alanna was a synchronized swimmer on the Canadian national team, has a bulldog, lights up a room and is a self-described social butterfly. “I can offer our clients truly holistic advice because I’ve been in financial services for a long time – and I am very well connected.”