Foreign languages: a blessing or a curse?

One Korean-speaking broker tells MPA why languages don't necessarily benefit her professionally

Kelly Cameron-Tull, our Broker Profile in the forthcoming MPA issue 14.11, is an exceptionally well-travelled professional; an Australian who went to work in Korea, speaking Korean. Now running her own brokerage, and making 30th in last year’s Top 100 Brokers, she credits the experience with accelerating her career – but only to a point. Here’s why:
 

Cultural differences

Starting work at a Korean bank weeks before the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis might not seem a great career move. However for Cameron-Tull it was an incredible opportunity: she ended up translating documents from Korean to English, for the Ministry of Finance and Economy to present to IMF for a bailout package. Her superiors were impressed, but recruiters for more senior roles struggled to take her seriously “speaking Korean, in Korea, they were just gobsmacked when I turned up for the interview with blond hair and blue eyes.” In this instance, talent and linguistic ability evidently couldn’t overcome a clash of cultures. 
 

Overstretch

Later working at NAB, Cameron-Tull’s language abilities put her in high demand. This wasn’t necessarily a good thing:  “every day, I would get phone calls from people in branch saying ‘oh, we just talked to this lady’, and I would translate and tell them what they needed – but I still had to do my job. My job was as a business banker, to service my own set.”
 

Consistent Service

Now leading Queensland-based Get Real Finance, Cameron-Tull has decided not to market the brokerage on the back of her Korean language skills. With clients who only speak Korean, she argues, this would undermine the ability of the brokerage to provide consistently high-quality service: “otherwise I would have to make every single email, every single phone call, and talk to all these clients.” Any brokerage marketing themselves on languages, she argues, should have all staff fluent, so it doesn’t matter who picks up the phone.

Do you agree? Have foreign language skills benefitted you? Please add your comments below, and read Kelly Cameron-Tull’s full broker profile in MPA 14.11, out mid-October.