Answers submitted by Editor Sean Callery.

You joined Money.com.au last year. Tell us about your experience and how your career led you to this role.
I’ve been working in content and media roles for around 16 years, and for the last six of those, I’ve specialised in finance. Before that, I worked across a range of publications and agencies in Ireland and the UK, focusing mostly on consumer and legal affairs.

My move into finance wasn’t deliberate but I’ve never looked back. When I came to Australia, I landed a job heading up content in-house at a bank. I found working for a bank to be a great way of building foundational knowledge about finance and the products I cover. Some of the finance journos I admire most, like Effie Zahos, have that as part of their career journey too. Before joining Money.com.au, I was Deputy Editor at Canstar.

What topics does Money.com.au cover?
Anything and everything with a finance angle. We do a lot on the foundations of finance - the products that people use every day. So the likes of car loans, personal loans and credit cards. We cover business finance extensively too. 

We also do a lot in the financial wellbeing space to help people understand their credit scores and financial goals, and how to plan for them.

Who makes up your editorial team?
We’re a growing team and we’ve just been joined by Senior Finance Writer, Megan Birot (formerly of Compare the Market and Canstar Blue). She has very strong experience in finance and consumer media and will be a big asset for us.

For the bulk of our editorial output we work with in-house product experts on writing, editing, and reviewing our content. We’re very fortunate to have a phenomenal team of experts here whose knowledge and insight add massive value to our readers. I leverage that as much as possible.

What makes Money.com.au different from other financial publications?
It’s really important to us that our content comes from a place of genuine experience and expertise. The main role of the editorial team is to find and facilitate the best expertise and insights in the industry, and make that accessible to readers.

We’re also more focused on the nuts and bolts of financial products and processes than some other publishers. We’re less about industry news and speculating on what the RBA Board is going to do at its next meeting, and more about digging into the weeds of product disclosure statements and loan T&Cs, discovering timeless insights and bringing them to life in an accessible way. We think that ultimately makes more of a difference to readers.

We’re also a very visual publisher. We love to use quality images and graphs in our storytelling.

How can media professionals and external parties collaborate with Money.com.au?
We really value the input of external experts in our content and are always open to collaborating with people and companies who bring a different perspective to what we write about. Sometimes that’s a killer piece of data, an expert quote, a consumer case study, or a full guest article. 

What’s important is that the people we work with are absolute experts in their field or people who have real experience using a financial product or process that others can learn from.

What kind of pitches do you accept and do you have a brief for what needs to be included?
We consider all finance-related pitches. Ideally ones with a strong product focus, unique data and insights, and a clear pitch about where the expertise is coming from.

Our editorial agenda is not massively influenced by the news cycle. Often when I get press releases I pay more attention to who it’s from than what the topic of the day is. Can I work with this person on something else?