About Us_
John Fletcher started in the financial planning industry in 1993, as a Life Agent with MLC. After 5 years he sold his St. Arnaud based business and moved to Bendigo, where he has spent over 13 years as a Financial Planner at Bendigo Bank. During this time he mentored and supervised other financial planners and attained CFP® status in 2005. In late 2012 he set up Fletcher & Butler Financial Planning with his wife, Melissa, to be able to offer a more comprehensive service to clients.
Prior to all of this, John spent most of his adult life in various roles in the agricultural industry, after completing the Diploma of Applied Science at Longerenong in 1986. So if you’re a farmer and want someone who understands your business, John is better placed than most to help with your financial planning needs.
While having dealt with clients from virtually all professions and occupations in his 30 years, John specialises in pre and post retirement planning.
Melissa Butler has over 20 years of experience in the financial services industry with roles held in the banking industry, a private accounting firm and the last 18 years as a financial planner. She finished her Advanced Diploma of Financial Services (Financial Planning) in 2006 and then completed the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) studies over the following 2 years. She is the Bendigo region's most experienced Aged Care Specialist.
Melissa is well placed to offer a woman’s perspective to financial planning and is familiar with all the obstacles that can be placed in front of women throughout their working career. Having kids, stopping work and working part time all have to be taken into account during the planning process.
If you want mature, considerate and knowledgeable financial advice, we would love to assist you. As Certified Financial Planners ® we must abide by the Financial Planning Association’s Code of Ethics and do continual studies to ensure that our knowledge is kept up to date.
We have both completed the FASEA industry exam in 2020.
Claire McLean is our highly qualified office manager. Having now spent over 9 years in the financial planning industry, Claire is able to assist with anything that might be happening when you work with us. Having previously been a licenced planner herself, Claire has an MBA in Financial Planning, a Bachelor of Commerce and passed the Certified Financial Planner course. She has also passed the FASEA industry exam. So when you are dealing with Claire for ongoing service or following up paperwork, you can be confident that the person you are dealing with is not a junior office assistant, and that she knows exactly what she is talking about.
We consider ourselves very fortunate to have someone so capable running the office for us.