Victoria Devine Bio

Born in Launceston, Victoria Devine took what she knew about psychology and her passion for personal finance somewhere fairly unusual: to a generation of Australians who’d largely been ignored by the traditional finance industry. She grew up in Tasmania, and whenever she talks about going home, it’s Tasmania she means, specifically Greens Beach, where her grandmother lives. Today she’s based in Melbourne, working across writing, podcasting, business, and public speaking.

Her path into finance started with an unexpected detour. She began her career as a cultural engagement consultant and found that conversations with employees always came back to the same thing: money. Something was missing, some person or resource that could help people reach their financial potential, and once she recognised the impact she could have, she committed to a long stretch of study that led her into financial planning.

She named her financial advisory practice Zella after her grandmother and launched it in 2015. The business has since helped hundreds of clients work through their financial goals.

The podcast followed from that foundation. As the creator of She’s on the Money, Australia’s number one finance podcast with 45 million downloads, Devine has helped her community save and invest millions of dollars. She recorded an initial run of twelve episodes covering what she considered the basics of financial literacy, and from there the show kept building. The community that grew around it matters as much as the download count: more than 400,000 people are now working through financial goals with the show as their guide, from buying their first property to tackling debt and learning to invest for the first time.

Books came out of that momentum, all published through Penguin Random House Australia. The first, She’s on the Money, won the ABIA General Non-fiction Book of the Year 2022 and the Best Personal Finance and Investment Book of the Year at the 2021 Business Book Awards, two of the most significant recognition points in Australian non-fiction publishing. The book carries the same voice as the podcast, and it’s full of real-life money stories from members of the She’s on the Money community, who candidly share their experiences, wins, and hard-won lessons. Templates and activities run throughout, alongside a twelve-month plan readers can act on straight away. Reviewers and readers consistently point to how approachable it is, covering everything from budgeting and debt to superannuation, investing, and estate planning, all without talking down to the reader.

The second book, Investing with She’s on the Money, grew directly from the success of the first, answering the question that had kept surfacing in the community: how do you actually start building an investment portfolio? Published by Penguin in February 2023, it walks readers through their money mindset and risk profile before getting into the mechanics of shares, superannuation, and ethical investing. The third book shifted the focus to property. Property with She’s on the Money was published by Hamish Hamilton AU in February 2024 and was named a finalist for Best Personal Finance and Investment Book of the Year at the 2024 Australian Business Book Awards. It covers the whole property buying journey, from saving for a deposit and getting your head around mortgages through to renovation and eventual sale. The series also includes the She’s on the Money Budget Journal and Money Diaries with She’s on the Money, bringing the total to five books published under the Penguin Random House umbrella.

Devine’s writing sits squarely in the personal finance and self-help non-fiction genre, and what distinguishes it from the broader shelf of money books is that she deliberately targets an audience mainstream finance writing has traditionally either patronised or overlooked. She set out to write the sort of books that hadn’t really been written for the millennial market before, covering money stories, budgeting, cash flow, and investing in a way that connects with how that generation actually lives. Her background in behavioural psychology shapes this approach throughout, because the books attend to the psychological side of money as much as the mechanical side, treating our emotional relationship with finance as a subject worth serious attention rather than a footnote.

Beyond writing, Devine is a co-director and founder of Zella Money, an award-winning mortgage broking business, and a financial columnist for The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. She appeared on Forbes’ 2021 30 Under 30 Asia list in the Media, Marketing and Advertising category, a list that recognises people across the Asia-Pacific region making real, measurable impact in their field before they turn thirty. She was also named one of the 50 most influential financial advisers in Australia by Financial Standard, an industry publication covering the Australian financial planning profession. She’s been featured in Vogue, ABC News, Mamamia, Elle, and Yahoo Finance.