Interviews

Jim Stackpool … ‘perhaps financial planners should look to the health industry as a model’ Jim Stackpool’s new book, ‘Seeking Certainty’, is his first targeting the consumers of financial services as well as advisors. The owner of Strategic Consulting & Training has specialized in advising the advisors for more than 15 years. He spoke to…

Meredith Brooks … ‘I have to say, genuinely creative fund managers are very rare’ On the surface it seems like an odd mix of professional interests: investment management and the arts. There are massive differences, of course, but there are also similarities, according to Meredith Brooks, who has excelled in both environments. She spoke with…

Jack Gray, academic, fund manager and usually polite stirrer, this month addressed the board of America’s largest pension fund, CalPERS, in Monterey, California, on “Risk Inflation”. He spoke to Greg Bright about that presentation, his investment beliefs and a potentially better world for financial services. Like most US public sector funds, the US$280 billion CalPERS…

Ian Silk … ‘it’s important we don’t get seduced by size and position in the marketplace’ Belying its size, AustralianSuper, Australia’s largest superannuation fund, is continuing a history of innovation with its current program to insource the management of about 30 per cent of its investments. The fund has become a bellwether for others. Greg…

Planners will have to offer this advice, one way or another, if they are going to keep their client base. But it’s not for everybody. It’s a touchy feely subject.’ – Anna Lawton The complicated world of aged care is about to get a bit more complicated with this year’s proposed changes to the core…

Professor Ron Bird… ‘clients usually better off if their managers do very little’ Ron Bird, still widely known in the funds management industry as “The Professor”, is easing himself towards retirement after a notable career in both funds management and academia. He speaks with Greg Bright about that career and his investment beliefs. To my…

Piers Bolger … ‘you need both an investment and a moral compass’ Piers Bolger, the head of research and strategy at BT Financial Group, says you need both an investment and a moral compass to capture the opportunities from market cycles. And after more than 20 years as an investment specialist, he has seen a…

Graham Rich … ‘quality financial advice adds material value’ Graham Rich considers it a compliment that his own investment biases are not well known. The founder of several businesses, including that which became Morningstar in Australia, has devoted much of his career to providing independent and objective information to the financial advice industry. He speaks…

David Gallagher … ‘what we are doing has a lot of public benefit’ The Centre for International Finance and Regulation (CIFR), based in Sydney, was established as a result of a decision by the first Rudd Government, emanating from the Johnson report into Australia’s financial services industry and its interaction with the region. David Gallagher…

Amanda Gillespie… ‘retirement piece is what we, as an industry, have to come to terms with. Lonsec Research is one of the main entities under Lonsec Fiscal Holdings, the result of the ownership change and recapitalization of the Lonsec research and broking group in mid-2011 with the SuperRatings super fund research firm. Amanda Gillespie, a long-time Lonsec employee and the chief executive of Lonsec Research, is…

(Lounarda David … ramifications of insourcing) Lounarda David has worked with all the big names of Australia’s securities services industry and with a lot of the big global names.  She set up Mercer Sentinel in Australia and New Zealand, and then expanded it into Asia. She became a regional director with global responsibilities and a…

Ian Knox… ‘I wanted to input my own sense of values’ Ian Knox surprised his friends and colleagues when he decided to launch his own business in 2004. He had had a series of senior roles at large financial services companies – Lend Lease, Westpac and St George – before linking up with Charlie Haynes…