Since the emergence of “Modern Portfolio Theory” and the “Capital Asset Pricing Model” in the late 1960s, institutional investors have taken a quantitatively driven approach to portfolio construction, looking to create portfolio diversification and obtain better risk-adjusted returns by balancing their asset-class exposures. This journey has seen several important advancements in thinking about how to optimally achieve desired results.
Funds that want to take the total portfolio approach first need to get the total portfolio view. To do that they not only need data – and lots of it – but a rock-solid understanding of exactly how they’re going to use it.
CBA exec joins Insurance Council of Australia
Commonwealth Bank executive Andrew Hall has joined the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) as its new chief executive. Hall was previously Commonwealth Bank’s executive general manager for corporate affairs for over seven years and before that was director of corporate and public affairs at Woolworths for over six years. Hall will take over from outgoing chief executive Rob Whelan in September. Whelan held the position at ICA for over 10 years.
Westpac has announced that two members of its executive team have resigned to take up positions overseas. David Lindberg chief executive of the consumer division has departed after over seven years with the bank. He was chief executive of commercial and business bank and chief product and digital officer. Prior that he was with Commonwealth Bank and ANZ in senior roles. He has taken up the role of chief executive of retail Banking for at Natwest/RBS. Westpac’s chief information officer Craig Bright has also resigned after a year and a half in the role. The bank has commenced an international search for their replacements. Les Vance has been appointed to the new role of group executive of financial crime, compliance and conduct. Vance has been with Westpac for over 12 years in a number of roles most recently as chief operating officer of the consumer division, chief risk officer at BT Financial Group and group general manager for core transformation. Prior to joining Westpac, he was group executive for external funds at Investa Property Group and chief executive for gaming at TAB Limited.
T.Rowe Price has promoted Darren Hall to head of distribution for Australia and New Zealand. He is currently head of intermediary for Australia and takes over from Murray Brewer who has announced his retirement at the end of this year after 14 years. Hall has been with the company for over 12 years and was previously a business development manager at Credit Suisse and a national account manager at Schroders. He will be responsible for the institutional and financial intermediary businesses in Australia and New and will report to Nick Trueman, head of distribution for Asia Pacific.
ING Australia has appointed Krista Baetens to its board. She joined ING in 1998 and has held a number of executive management positions globally. She is currently head of wholesale banking Asia Pacific and was previously head of wholesale banking in Singapore and South East Asia and was chief risk officer for ING Belgium.
Teresa Clarke has resigned as chair of US-based fintech Change Financial Limited after more than three years. Ben Harris, chief investment officer of Altor Capital, has been appointed as chair. He has been a director of the company since 2018. He is currently the chair of Propell Holdings and Patriot Environmental Management.
EML Payments has announced its chief commercial officer Brandon Thompson has resigned after more than two years in the role. The role will not be replaced and will be absorbed by the rest of the executive team. EML Payments has appointed George W Gresham as an independent non-executive director. He was previously chief financial officer of Netspend and at eFunds corporation. Gresham was previously a non-executive director of Green Dot Corporation and Blue Pay Processing.
