Australia’s superannuation funds have nearly the highest proportion of internal asset management in the world, but there’s plenty of questions hanging over the practice even as funds push into more expensive niche asset classes.
The retirement chief of the $335 billion AustralianSuper, who was “instrumental” in delivering a slew of member experience uplifts across a 17-year stint with the fund, will leave this month to establish a new venture.
Westpac creates new division, appoints CEO
Westpac has announced a new specialist businesses division and has appointed Jason Yetton as chief executive of the division. The specialist business division has been created to simplify the Australian and New Zealand banking businesses. This will include wealth platforms, superannuation and retirement products, investment, general and life insurance, auto finance and Westpac Pacific. Yetton joins from Commonwealth Bank where he was chief executive officer of NewCo and previously chief executive of SocietyOne. Prior to that, Yetton spent over 20 years at Westpac in a number of senior roles including group executive of retail and business banking, general manager of retail and regional banking, general manager of BT’s customer solutions and BT’s head of product.
ANZ has appointed Emma Gray to the group executive committee in a newly created role as group executive data and automation. Gray is currently the chief data officer and will continue to lead the transformation of the strategic use of data and driving automation. Prior to joining ANZ in 2016, she was chief loyalty and data officer at Woolworths and chief strategy officer at Rebel Sport. She was previously a partner at Bain & Company for over 14 years.
Aberdeen Standard Investments (ASI) has the appointed Vishal Sharma as institutional director for Australia and New Zealand, based in Sydney. He joins from bfinance where he was a senior associate. Prior to that, Sharma was based in London and was a consultant relations manager at M&G Investments, UK & Ireland consultant relationships and institutional business development at Schroders and institutional business development at Legal and General Investment Management.
Peter Burgess has returned to the SMSF Association as deputy chief executive and director of policy and education. He joins from SuperConcepts where he has been general manager, technical services and education for seven years. Prior to that, he worked at the SMSF Association as technical Director for three years and served on the board for two years.
FINSIA has appointed Commonwealth Bank’s executive general manager of regional and agribusiness, Grant Cairns as its vice president. He has been with CBA for nearly 15 years in a number of senior roles including general manager of client acquisition and specialist solutions, general manager of industry and banking specialists, executive manager of commercial lending strategy and performance and executive manager of car finance. Cairns has been on the board of FINSIA for 11 months.
Former Westpac New Zealand chief executive Peter Clare has been appointed to the board of Heritage Bank. Clare spent over six years at Westpac as group executive of consumer financial services, group executive of product and operations and chief operating officer of Australian financial services before moving to the New Zealand division. Claire has extensive experience in director roles and is currently a director of digi.cash, RoZetta Ventures, Lorica Health, Lockbox Technologies, SilverChef and is chair of Zagga Group Australia, Dubber and Total Synergy.
Goodman Funds Management has appointed Mark Johnson as an independent director and to the audit committee. Johnson spent over 30 years at PwC where he was chief executive for over four years and held senior positions including deputy chairman of Asia and as a member of PwC’s global strategy council. He is currently chair of G8 Education Limited, Hospitals Contribution Fund of Australia and Aurecon Group. Johnson is a director of Coca-Cola Amatil, Corrs Chambers Westgarth and The Smith Family. He was formerly a director of Westfield Corporation.
