Thursday, 10 August 2023
Aware Super, one of the nation’s top-performing super funds, today announced two senior hires to bolster its investment leadership team as the fund continues its $250 billion FUM growth trajectory.
Reporting to Aware Super Chief Investment Officer Damian Graham from September will be Head of Portfolio Management, Simon Warner, and Chief Operating Officer – Investments, Justin Howell.
Announcing the appointments, Mr Graham said: “We are delighted to have attracted the calibre of these recent appointees who bring with them investment expertise to further fuel our growth ambitions, and leadership experience which will help us furnish a world-class investment team.
“As an active, global institutional investor and super fund, we are well positioned to continue to deliver strong risk-adjusted returns and lower fees for our more than 1.1 million members.
“In addition, our global investment strategy and Aware Super’s strategic risk culture will also provide further exciting future opportunities for our employees, and for the communities that are home to our assets across the globe.”
In the most recent performance reporting period, Aware Super delivered a 10.7% return for its flagship default investment option, MySuper Lifecycle option, cementing its place as one of Australia’s top-performing super funds*.
The performance results also come at a time of immense innovation for the Fund with two major digital transformation projects.
The first is the recent consolidation of five legacy technology systems into a single administration and registry platform which has also unlocked a host a new products and services for members.
As the fund works to deliver further benefits of scale and lower fees, a second digital initiative for the Investment Team will see the creation of a data platform which will integrate projected increases across private and public market allocations and help manage the fund’s goal of 50% internally managed assets.
In the role of Head of Portfolio Management, Mr Warner will lead the development and delivery of the funds’ portfolio management across the Public Market Equities, Private Equity, Property and Infrastructure portfolios. He will focus on continuing to build the fund’s capability in these areas, working with the Heads of these sectors.
Mr Warner was the Global Head of Public Markets at AMP Capital and joins from Macquarie Asset Management (MAM) post the transition of the AMP Capital Equities and Fixed Income businesses to MAM.
As Chief Operating Officer – Investments, Mr Howell will lead the establishment of the fund’s Investment Enablement teams to support growth objectives with a focus on strategy and business management activities such as business services, investment governance and the fund’s direct asset management teams.
Mr Howell most recently served as Global Chief Operating Officer at Pendal Group and previously served as Head of Strategy and Operations for First State Super (Aware Super’s predecessor fund) in 2017.
Mr Graham said: “Aware Super’s growth story is an exciting one not only for our members and current teams, but for the rest of the industry as we expand our footprint into other developed and important capital markets such as London, and continue to invest innovatively and boldly
“We have fantastic growth opportunities for our people and today’s announcement is further proof as to why we continue to be an employer of choice in the institutional investment landscape.”
*Aware Super Future Saver, MySuper Lifecycle, High Growth option (for members aged 55 and under). 1 year performance to 30 June 2023. Past performance is not an indicator of future performance.