Leadership in a complex world
We would like to thank BNP Paribas Securities Services for sponsoring the conference and all our guest speakers for sharing their experiences and stories.
Sponsored in partnership with
Congratulations to the following:
Adam Nettheim, Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation winner of the Melbourne Business School Scholarship. Sponsored in partnership with QIC & MBS.
Krithika Hansen, TelstraSuper winner of the 2023 Michael Dwyer Leadership Scholarship. Sponsored in partnership with Perpetual & the Cranlana Centre for Ethical Leadership.
Bernard Reilly, CEO, Australian Retirement Trust winner of the 2023 Fund Executive of the Year Award. Sponsored in partnership with T. Rowe Price.
Rhonda Brighton-Hall, mwah.
We heard from our guest speaker, Rhonda Brighton-Hall, mwah. Making Work Absolutely Human.
Rhonda is CEO of mwah. Making Work Absolutely Human, Past Chair of the AHRI National D&I Advisory Panel, Patron for ASPECT (Autism Australia), and recognised as a game changer in the future design of organisations, HR, leadership and work.
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Rhonda is sought after to rethink culture, teamwork, and leaderships for some of Australia’s most progressive organisations across the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors. Rhonda and her team have also completed some very high-profile independent reviews of culture, using the proprietary mwah. Culture Dashboard, which is world leading complex system platform, and deep research-based qualitative review.
Having worked, lived and lectured in Asia, Europe, and the USA, Rhonda is a former AHRI HR Leader of the Year, Telstra Businesswoman of the Year, and Human Capital Hall of Fame recipient.Rhonda has undergraduate qualifications in HR and IR (UNSW), and post-graduate in HR Strategy (London Business School), ER (UTS), and process engineering (APICS accredited)
Mwah. Making Work Absolutely Human. launched in 2017.
Workplace Culture: Measured. Mapped. Made Human. With data-backed insights, mwah. helps design work that puts humans front and centre.
Rhonda spoke on The 2023 Shift: From survival to leading the rethinking and redesign of work.
Dr Michael Kollo, Evolved Reasoning
We then heard from Dr Michael Kollo from Evolved Reasoning. Michael is an accomplished business leader and thought leader in the areas of artificial intelligence, and its application to in the field of quantitative finance and institutional asset management.
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Michael holds a PhD in Finance from the London School of Economics and has held leadership positions at firms such as BlackRock, Fidelity, and Axa, and is current a Non-executive director in Clime Asset Management.
Recently, Michael co-founded Evolved Reasoning that works with firms on successfully adoption AI solutions within their business operations, from executive workshops, to workforce education, and the development of custom AI solutions.
Michael spoke on The wave of Generative AI, and its implications for the superannuation industry, this session will be followed by Q and A.
Milo-Arne Wilkinson, Behavioural Scientist
After morning tea we heard from Milo-Arne Wilkinson, Behavioural Scientist. Milo-Arne (aka Milo) is an international award winning Behavioural Scientist who specialises in behavioural patterns, crisis leadership and she spends her days analysing human behaviour in order to predict outcomes.
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As a Behavioural Scientist, criminal profiler, high-performance sporting, and corporate coach, Milo has studied CEOs, top athletes, psychopaths, criminals, and everyone in between. She has seven degrees in the areas of cognitive and clinical neurosciences, criminal sciences, psychology and psychotherapy. Milo has recently completed a world first co-design project with Harvard University Neuroscience Department secretly discovering the functions of the unconscious brain and has been the Peak Performance Behavioural Scientist for some top Sporting Teams across the globe including the Sydney Swans.
Milo spoke on Brain 101: Mental agility, resilience and our appetite to change.
Before lunch we held a Q and A with Rhonda Brighton-Hall and Milo-Arne Wilkinson, moderated by Carden Calder,
BlueChip Communication.
Carden Calder BlueChip Communication
Carden Calder is a change maker and renowned PR adviser in the financial services industry. With over 25 years of experience, she has led high-profile engagements and advised on many high profile major issues. As a founder of BlueChip Communication, and now sole owner, she has grown the firm into one of Australia's leading financial communication and crisis consulting firms with almost 20 consultants. Carden’s expertise in crisis management, digital marketing and reputation has made her a respected leader and consultant.
Beyond her professional accomplishments, Carden is a pro-bono adviser to charitable causes and is dedicated to driving change and challenging the industry's conventional ways.
Jean-Étienne Leroux, CDPQ
After lunch we heard from Jean-Étienne Leroux, CDPQ Australia. Jean-Étienne Leroux Managing Director, Infrastructure – Australia and New Zealand and Managing Director, CDPQ Sydney. Jean-Étienne Leroux is responsible for all infrastructure activities in Australia and New Zealand.
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As head of the region, he also takes an active part in positioning CDPQ as a partner of choice across all asset classes, in promoting CDPQ’s brand image and in representing the organization with the financial and business community, as well as with key stakeholders. He oversees a team of professionals responsible for targeting promising opportunities for CDPQ in the region. The portfolio under his management includes assets in public transportation, water and energy distribution, utilities, toll roads, airports and ports. Jean-Étienne is also responsible for the Sydney office, where he has worked since 2015. He joined CDPQ in 2001, first working as Director, then Senior Director, Infrastructure. Prior to that, he was an Analyst, then Director, Investment, Private Equity.
He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration with a concentration in finance and quantitative methods, as well as a Master’s in Financial Management and Engineering from HEC Montréal. He is a CFA charterholder and a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD).
We then held a panel session on Investing and leading globally. Panel: Jean-Étienne Leroux (CDPQ Australia), Cara Elsley (IFM Investors), Damien Webb (Aware Super), Kristian Fok (CBUS), moderated by John Keith (BNP Paribas)
Damien Webb, Head of International, Aware Super
Damien Webb joined Aware Super in January 2014 and is now the Deputy Chief Investment Officer / Head of International with over 25 years’ experience in funds management having previously worked at Perpetual Investments and ING Investment Management.
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As Head of the Real Assets team at Aware Super, Damien leads the team’s investment activities across the strategies of infrastructure, agriculture and property. The team has made investments in Vocus, NSW and Victorian Land Registries, Bankstown and Camden Airports, Renewable Energy, Almond Farms, New Bendigo Hospital, Sunshine Coast University Hospital, International Convention Centre Sydney, the Barangaroo precinct, Retirement Villages and the NSW Fire & Rescue Academy. Damien is also a director of several of these assets.
Kristian Fok, Cbus Super CEO
Prior to his appointment in June 2023 as Cbus CEO, Kristian Fok served as the Fund’s Chief Investment Officer (CIO) for 10 years. He is now responsible for all aspects of Cbus and reports directly to the Board. As CIO, Kristian was responsible for leading the Cbus investment strategy and worked closely with the Investment Committee of the Board. This included evaluating the market and investment opportunities that provide returns to members over the long term, managing investment governance and risk, implementing the investment strategy and monitoring the portfolio.
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Kristian led the development and implementation of Cbus’ hybrid internalisation strategy, which has seen the management of 38% of assets brought in-house and total cumulative costs savings for members of over $500 million.
He also serves on the Board of the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors and is Chair of the Australian Sustainable Finance Institute. Kristian’s qualifications include Bachelor of Commerce, Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries Australia and Fellow of FINSIA.
Cara Elsley, Head of Acquisitions and Integration, IFM Investors
Cara is Head of Acquisitions and Integration for IFM Investors, focusing on IFM Investor’s growth into new fund management business lines. Prior to this role, Cara was in the Global Client Solutions team as Global Head of Investor Partnerships focused on investor strategy, product development and global partnerships.
John Keith, Managing Director, Financial Institutions Coverage, Australia & New Zealand, BNP Paribas
John is responsible for working with global and local institutional clients, originating opportunities aligned with BNP Paribas’ capabilities. He joined BNP Paribas in 2011 following a long career with Nomura Securities. Past responsibilities including Territory and Regional Management roles in Capital Markets and Investment Banking, locally and regionally in Asia Pacific. John serves as a non-executive director on the boards of Room to Read Australia and Ascham Foundation, and chairs Atomo Diagnostics. BA Hons, MAppFin, EMBA.
Kirsten Watson, Deloitte
In the afternoon we heard from Kristen Watson (Deloitte). Kirsten leads Deloitte’s national Organisation Transformation team, which is part of the industry-leading Human Capital consulting practice.
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With a deep commitment to enabling humans through disruption, Kristen works to help organisations thrive in an evolving landscape.
Prior to joining Deloitte, Kirsten was the Chief People Officer at Transport for NSW, where she led large-scale transformation across all NSW transport entities to create a customer-centric operating model underpinned by the culture and leadership required to deliver the strategic plan.
After hearing from various speakers during the day on the various elements and trends making up the complex world in which our funds operate, Brian Delaney, FEAL’s Chair, moderated a panel of CEOs to reflect on the day and share their insights and experiences. Panel: Deanne Stewart- Aware Super, David Elia - Hostplus & Jason Murray - Spirit Super.
Deanne Stewart, CEO, Aware Super
Deanne has more than 25 years’ leadership experience in financial services in superannuation, wealth and insurance sectors in Australia and internationally. An experienced financial services industry leader, Deanne is passionate in her belief that a strong culture and clearly defined purpose drives business success.
David Elia, CEO, Hostplus
David has more than 25 years' experience in senior positions in superannuation, finance, marketing, corporate and fund governance, taxation, risk management, audit, corporate and strategic planning and implementation. His singular vision has helped create businesses that deliver consistently excellent results and real stakeholder value.
Jason Murray, CEO, Spirit Super
Jason was appointed as Chief Executive Officer in February 2022 and is responsible for leading the strategy, culture and operations of Spirit Super. He brings significant financial services experience spanning Banking, Insurance and Superannuation built through senior roles in Australia and the UK.
We heard from Donna Shepherd AM, Managing Director, Creating Communities Australia at the FEAL Members’ Dinner.
Donna is passionate about unleashing people and organisations to be a force for good in the world. She believes this is even more important today as, for the first time in two decades, COVID impacts compounded by conflict and climate change, have caused extreme poverty to rise globally.
“We can do better if we collectively come together with an effective agenda to reduce inequality, global poverty and climate change.”
For the past 20 years Donna has guided Creating Communities to become Australia’s leading social value advisory firm. Her models and approaches in ESG, collective impact, social impact and social planning have shaped practice in the minerals, energy, and land development sectors.
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She is an accomplished facilitator known for aligning stakeholders and building collective agreements to improve community outcomes in intercultural and diverse settings.
Donna Shepherd AM is an Australian businesswoman and a company director. She is the current Managing Director of Creating Communities, a leading social sustainability advisory firm. She was Chair of World Vision International from 2016-2022. In 2020 she was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia for significant service to children through an international humanitarian organisation.
We can do better if we collectively come together with an effective agenda to reduce inequality, global poverty and climate change.This has been the focus of my career.
It's been a career highlight to lead the World Vision International board, a 3.2B US humanitarian relief organisation with operations in over 100 countries and a team of +35,000.
Over the past 6 years we've successfully rolled out a global strategy to drive greater impact, innovation and revenues to support our work with vulnerable communities in increasingly volatile contexts.
As MD of Creating Communities Australia, I've grown the company to become a leading social value advisory firm known for delivering positive community outcomes in some of the most challenging urban, rural and remote contexts.
The FEAL Members’ Dinner was held after the FEAL National Conference on Thursday 3rd August.
CONFERENCE
DATE: Thursday 3rd August
VENUE: Sheraton Grand Sydney Hyde Park
ADDRESS: 161 Elizabeth Street
TIME: 9.30am (tea & coffee) for a 10.00am start - 6.00pm (AEST)
MEMBERS' DINNER
DATE: Thursday 3rd August
VENUE: Sheraton Grand Sydney Hyde Park
TIME: 6.00pm (pre-dinner drinks) for a 7.00pm start - 9.30pm (AEST)
A discount is available for those attending both events as set out below:
Dress code business attire
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