They manage billions of dollars of New Zealanders’ money and make decisions about where to invest it on a daily basis - but you won’t find images of them plastered over billboards or glossy brochures.
In some countries, investment managers can have near-celebrity status. And when they move from one investment management company to another, loyal investors follow.
But in New Zealand, it’s hard to find out who actually manages your money. When KiwiSaver providers were asked by the Herald to put forward a front person for their KiwiSaver schemes, they often selected the distribution or product manager - someone more involved in the marketing of the product than the day-to-day investing.
Chris Douglas, principal at MyFiduciary, believes that needs to change.
“I think the disclosure is really poor. If you look at the quarterly fund updates where they name the individual people involved in it often there is a mixture of the CEO, who might have very little influence and impact on the actual KiwiSaver funds, [and] the head of distribution - their marketing person and legal compliance.
“It is hard to find out who is really making these key investment decisions.”
Douglas believes part of the reason some investment companies don’t name investment portfolio managers is because they don’t want to have to disclose to the market when that person moves on or changes roles.
“Having more transparency around the stability of the investment team is actually really important because it tells you a few different things. It tells you what the culture of the firm is like, whether or not there is a high turnover of staff, whether or not it’s a place where people want to work at and how much they value the investment team.
“I think, in some places, the marketing and distribution team are the more influential team rather than investments. And that’s the focus. So the investment team are marginalised and the ability they have to actually add value can be limited.”
Douglas says there is a lot more turnover at KiwiSaver providers than most people realise.
“There is actually a fair amount of change that happens among the providers.”
He says larger providers can have big teams.
“By design, a lot of the larger firms are not personality-led and they do want to ensure their processes are not led by an individual but more able to handle the inevitable change that seems to happen at these larger firms.
“There is much greater key person risk within some of the smaller providers and that’s in part about how the team is structured and how the business is structured and how they are looking to build things out as well.”
Aman Ramrakha, director of manager selection at Morningstar in Australia, says the company looks at five key areas when it comes to rating investment funds - ratings that are used by financial advisers to make recommendations to their clients.
“Probably the two most important ones are the people and the process itself - how they go about investing money.”
When it comes to assessing people, it’s all about their experience, skills and track record, he says.
Often in a market like KiwiSaver, investors make their decision on the provider itself being a well-known entity - a bank or a large investment provider.
Ramrakha says that can be important if a mistake is made and a large organisation can then compensate investors.
“We’ve seen a lot of that in Australia where there were bad practices, but the parent [company] stepped in and said ‘we will compensate clients because we did the wrong thing’.”
Ramrakha says investors should easily be able to find out where their money is being invested - how much is in shares, property, bonds and cash and with as much transparency as possible.
“What you should also be looking for, particularly with products like KiwiSaver, is ‘how much information can I get my hands on?’.
“You may not look at it all. But if I have invested my money - how much information am I getting beyond the usual is your performance. Can I get on the website and see who the investment team is and where they have worked and how long they have been doing it, and these are [the] general processes?
“If I can get enough information then that’s a good sign. Our view is the more transparent they have been, the better they are. They are not hiding anything.”
He says having one key person who invests money is not a problem, as long as the company has a plan if that person leaves.
“We are okay for it to be there but you want to know that there is a backup. We don’t penalise one model or the other but will penalise if there is key person risk and nothing is done about managing that risk.”
FANZ chief executive Graham Duston, who has been in the industry a long time, says a “star performer” approach isn’t sustainable in the long term.
“One observation I’d make about this business is that investment businesses that have a cult-like approach to leadership and are heavily invested in one person tend not to be sustainable. Better to have a team approach and a repeatable and systemic approach to investment management that is not reliant on one person.”
One thing that is clear from looking at many of the investment teams is a lack of diversity. There are very few female investment managers in New Zealand. Citywire, a UK publication that undertakes an international survey of the percentage of women in investment management around the world, found just 3 per cent of portfolio managers were female in New Zealand. In Australia, it was marginally better - 10 per cent.
That’s despite an increasing focus by investment managers on environmental, social and governance factors in the companies in which they invest.
“It is completely hypocritical when these firms go out and make statements about ‘we want diversity at board levels’ and they are really pushing listed companies to do that. When you look at a lot of the fund management organisations we deal with, it is a very male-dominated environment,” Douglas says.
Many fund managers are trying to change but it takes time.
“I know a lot of fund managers are really focused on bringing more female talent through.
“I think there needs to be a broader focus on diversity than just male versus female. I know a lot are thinking about how they can bring it up. It is an ongoing challenge because the industry has been so male-dominated for so long.”
Fiona Mackenzie, one of a few female investment managers, heads ANZ’s team. She says more women are responsible for KiwiSaver providers than there have been in a long time. ANZ, ASB and Westpac are all led by female CEOs and Kiwi Wealth, sold to Fisher Funds, also has a woman at the top.
But she says once you dig down into investment management teams it is harder to find women.
“Our CIO [chief investment officer] is male. But he has done a great job in building out more female talent in the investment management team. Our head of asset allocation - which is a really crucial role - [is] female, and so is our head of responsible investment.
“Once you get into the investment management teams it is harder to find women.”
Mackenzie says there is no lack of females graduating with finance degrees: “That is not the problem. There are heaps of them.”
But they don’t go into investment management.
Mackenzie points to the small size of the industry.
“The other thing with investment management is that it doesn’t employ huge numbers of people. It is not like technology where you need legions of developers and coding engineers.”
Fiona Mackenzie took up the role as managing director of ANZ Funds Management in January last year. She was previously head of direct wealth at Jarden and head of external investments and partnerships with the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. Mackenzie has worked in London and New York for the likes of Credit Suisse. She returned to New Zealand in 2009 amid the fallout from the Global Financial Crisis. Her first job back in New Zealand was with sharemarket operator the NZX.
Hamish Davidson joined ASB in January 2022 as the head of KiwiSaver distribution. Before that he was the group COO and New Zealand CEO of Advisers for Athletes Sports Management, and undertook executive consultancy work. He has previously worked for BNZ as the national head of acquisition and head of retail banking and Westpac and ANZ in Australia. He has a post-graduate diploma in Business Administration from Charles Sturt University.
John Smith is the head of managed funds at ASB. He has been with ASB for nearly 20 years and was with Westpac before that for nine years. Smith has a Bachelor of Science majoring in maths and physics from the University of Auckland.
Nigel Jackson is head of investments and became chief executive of BT Funds Management in July 2022. He has been with Westpac New Zealand for nearly 12 years. Before that he worked for OnePath New Zealand and ING. He went to Christchurch Boys’ High and the University of Canterbury.
Reporting to Jackson is Philip Houghton-Brown, who is the head of investment solutions. Houghton-Brown has been with Westpac for two years and before that was the chief investment officer at Mercer where he worked for eight years. Prior to that, he was chief investment officer at OnePath NZ. He has a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Canterbury and is a CFA.
Ashley Gardyne is the chief investment officer at Fisher Funds. Gardyne returned to New Zealand from London in 2013 to join Fisher Funds’ international equities team. He has eight years’ experience managing concentrated share portfolios, with the past five as senior portfolio manager for the International Growth Fund.
Before joining Fisher Funds, Gardyne spent 10 years working in the world of mergers and acquisitions, where he held primary responsibility for leading teams on acquisitions, divestitures and capital raisings. He also held a number of senior leadership roles in London, including managing the corporate finance group at RBS. Gardyne was born and raised in Southland and has a Master of Business (Finance) with Distinction from the University of Otago.
Rhiannon McKinnon became CEO of Kiwi Wealth in February 2021 and is one of the few women to head up a KiwiSaver provider. She grew up in London and immigrated to New Zealand in 2007, where she has since worked across corporate finance, investor relations, treasury, mergers and acquisitions and strategy for companies such as Kiwibank, NZ Post and Murray & Company.
In London, she worked in equity research for Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan Cazenove. McKinnon is a Chartered Financial Analyst and has served three years on the board of the CFA Society of New Zealand. She studied at the University of Cambridge and holds a MA (Cantab) in History.
Aaron Klee is the general manager of investment management services at AMP. He was appointed to that role in September but has been with AMP for more than 12 years. He previously worked for Axa Global Investors and ING New Zealand and has more than 25 years’ experience in the financial services and funds management industry. Klee is responsible for the delivery of AMP Wealth Management New Zealand’s investment proposition. This involves the management of its wholesale investment funds, investment philosophy and sustainable investment approach. He has a graduate diploma in business studies, endorsed in personal financial planning.
Milford’s investment team is led by Wayne Gentle, who is the chief investment officer. Jonathan Windust is the deputy CIO and portfolio manager. Windust manages the flagship Milford Active Growth fund and is co-manager of the aggressive fund. Before joining Milford in 2008, he worked for Gartmore Investment Management in London, where he was the portfolio manager for the Royal Bank of Scotland pension scheme.
Peter Forster is the general manager of wealth at the BNZ and chief executive of BNZ Investment Services, which is the manager and issuer of the BNZ KiwiSaver Scheme. Forster is responsible for the overall strategy and end-to-end delivery of BNZ’s managed investment schemes. Forster is also chairman of the BNZ Investment Review Committee and a board member of the Financial Services Council of New Zealand.
Prior to joining BNZ, he spent 11 years in various senior leadership roles at National Australia Bank, including four years leading strategy and mergers and acquisitions activity in Hong Kong where he led the establishment of NAB’s local private wealth business. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Monash University, a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Hong Kong in partnership with Columbia Business School, an Advanced Diploma of Financial Services and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Nic Craven is the chief investment officer for Booster and leads its research team. Craven joined Grosvenor (the original name before Booster’s rebrand in 2016) out of university in 2004 as part of its graduate programme. He moved into the investment research team, initially focused on fixed interest heading into the GFC, then over the following few years into equities and asset allocation coming out the other side.
During that period he also spent time on secondment to an Australian superannuation administration business that was owned by Booster, which he says was a real eye-opener into where KiwiSaver was likely to head in NZ. Craven eventually moved into managing Booster’s investment research team, initially under long-standing chief investment officer David Beattie, then into the CIO role in 2020. Craven has a Bachelor of Commerce and Administration and a Bachelor of Science from Victoria University and is a chartered financial analyst.
Sam Goldwater is the lead portfolio manager and executive director. Goldwater co-founded Generate KiwiSaver in late 2012 alongside its chief executive Henry Tongue. He owns 19.23 per cent of Generate Funds - the ultimate holding company for the investment manager for the scheme - alongside Mary and Peter Brook, who is a director of Generate and chairs its investment committee.
Before launching Generate, Goldwater was the investment manager for a family office for nearly eight years. Previously he co-managed the bond desk at First NZ Capital (now Jarden) and worked for Lehman Brothers in the UK on its trading desk. Goldwater went to Auckland Grammar and has a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Otago.
Former investment banker Sam Stubbs is the co-founder of Simplicity and is its main frontman. The non-profit fund manager is owned by the Simplicity Charitable Trust. Before its launch, Stubbs was the chief executive of Tower Investments, which ran its own KiwiSaver scheme before selling it to Fisher Funds. Stubbs also had a short stint as the managing director of Hanover Group and spent 10 years working for Goldman Sachs in London and Hong Kong.
Simplicity launched in a bid to disrupt the KiwiSaver market and was the first to offer a low-cost index-tracking approach, which has since been replicated by others in the market. The other much lesser-known co-founder is Andrew Lance, who runs the portfolios. Before Simplicity, he had short stints at AMP and Fisher Funds. He spent five years at Tower as the fixed interest manager and has a background of working in the City of London bond market before immigrating to New Zealand in 1993.
Padraig Brown is the chief investment officer at Mercer New Zealand. Before his current role he was the head of real estate for Mercer in Australia and New Zealand. Before joining Mercer in 2021, Brown had 14 years of global investment and strategy experience spanning real estate, private equity and infrastructure.
Brown was a global real estate strategist for BlackRock where he advised on global investments utilising equity, debt and synthetic exposure and head of global capital markets research for JLL. He has a Master of Science from the London School of Economics, a Bachelor of Management Studies from Waikato University, and is a Chartered Financial Analyst.
Smartshares is owned by the NZX, the company that owns and runs the New Zealand stock exchange. It manages multiple KiwiSaver schemes - Select KiwiSaver and SuperLife - and in November it acquired Quay Street Asset Management. Stuart Millar is the chief investment officer at Smartshares.
He has more than 20 years’ experience managing funds across a broad range of asset classes. He has held lead roles in investment strategy, asset allocation, global equities and currency management. Before joining NZX’s Smartshares business, Millar worked for ANZ’s Global CIO, ANZ Investments, OnePath, ING and JP Morgan. He is a CFA charter holder and a director of the CFA Society of NZ.
Until June 2021, this scheme was restricted to people working in specific occupations, but it has now opened up to the general public. The manager is Medical Funds Management. MAS appointed Helen McDowall to the newly created role of head of investments in July.
McDowall has more than 25 years’ experience in financial services in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia. She has held a variety of senior roles in the delivery of KiwiSaver funds and other products, most recently as chief operating officer at NZX-owned funds business Smartshares. She previously worked for AMP. She has a New Zealand certificate in public relations from Wellington Polytechnic.
Funds Administration New Zealand runs the Lifestages KiwiSaver scheme. Fanz is owned by SBS Bank. Graham Duston is the manager of the Lifestages KiwiSaver scheme and CEO of Fanz. He has more than 30 years’ experience in the financial services industry and has extensive investment management experience.
Duston is the executive director (and founder) of SBS Bank’s investment management subsidiary, Funds Administration New Zealand Limited (Fanz), which is also the manager of the Lifestages KiwiSaver Scheme. During his time in the investment management industry, Duston has helped launch and manage a number of schemes including Fanz’s Lifestages KiwiSaver Scheme, the Synergy Investment Programme (in conjunction with Consilium), Tower’s Tortis Funds, and ANZ Funds Management’s Ascent Investment Programme.
Before setting up Fanz in 2002, Duston was the general manager of ANZ Funds Management and New Zealand manager of ANZ Life New Zealand. He also held senior management roles with Tower Trust Services and Armstrong Jones (now ING/OnePath) in the 1990s.
Craigs KiwiSaver scheme allows investors to select their own investments from a list of more than 200 options (including stocks, Exchange Traded Funds, and managed funds). All investment options are supported by Craigs’ in-house research team and an investment adviser is available to provide guidance.
Julian Braithwaite, head of product, is a key member of the Craigs KiwiSaver team. Braithwaite is responsible for the development and maintenance of the full Craigs product suite and has more than 20 years’ experience in financial markets in New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
He has worked for several wealth management firms in a variety of roles ranging from risk and compliance to strategy and process improvement. Previously, he worked for Craigs from 2011 to 2019 as an area manager, leading several regional branches of investment advisers.
Juno KiwiSaver is managed by PIE Funds, which was founded by Mike Taylor, who is also the chief investment officer. Before starting PIE Funds in 2007, Taylor worked in a variety of roles in the finance industry in New Zealand and the UK including as a banking analyst for HBOS and an equities dealer for ABN Amro. Taylor has a Bachelor of Business Studies in Finance from Massey University and an NZX Diploma.
Summer KiwiSaver scheme is managed by Octagon Asset Management, which is wholly owned by Forsyth Barr. Paul Robertshaw is chief investment officer at Octagon, chairing its investment committee and managing the New Zealand equity portfolios.
Robertshaw joined the funds management industry 25 years ago after qualifying as a chartered accountant with Coopers and Lybrand, one of the forerunners of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). He spent 12 years at Tower Asset Management from 1998, first as an equity analyst and then portfolio manager of the New Zealand equity portfolios.
Before joining Octagon (and its predecessor Forsyth Barr Investment Management) in 2021, Paul was at ACC for 10 years, running a large New Zealand equity portfolio. He holds a Bachelor of Business Studies degree in finance and accounting from Massey University and is a member of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CAANZ) and the Institute of Finance Professionals (INFINZ).
Paul Brownsey is the co-founder of Pathfinder Asset Management and the chief investment officer of Alvarium. He heads the investment team and its ethical investment processes. Before co-founding Pathfinder in 2009, Brownsey had extensive experience in financial markets.
His first role was studying to be an actuary but he didn’t quite get there. Subsequently, he has worked for the Reserve Bank of New Zealand before spending an extended period working for various investment banks in Singapore, London, Sydney and Auckland. His roles covered diverse asset classes including equities, foreign exchange, commodities, bonds and credit. Brownsey has a BSc (Operations Research) from Canterbury University and is a pro bono member of the Investment Committee for Arthritis NZ.
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