Stewart Group's new employee

The Hawke's Bay governance pool is getting deeper with economist Aaron Drew moving to the region. Photo / Supplied

Former New Zealand Institute of Economic Research principal economist Aaron Drew is moving his family to Hawke's Bay so he can take up the role of Chief Investment Officer with Hastings-based wealth management company Stewart Financial Group.

Mr Drew already held the role of chairman of Stewart Group's investment committee.

He has previously worked with the Reserve Bank of New Zealand as manager of the modelling and research teams, was a consultant for the IMF and spent four years in France as an economist for the OECD. He had seven years with the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, where he developed a number of asset and investment strategies and was a member of its investment committee.

In his new role he will oversee $265 million across Stewart's Boutique Advisers Alliance business, taking Stewart's fulltime staff to 15.

Stewart director Nick Stewart said Mr Drew's expertise would benefit the region.

"Because Aaron brings an asset consultancy background we are adding to the depth of the governance pool in Hawke's Bay," he said. "Be it iwi or large charitable foundations, it's very difficult to find people with governance experience at that level. The fact he will be available to deepen the pool of knowledge in our local community is very exciting."

When he took up the investment committee role with Stewart in 2014 Mr Drew said he became interested in the company when he was with the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, because of Stewart's relationship with US fund manager Dimensional and its "smart beta strategies" - a broad market exposure employing algorithms "to adjust the exposures to try and enhance your returns over what you can get with the index".

"It is a reasonably low cost and passive way to get exposure to global markets but there is a fair amount of evidence that you can enhance longer-run returns over strictly taking the market cap weights," he said.

Hawke's Bay offered "a fabulous lifestyle" for his young family.

"It's less hectic and busy than Auckland and it's exciting to be working for a small family-based firm where it's not a typical corporate environment," he said.