Pendal COO among new senior hires at Aware Super

Aware Super has appointed former Pendal chief operating officer, Justin Howell, as its new COO for investments and appointed new heads of portfolio management and business development, effective September 2023.

Howell had been with Pendal for almost five years till the firm was acquired by Perpetual in January 2023, creating a fund manager with $200 billion in assets under management.

In the new role at Aware Super, 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.

The appointment marked Howell’s return to the super fund, having previously been head of strategy and operations for First State Super (now Aware Super) for four years.

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The fund has also appointed former AMP Capital executive, Simon Warner, to lead portfolio management. His remit will include leading the development and delivery of the funds’ portfolio management across the public market equities, private equity, property, and infrastructure portfolios. 

Warner had been the global head of public markets at AMP Capital for three and a half years and had been with the firm for 15 years.

He made the move to Aware Super from Macquarie Asset Management (MAM) post the transition of the AMP Capital equities and fixed income businesses to MAM.

Warner and Howell will report to Aware Super chief investment officer, Damian Graham, who said he is delighted to have attracted the calibre of these recent appointees to the fund. 

“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,” said Graham.

“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 has also named Natalie Jarvis as its business development lead. She is tasked with accelerating efforts to sign on more independent financial advisers to its network and acting as a vital relationship partner to its many key employers. 

Jarvis joins from Australian Unity, where she has held the role of general manager of customer & product. Her previous experience also includes leadership roles as BT’s head of corporate super and MLC’s Stronger Super program director.

The fund has announced two major digital transformation projects, with the consolidation of five legacy technology systems into a single administration and registry platform and a second initiative for the investment team. 

This will see the creation of a data platform that will integrate projected increases across private and public market allocations and help manage the fund’s goal of 50 per cent internally managed assets.

For the financial year 2022–23, the fund’s default MySuper Lifecycle option delivered 10.7 per cent and over the past decade, it has delivered 9.3 per cent per annum.