Investment Summit 2025

Luke Barrett
Partner, Gilbert + Tobin

Luke Barrett is a partner in G+T’s Corporate Advisory practice and the head of the firm’s superannuation practice.

He has over 25 years’ experience in financial services, advising fund managers and superannuation funds across all aspects of their businesses and investments, especially their most sensitive, complex and strategically significant legal issues.

Luke’s experience as a superannuation industry insider means he has a deep understanding of the operational issues and business imperatives within superannuation funds, which he leverages to bolster his clients’ legal positions and commercial outcomes.

Luke has deep, lived-experience across all aspects of the investment activities of superannuation funds. For over 25 years, Luke has:
· Designed investment governance frameworks and policies to comply with all APRA prudential standards;
· Established internal portfolio management capabilities;
· Negotiated hundreds of investment management agreements, custody agreements and investment-related vendor agreements;
· Advised on many private equity investments and significant private market transactions across every asset class;
· Led the legal due diligence on appointments of investment managers, custodians and major investments;
· Defended superannuation funds from greenwashing and other climate-related allegations; and
· Provided highly-strategic and technical advice in relation to issues such as RG 97, product-pricing and the best financial interest duty implications of carbon neutrality.

Luke was previously the general counsel of one of Australia’s largest superannuation funds. He established and led the superannuation industry’s first dedicated investments-legal team, which is a structure which has since been emulated by all the major superannuation funds. This background means Luke has extensive boardroom experience guiding boards and investment committees through their most significant legal issues.

Michael Blayney
General Manager - Dynamic Asset Allocation, HESTA

Michael has 28 years of experience across investment management, investment consulting and superannuation.

Most recently he was Head of Multi-Asset at Pendal for seven years, where he led a team managing traditional and sustainable balanced funds, as well as a range of liquid alternatives strategies.

His other roles have included leading the investment strategy team at Aware Super, and managing a range of diversified funds and smart beta strategies at Perpetual. He started out his career in consulting, working as a consulting actuary at NSP Buck and then as an investment consultant at Willis Towers Watson, where he specialised in investment strategy.

Michael is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries of Australia and has a Bachelor of Science and a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Queensland.

Kim Bowater
Director of Consulting, Frontier Advisors

Kim Bowater is Director of Consulting at Frontier Advisors, having joined the firm in 2002. She has over 28 years industry experience. Kim is responsible for overseeing Frontier's delivery of advice and consulting team. She is a member of Frontier's Investment Committee and Chair of Frontier's Client Portfolio Review Committee. She is also the lead consultant for several large superannuation funds.

Over time, Kim has held a number of roles at Frontier including managing Frontier's research program, leading research teams including alternatives, currency and infrastructure, providing investment advice to clients, and founding Frontier's retirement solutions group. Kim was previously employed at Deloitte and Towers Perrin.

Kim is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and holds a Bachelor of Science degree with First Class Honours in Mathematical Statistics from Monash University. Kim is a member of the CFA Institute.

Kate Bromley
Senior Manager, Responsible Investment, Aware Super

Kate joined Aware Super as Senior Manager ESG Integration, Research & Reporting in January 2024 and has over 18 years’ experience holding ESG roles in the investment management industry. In her current role, Kate leads the development and implementation of the Fund’s ESG integration and climate transition strategies.

Kate is a purposeful and active contributor to the investor ESG conversation in Australia and previously held the role of chair of the Investor Group on Climate Change’s (IGCC) Physical Risk & Resilience Working Group. Kate brings a practitioner’s perspective to the complex climate and ESG challenges facing investors today.

Previously Kate spent six years at QIC as Head of Responsible Investment and held ESG-related roles at QSuper.

Jeff Chee
Global Head of Portfolio Strategy, Willis Towers Watson

Jeff Chee is Global Head of Portfolio Strategy at WTW, with responsibility for the continued evolution of WTW’s top-down portfolio construction process, the integration of the key dimensions of portfolio quality into the portfolios that we develop for our clients. He also ensures that a consistent process is applied across our global client base. Jeff has 24 years of industry experience and has previously led the Australia and Asia Pacific investment strategy team, and has extensive experience in developing and providing strategic and dynamic asset allocation advice to the full spectrum of WTW’s asset owner clients including pension schemes, insurance funds, endowments/foundations and sovereign/government entities.

Jeff is a member of WTW’s Investment Assumptions Committee, which has oversight of the capital market assumption setting process and has also been heavily involved in the development and maintenance of WTW Australia’s quantitative modelling tools including stochastic asset modelling software and portfolio construction tools. Jeff has also been particularly instrumental in developing a number of climate scenarios and associated asset return impacts, as well as WTW’s framework for integrating climate and other sustainability-related issues into portfolio construction.

Jeff is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries of Australia, winner of the Prescott Prize for the best overall performance in completing the Institute of Actuaries of Australia Education program. He is also a winner of the William Noall and Son Prize for the top honours graduate in the Faculty of Economics and Commerce at the University of Melbourne where he completed a Bachelor of Commerce.

Damian Graham
Chief Investment Officer, Aware Super

Damian joined the fund as Chief Investment Officer in 2016. In this role, Damian is responsible for Aware Super's investment portfolio and team.

Damian has a long history of investment management in Australia. During his 30-year career, Damian has led Private Portfolio Management for the Macquarie Group. He was Chief Investment Officer at StatePlus and First State Super and held leadership positions at JP Morgan and Norwich Investment Management.

Damian is passionate about building people's retirement savings. His purpose at Aware Super is to deliver great outcomes to their members, so they can enjoy peace of mind when they stop work.

Helen Hall
Head of Investment Governance, NGS Super

Helen Hall is a highly experienced financial services professional with over 23 years in the superannuation industry. As Senior Manager, Investment Governance at NGS Super, she leads critical functions including operational due diligence of investment managers, public investment-related disclosures, and the maintenance of the fund’s investment policy framework.

Helen is known for her strong focus on governance and regulatory compliance, and brings deep expertise in establishing quality controls and embedding process efficiencies that enhance investment operations. Since joining the NGS Super Investments team in 2021, she has contributed to strengthening the fund’s governance standards and operational resilience.

She is a Chartered Accountant and holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Queensland.

David Ho
Head of Pacific, FTSE Russell, LSEG

David Ho is a seasoned financial services executive with extensive experience in investment strategy, index solutions, and global markets. As the Head of Pacific for FTSE Russell, he leads the firm’s business expansion across the region, driving growth and innovation in index-based investing, analytics, and sustainable investment solutions.

With a career spanning over two decades in finance, David has held key leadership roles across asset management, market infrastructure, and investment research. Prior to joining FTSE Russell (part of the London Stock Exchange Group, LSEG), he held senior positions at major financial institutions including AXA, AMP, ANZ & ASX leading the growth of innovative investment products, and improving market efficiency through the evolution of capital markets trading microstructure.

At FTSE Russell, David leads the team in expanding the firm’s footprint in the Pacific region, working with institutional investors, asset managers, and regulators to enhance market accessibility and benchmarking solutions.

David is also passionate about giving back and dedicates a large proportion of his spare time on philanthropic activities and is also a guest lecturer and program sponsor at UNSW and University of Melbourne looking to improve financial literacy particularly in the future female leaders and promoting sustainable finance throughout the education system.

Pippa Lane
Senior Executive Leader, Superannuation and Life Insurance, ASIC

Pippa leads ASIC’s Superannuation and Life Insurance team within ASIC’s Regulation and Supervision group. She oversees ASIC’s regulatory work associated with the life insurance and superannuation industries.

Prior to joining ASIC, Pippa held senior roles in policy and supervision at the UK Financial Conduct Authority across life insurance, pensions and mortgages. Pippa led financial services policy at Citizens Advice, the UK’s national debt advice charity after starting her career in government research. She holds a PhD in politics and history.

Jo Leaper
Principal Consultant and Head of Operational Consulting, JANA Investment Advisers

Jo Leaper is the Head of Operational Consulting. In this role, she focuses on supporting clients with their operational needs, including custody and operational research (such as operational due diligence and securities lending), governance reviews and broader operational consulting.

With 20 years of industry experience, Jo brings a strong background in asset servicing and relationship management, which has shaped her core strengths in operations management and client strategy. As Head of Operational Consulting, Jo delivers strategic operational support to clients while leading the development of more effective and scalable solutions.

Jo holds a Bachelor of Commerce in Human Resource Management and a Master of Business Administration from Deakin University.

Carmen Leung
Senior Manager, Sustainable Product, APAC, FTSE Russell

Carmen Leung is the Senior Manager for Sustainable Product in the Asia-Pacific region. She oversees the development and management of sustainable products and solutions tailored to clients' needs.

Carmen joined FTSE Russell in December 2024 from Perpetual Group, where she was their Head of Product Strategy & Development, leading the firm's product strategy and development initiatives for Pendal. She brings over 20 years of experience in investment management, specialising in sustainable and impact products.

Carmen is a CFA Charterholder and holds a Master of Commerce (Finance) from the University of New South Wales. She is an independent member of the Responsible Investment Association Australasia (RIAA) Certification Assessment Panel.

Andrew Lill
Chief Investment Officer, legalsuper

Over the course of a 30 year+ professional career Andrew has fulfilled senior executive roles located in both the UK, Australia and the United States managing large and mid-size teams of investment professionals, delivering competitive outcomes and demonstrating success at commercialising investment and advice solutions. He has been a CIO for the last 13 years and has a real passion for multi-asset investing.

Andrew has a strong academic background with a masters qualifications in Economics, is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries and a recent graduate of the AICD. He is driven by a passion for understanding superannuation members' specific investment objectives and designing bespoke long-term investment strategies to suit these unique objectives. More recently the introduction of sustainable investing into the core investment process has been an extra area of learning and value-add.

Andrew joined legalsuper in March 2025 and is working collaboratively with the CEO, Board and executive team to upgrade the functions including investment strategy, risk management and investment process.

As the first in-house CIO at Rest joining in mid-2020 Andrew successfully transformed Rest investments from a mostly outsourced model to one where it became a competitive, confidently mature internalised investment management model with technology and data enablers to be a competitive advantage. In this role Andrew led a multi-location investment team of over 120 investment professionals, investment risk and technology transformation teams.

Marigold Look
Executive Director, Infrastructure, IFM Investors

Marigold is responsible for managing IFM Investors’ low carbon infrastructure assets. At IFM, Marigold has been involved with various investments across our global infrastructure portfolios, including Colonial Pipeline (US), Pacific Hydro, Port of Brisbane, NSW Ports, NT Airports, Brisbane Airport and Adelaide Airport. 

Marigold has extensive experience in investment evaluation, asset management, corporate finance and valuations. Marigold has been a board member of NT Airports, Axiom Education and Eastern Distributor (M1 toll road). Prior to joining IFM Investors, Marigold held roles with WilsonHTM as an equities research analyst, and with PwC specializing in corporate valuations and strategy consulting.

Zoe McHugh
Senior Portfolio Manager - Head of Portfolio Strategy and Resilience, Australian Retirement Trust

Zoe joined Australian Retirement Trust (formerly Sunsuper in 2021), and is Head of Portfolio Strategy. Her responsibilities include investment fees and costs strategy, public markets integration into the long term investment strategy and coordinating research that informs long term investment strategy and the identification of emerging opportunities.

Prior to joining Australian Retirement Trust, Zoe was an Investment Director in the State Investments team at QIC, and a Portfolio Manager, Strategy & Liquid Alternatives, at Aware Super. Zoe’s professional experience encompasses asset ownership and superannuation, corporate bank global markets, fund of funds, hedge funds and academia.

Zoe has a PhD in Economics from the Queensland University of Technology.

Nehal Mehra
Head of Securities Finance and Global Collateral, Asia Pacific BNY

Nehal Mehra is Asia Pacific Head of Securities Finance and Global Collateral at BNY.

Prior to joining BNY in 2025, Nehal spent 15 years at Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong and London across their Corporate Treasury and Global Markets and Banking divisions, most recently globally heading Execution Structuring and prior to that, globally heading Cross Asset Financing. In these roles, he worked with the Fixed Income and Equities trading and sales business to originate and distribute financing and resource optimization solutions for the firm and its clients.

Nehal graduated with a Masters in Finance and Economics from the London School of Economics and a Bachelors (Hons.) in Economics from the University of Bath.

Stephen Michael
Executive Director, Head of Buyside Trading Services Sales, Asia Pacific, JP Morgan

Stephen Michael manages APAC buyside sales for the Trading Services business, which includes the Agency Securities Finance, Margin Services and Tri-Party products. He is based in Sydney.

Stephen joined J.P. Morgan in 2013 to manage collateral management sales for Australia & New Zealand and Tri-Party sales for Asia Pacific. He spent the last 5 years in Hong Kong in his current role. He has over 20 years of industry experience.

Prior to joining J.P. Morgan, Stephen held client facing roles at Omgeo in Australia, FTSE International and Thomson Reuters in London.

Stephen holds a Bachelor of Science (Business Administration) degree.

Madeleine Morris
Chief Strategy, Corporate Affairs & Experience Officer, ASFA

Madeleine Morris is an award-winning international journalist and communications consultant, best known to Australian audiences as the finance presenter and newsreader on ABC’s flagship breakfast show, News Breakfast.  

Madeleine enjoyed a long career in Australian and international media including as presenter of ABC/RMIT FackCheck, senior reporter for 7.30, AM and host on ABC radio, and 11 years in London at the BBC as a reporter and presenter.  There she reported from more than 20 countries, including the US where she was Washington Reporter, and was a specialist in developing world issues including economics and health. 

While at the BBC she was awarded a bursary for a project to study HIV messaging in Uganda and Zambia and won a prestigious One World Media Award for a documentary on India’s beleaguered micro-finance industry.  She is the author of parental guide, Guilt-free bottle-feeding: why your formula-fed baby can be happy, healthy and smart. Her journalism has been published in The Times, Guardian, Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

Madeleine left ABC News Breakfast last year to pursue a career in the private sector and has been consulting with ASFA and other organisations since.  

She holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Queensland, and post-graduate qualification from the London School of Economics and UTS. 

Katie Petering
Managing Director, Head of Investment Strategy, BlackRock Australasia

Katie Petering, Managing Director, is the Australasia Head of Investment Strategy for BlackRock's Multi-Asset Strategies & Solutions (MASS) Group based in Sydney. In this role, Katie leads strategy for BlackRock's range of multi-asset portfolios, including hedge funds, models and diversified asset allocation strategies.

MASS is the investment group at the heart of BlackRock's portfolio construction, asset allocation, and active management ecosystem. MASS draws on the full toolkit of BlackRock's index, factor, and alpha-seeking investment capabilities to deliver precise investment outcomes and cutting-edge alpha insights. MASS constructs active asset allocation strategies and whole portfolio solutions across a wide spectrum of commingled funds, separate accounts, model portfolios, and outsourcing solutions in the wealth and institutional channels.

Katie joined BlackRock in 2017 as Australasia Head of iShares Institutional business. Prior to BlackRock, Katie was Head of Structured Products at Goldman Sachs and held previous roles in cross asset derivative structuring, sales and capital markets. Katie began her career at Merrill Lynch in 1996.

Adrian Rees
General Manager, Life & Private Health Insurance and Superannuation, APRA

Adrian Rees is General Manager, Life & Private Health Insurance and Superannuation at the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA). Since joining APRA in 2004, Adrian has supervised entities in the banking and life insurance industries and, in his current role, supervises superannuation trustees and funds. Adrian is a member of APRA’s Superannuation Industry Group which monitors developments in the superannuation industry and helps develop APRA’s supervisory and policy responses to these issues. He works closely with APRA’s life insurance team on insurance in superannuation matters.

Adrian has worked in the private sector in funds management, retirement products and life and general insurance. In total he has over 40 years of industry experience.

Kirsten Temple
General Manager, Investment Strategy, JANA Investment Advisers

Kirsten is General Manager, Investment Strategy, responsible for the development of JANA’s client advice on investment strategy, including portfolio design, capital markets analysis and portfolio risk management. Kirsten is also responsible for leading JANA’s asset allocation advice and decision making for advisory and implemented consulting clients, as well as ensuring the appropriate management of investment risk across portfolios.

In her time at JANA, Kirsten has consulted with a range of clients, providing asset allocation and investment strategy advice. She has also contributed to JANA’s research efforts, most recently as Manager of Research, with responsibility for JANA’s research programme. Kirsten led JANA’s Responsible Investment team until 2017 and has a research background in equities and alternatives. Prior to joining JANA in 2009, Kirsten was based in London, where she advised UK institutional clients.

Kirsten holds a Master of Applied Finance from Macquarie University, a Bachelor of Commerce (Economics) and a Bachelor of Arts (Asian Studies) from the University of New England.