Jo Cornwell is a Portfolio Manager for First State Super responsible for the performance outcomes of around $20bn in Australian Equities investments. She has been with First State Super for 9 years, including 7 years at StatePlus.

Jo has extensive experience in manager research and selection and portfolio construction and a keen interest in ensuring ESG risks and opportunities are integrated into the investment process. She also believes that equity portfolios should be tailored to members’ needs, recognising these change over a members lifecycle and with risk tolerance. An example has been her work at StatePlus to develop and implement a bespoke portfolio construction framework designed to meet the needs of pension members.

Jo previously worked as an Investment Consultant at Mercer both in the UK and Australia. Jo is a CFA Charterholder and holds a BSc in Economics from the University of Nottingham in the UK.

Gemma Kyle has been working in Risk and Governance for over 20 years across multiple industries including government, engineering and financial services.

She holds a Master’s degree in International Political Economics and graduated from the University of Sydney with First Class Honours in Economics and Social Science.

Gemma has worked in various organisations where she has been accountable for designing, building and running business risk, management assurance and compliance operations. In her current role, Gemma heads up the Risk and Governance function leading a diverse team incorporating Finance, Legal, Company Secretariat, Audit, Strategic sourcing and Risk Management. This is a newly formed role that focuses on driving a strong and strategic risk management across Rest.

Russell Mason is a Partner in Deloitte’s Financial Services consulting practice and leads the superannuation advisory business.

A lawyer by background, Russell’s consulting experience in superannuation has spanned decades.

He specialises in advising superannuation clients throughout Australia and the Asia-Pacific region—including corporate, government, retail and industry funds—on a range of issues including strategy, governance, compliance, administration, product design and insurance.

Prior to joining Deloitte in 2011, Russell had a range of local and regional roles with Mercer over a period of 24 years.

Russell has a Bachelor of Law from Macquarie University. He is a Fellow of the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA), a member of the ASFA NSW Executive Committee and Chair of the Superfunds Editorial Committee.

Kirby was appointed Executive Director of SuperRatings in October 2017 and is responsible for setting SuperRatings strategy and ensuring we continue to provide the best possible Ratings, Research, Consulting and insights to our clients. He has worked to build a strong relationship with funds, service providers and key industry stakeholders to ensure we have a strong understanding of the market, and communicating back to the market where opportunities for uplift in value for super fund members exist.

Kirby has been with SuperRatings since 2008. During his time at SuperRatings, Kirby has work as a Quantitative Analyst before becoming responsible for our Research team in 2011.

Kirby has a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Sydney (Finance and Accounting) and is a CFA Charterholder.