February super news

3 min read
3 min read

State Street to provide investment operations transformation and data analytics support tor ART

State Street Corporation has announced it has been chosen to provide custodial, investment administration and data management services to Australian Retirement Trust (ART).

ART was formed by the merger of Sunsuper and QSuper and manages more than AU$230 billion in retirement savings for its more than two million members.

“This significant mandate demonstrates our dedication and commitment to the Australian superannuation industry,” said Mostapha Tahiri, CEO, Asia Pacific at State Street. “We are honoured to partner with ART as it enters the next phase of integration, transformation and growth following last year’s successful completion of the merger.”

“State Street’s capabilities will allow ART’s in-house team to focus on core portfolio management and operational responsibilities, as well as enhancing products and services for their members.”

Novigi and Grow Inc partner at a unique time

Australian advisory and data services firm Novigi has been appointed by financial technology company Grow Inc (Grow) as one of its transition partners as it continues to bring new superannuation clients onto its platform.

“It is a unique time in the sector. I can’t think of a fund that I engage with that is not involved in a merger, considering one, doing a technical replatforming project or again, considering one. There is a massive amount of data migration happening across the sector,” said Novigi CEO Ash Priest.

“Even if the fund elects to avoid a merger with a competitor, the option to ‘re-platform’ administration and data systems remains as a viable choice to help drive cost efficiencies and improved member outcomes,” he said.

HESTA says addressing super inequities could boost members’ balances at retirement

New HESTA modelling shows paying super on the Commonwealth Parental Leave Pay scheme and better targeting tax concessions could significantly improve the retirement balances of critical health and community services professionals.

HESTA CEO Debby Blakey said the Federal Budget was a chance to address the “motherhood penalty”, where women faced a more insecure financial future because they took time out of the workforce to care for children.

“Every dollar our members can add to their super counts. That’s why the Federal Budget is a key opportunity to make real progress on boosting women’s financial security in retirement,” Blakey said.

“Our super system is one of the world’s best, but gaps remain that overwhelmingly disadvantage women and those earning lower wages.”

Aviva Investors launches its ‘Real Assets Study’

Aviva Investors has launched the fifth edition of their annual ‘Real Assets Study’ and have taken a deep dive into investor attitudes towards sustainable real assets.

The Study canvassed the views of 500 institutional investors drawn from the UK, Europe, North America and Asia Pacific region, with US$3.5 trillion of assets under management collectively with 125 APAC (including 25 Australian) institutions included.

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Carmen Beverley-Smith

Executive Director - Superannuation, Life & Private Health Insurance, APRA

Sessions

Keynote 8 – Navigating the energy transition: opportunities, investor strategies and policy needs

Carmen joined APRA in March 2023 and holds the role of Executive Director, Life and Private Health Insurance and Superannuation.  

She has had an esteemed career in financial services, spanning over 25 years. She has held diverse leadership roles at Westpac and Commonwealth Bank of Australia, including across risk, transformation and change, product and portfolio development, and sales and service. 

Prior to joining APRA, she held the role of General Manager, Risk Transformation Delivery Integration at Westpac. This involved leading the group-wide implementation of a suite of solutions to uplift risk management capability and develop data, analytics and reporting. 

Carmen leads with a values-driven approach and a particular interest in developing and mentoring talent. 

She holds a Bachelor of Commerce and Accounting, is a certified Chartered Accountant and a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. 

Amy C. Edmondson

Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management, Harvard Business School

Sessions

Keynote 8 – Navigating the energy transition: opportunities, investor strategies and policy needs

Amy C. Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School, a chair established to support the study of human interactions that lead to the creation of successful enterprises that contribute to the betterment of society.

Edmondson has been recognized by the biannual Thinkers50 global ranking of management thinkers since 2011, and most recently was ranked #1 in 2021 and 2023; she also received that organization’s Breakthrough Idea Award in 2019, and Talent Award in 2017.  She studies teaming, psychological safety, and organisational learning, and her articles have been published in numerous academic and management outlets, including Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Harvard Business Review and California Management Review. Her 2019 book, The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation and Growth (Wiley), has been translated into 15 languages. Her prior books – Teaming: How organizations learn, innovate and compete in the knowledge economy (Jossey-Bass, 2012), Teaming to Innovate (Jossey-Bass, 2013) and Extreme Teaming (Emerald, 2017) – explore teamwork in dynamic organisational environments. In Building the future: Big teaming for audacious innovation (Berrett-Koehler, 2016), she examines the challenges and opportunities of teaming across industries to build smart cities. 

Edmondson’s latest book, Right Kind of Wrong (Atria), builds on her prior work on psychological safety and teaming to provide a framework for thinking about, discussing, and practicing the science of failing well. First published in the US and the UK in September, 2023, the book is due to be translated into 24 additional languages, and was selected for the Financial Times and Schroders Best Business Book of the Year award.

Before her academic career, she was Director of Research at Pecos River Learning Centers, where she worked on transformational change in large companies. In the early 1980s, she worked as Chief Engineer for architect/inventor Buckminster Fuller, and her book A Fuller Explanation: The Synergetic Geometry of R. Buckminster Fuller (Birkauser Boston, 1987) clarifies Fuller’s mathematical contributions for a non-technical audience. Edmondson received her PhD in organisational behavior, AM in psychology, and AB in engineering and design from Harvard University.

 

Daniel Mulino MP

Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services

Sessions

Keynote 8 – Navigating the energy transition: opportunities, investor strategies and policy needs

Born in Brindisi, Italy, Daniel was a young child when he moved with his family to Australia. He grew up in Canberra and completed his first degrees – arts and law – at the ANU. He then completed a Master of Economics (University of Sydney) and a PhD in economics from Yale.

He lectured at Monash University, was an economic adviser in the Gillard government and was a Victorian MP from 2014 to 2018. As Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer of Victoria, Daniel helped deliver major infrastructure projects and developed innovative financing structures for community projects.

In 2018 he was preselected for the new federal seat of Fraser and became its first MP at the 2019 election, re-elected in 2022 and 2025. From 2022 to 2025, Daniel was chair of the House of Representatives’ Standing Economics Committee in which he chaired inquiries; economic dynamism, competition and business formation and insurers’ responses to 2022 major floods claims.

In 2025, he became the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services.

In August 2022, Daniel published ‘Safety Net: The Future of Welfare in Australia’, which aims to explore the ways in which an insurance approach can improve the effectiveness of government service delivery.