Media Release

ASFA Annual General Meeting: Board appointments

Published 26 November, 2015

Published 26 November, 2015

26 November 2015

ASFA Annual General Meeting: Board appointments

The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) is pleased to welcome two new members to the ASFA Board: Andrew Boal, managing director, Towers Watson has been appointed as a service provider representative and Linda Elkins, executive general manager, Colonial First State as a retail fund representative.

“Both Andrew and Linda will bring a wealth of industry experience to the Board. With more than 40 years of combined experience, they will be well placed to represent service providers and retail funds respectively, and assist ASFA in its mission to achieve the best possible retirement outcomes for members of super funds,” says Dr Michael Easson, Chair of the ASFA Board.

“On behalf of ASFA and its members, I would also like to extend our warmest thanks to outgoing members Nicolette Rubinsztein and Brian Delaney, who have made a significant contribution to the ASFA Board over a number of years.”

“Nicolette has been an instrumental member of the ASFA Board since 2007, leading multiple committees and initiatives with dedication and passion. We thank her particularly for her outstanding leadership as chair of the Super System Design Policy Council.”

“Brian has sat on the ASFA Board since 2013, and we thank him for his insightful contribution and particularly his key role as chair of the HR and Remuneration Committee,” concluded Dr Easson.

Michael Dwyer AM, chief executive officer, First State Super and Brad Holzberger, chief investment officer, QSuper have been re-elected to their positions as public sector fund representatives, as have Suzanne Holden, chief executive officer, fund administration, Link Group and Dean Thomas, director – product strategy and services, AMP to the service provider and retail fund representative positions respectively.

The ASFA Board has also confirmed Dr Michael Easson AM as its independent Chair.

Following the Annual General Meeting at the ASFA Conference, the ASFA Board is now made up of the following leaders:

Chair

Michael Easson AM, Chairman, Founding Director of EG Funds Management

Industry funds

David Elia (Fellow of ASFA), Chief Executive Officer, HOSTPLUS
Damian Hill (Fellow of ASFA), Chief Executive Officer, REST Superannuation

Public sector funds

Michael Dwyer AM (Fellow of ASFA), Chief Executive Officer, First State Super
Brad Holzberger, Chief Investment Officer, QSuper

Service providers

Suzanne Holden, CEO, Fund Administration, Link Group
Andrew Boal, Managing Director, Towers Watson

Retail funds

Dean Thomas, Director – Product Strategy and Services, AMP
Linda Elkins, Executive General Manager, Colonial First State

Corporate funds

Chris Davies, Chief Executive Officer, Telstra Super
Jane Perry, Chief Executive Officer, Qantas Superannuation

For further details, including full biographies, click here.

About ASFA
ASFA is the peak policy, research and advocacy body for Australia’s superannuation industry. It is a not-for-profit, sector-neutral, and non-party political national organisation, which aims to advance effective retirement outcomes for members of funds through research, advocacy and the development of policy and industry best practice.

Acknowledgement of Country

We want to respectfully acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians of these lands, seas, and waters throughout Australia. We pay our respects to Elders both past and present. We acknowledge the history, the resilience and the continual contributions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of their Country.

ABN 29 002 786 290

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.