Media Release

ASFA announces policy restructure

8 February 2013

ASFA announces policy restructure

The Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) is pleased to announce a restructure of its industry-leading policy team.

With the departure of ASFA’s general manager policy and industry practice, Margaret Stewart, earlier this year due to illness, ASFA has taken the opportunity to revisit its policy structure.

“Policy is now a very complex business,” said ASFA CEO Pauline Vamos.

“ASFA in particular is charged with developing policy which is first and foremost in the best interest of fund members and ensuring the system is sustainable and delivers on its role as the provider of long-term capital.

“We must leverage into our broad sector policy committees and working groups to ensure that positioning is robust and sector neutral.”

To achieve the most effective outcomes during this complex time of increased policy issues and information coordination, ASFA has restructured its policy work and accountabilities into three areas.

“Under the new structure we have appointed a director, policy and it is with great pleasure that I announce Fiona Galbraith has taken up this role,” said Ms Vamos.

“Fiona has been with ASFA for 18 months as a senior policy advisor and has a proven record in relation to policy development both strategically and technically.

“Fiona will be focused on external issues including the development of strategic policy positions and approaches, management of relationships with all regulators and Treasury, and also advocacy strategy and delivery.”

In order to ensure ASFA policy processes and communication continue to be timely and of best practice, Tony Keir has been promoted to the role of general manager, policy operations.

“Tony will provide oversight of the policy team and focus specifically on internal operations, including coordination of all policy work such as submissions and member communications, as well as management of best practice papers and support for all policy councils, working groups and advisory panels.”

Finally, Gordon Noble’s title has been changed to director investments and the economy to reflect his primary focus on delivering ASFA strategy to ensure the super pool can invest long term, drive productivity and fulfil its role in supporting the economy.

“These three professionals, together with ASFA director of research Ross Clare, are the engine room that drives ASFA’s policy and research agenda,” said Ms Vamos.

“I am thrilled that we have the leadership team in place.”

For further information, please contact:

Pauline Vamos, CEO, 0433 169 342

Megan McDougall, Media and Communications Co-ordinator, (02) 8079 0849

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 whose aim is to advance effective retirement outcomes for members of funds through research, advocacy and the development of policy and industry best practice.

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.