Putting retirement under the spotlight

6 min read
6 min read

While continuing to play a role in helping members accumulate super, funds must also be looking at implementing strategies to assist retiree members in managing lifestyle expectations and longevity risk. What outcomes will satisfy members, government, and regulators?

There’s a myriad of components to consider as funds (and members) try to navigate this unchartered retirement phase without a formal roadmap – as yet. So, to help super professionals gain a better understanding of what’s involved, ASFA—with partners TAL, Challenger and KWM—is excited to present a thoughtful program, hearing from experts and members themselves, in a special inaugural one-day event focusing on retirement.

How did we get here and where can we go? 

A keynote address by Jeremy Cooper, former Deputy Chair of ASIC (2004-2009) and former Chair of the Super System Review (2009-2010) will set the scene. Nearly ten years since he delivered his landmark Super System Review report, Jeremy says there are some key issues to overcome for funds to deliver meaningful retirement income solutions and meet government and regulator expectations.

He will be looking at what has led the industry to this point, the potential problems given the dispersion of product designs to date, and how to measure solutions against member goals and a host of other criteria.

Do we need to look deeper at member behaviour? Are funds progressing in collecting sufficient member data to tailor solutions to their requirements? Do we fully understand life expectancies and their impact for funds implementing lifetime income solutions?

Given the Treasurer has announced a discussion paper will be issued in coming weeks, canvassing problems with financial advice, customer service and retirement income strategies, what does that mean for funds in the short term? What are the scenarios we are likely to face this decade? Join Jeremy and chair Maree Pallisco from EY for an absorbing session.

This will be followed by TAL’s Ashton Jones, Ben Hillier from AMP and noted academic Dr Geoff Warren, will talk about retirement defaults, aiming to debunk the myths and foster understanding of the benefits, look at how other markets have thought about defaults, and discuss auto-enrolment for retirees, from both member and trustee perspectives.

Next, three fund members – Tina Vogdanos representing the 30s cohort, Nick La Galle (40s) and Tracey Matthews (50s) – will join a panel discussion chaired by Deloitte’s Andrew Boal, reviewing how the world of work has changed with implications for working age Australians today and into the future. They will share their financial journeys so far and talk candidly about the impacts on their hopes and needs for retirement – as well as how their funds could help them.

Putting member retirement outcomes front and centre

When looking at retirement income strategies, it’s imperative to understand the regulators’ expectations. Following the release of their thematic review looking at how superannuation trustees are supporting their members under the retirement income covenant and how strategies are being executed, representatives from APRA and ASIC will be taking to the stage. The panel comprising Mike Cornwell and Valya Prouzos from APRA, and Jane Eccleston from ASIC will be chaired by KWM’s Sarah Yu.

The next session, chaired by Michael Quinn of QMV, will take us to the world of algorithms to learn ways to best personalise outcomes for customers. We’ll be stepping outside the super industry to hear from Microsoft’s Susan O’Neill who will explain how data capture helps organisations like Netflix make immediate recommendations for the next bingeworthy shows and explore where there may be opportunities for superannuation to leverage members’ online interactions and offer ways members could enhance their retirement outcome. How can the super industry ‘tech up’ and switch from a product-driven approach to a member-driven, hyper-personalised approach?

In session six, AustralianSuper’s Shawn Blackmore, Anne Fuchs of ART and Jacki Ellis from Aware Super will take part in a panel discussion chaired by WTW’s Nick Callil to see how the advent of the Chief Retirement Officer can help deliver a holistic offering that all members can access, for any size account balance. Do funds need to look at their operating model to create the optimal conditions to deliver on retirement expectations and outcomes?

In session seven, Aaron Minney, and Meher Edibam from Challenger will join Equip Super’s Alexis Harrison to discuss whether retirees are reluctant to spend their super and why, despite the safety net offered by the Age Pension. The panel will look at how we help members to spend their money in a way that delivers the retirement they want.

The super and aged care debate will be up for discussion in session eight, following recent suggestions that part of superannuation should be ‘ring fenced’ to provide aged care. Professor Briony Dow from the National Ageing Research Institute and Mercer’s Will Burkitt will discuss the role super can, or should, play as members and their families age. With the average fund member expecting at least 20 years in retirement, can funds innovate to deliver key services and benefits? Is innovation precluded by the sole purpose test? There’s much to consider.

The final session will be about advice. Having identified the numerous ways funds need to assist their members to navigate retirement, the need to provide advice is of vital importance. With the Government expecting funds to play a significant role in providing advice, at a time when financial adviser numbers are plummeting, how can they deliver this vital service in a holistic way and at scale? Jon Standen from HESTA, Sara Dix from Vanguard, Melinda Howes from KPMG and chair Lara Bourguignon from Entregar Partners will share their perspectives and insights.

The Spotlight on Retirement event aims to provide delegates with a unique, multi-faceted view of retirement issues through fund, member, and regulator lenses to help them prepare for the uncharted post-accumulation phase ahead. It will also be a great opportunity to connect with peers and counterparts between sessions and during other breaks and networking opportunities throughout the day.

You can find out more about the speakers the program sessions or register here

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Cath Bowtell

Chair, IFM Investors

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Cath is the Chair of IFM Investors; Industry Super Holdings (ISH); and the Federal Government’s Jobs & Skills Ministerial Advisory Board.   

She is a Director of Industry Fund Services (IFS) and of the Melbourne Arts Precinct Corporation. 

Cath has worked for many years in senior roles in both the superannuation industry and union movement. She was the Chief Executive of IFS and Chief Executive of the Australian Government Employees Superannuation Trust (AGEST) from 2010 until its merger with AustralianSuper in 2013.

Prior to this, Cath was a Senior Industrial Officer at the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU). She has held a number of directorships and committee positions throughout her career, including Director of AustralianSuper, Director of AGEST Super and Director of Ausgrid.

Natalie Previtera

Chief Executive Officer, NGS Super

Sessions

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

Natalie is the Chief Executive Officer of NGS Super.  

With a career grounded in governance, legal, and strategic leadership, Natalie brings a forward-thinking and purpose driven approach to superannuation. She is responsible for steering the fund through a dynamic regulatory landscape, ensuring operational excellence, and delivering long-term value to members.

Natalie also served as Chief Risk and Governance officer having deep institutional knowledge and a strong track record in executive oversight and regulatory engagement.

She is known for her collaborative leadership style and her ability to drive transformation while maintaining a strong member-first ethos.

Prior to joining NGS in 2019 Natalie held senior governance roles at AMP, Suncorp and Perpetual.  

Laura Catterick

Director, Resilience & Cyber, UK Finance

Sessions

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

Laura Catterick is the Director of Resilience & Cyber at UK Finance, which is the collective voice for the UK banking and finance industry, representing over 300 firms and supporting members in their efforts to build more resilient firms and a more resilient financial sector.

Within UK Finance, Laura works closely with industry leaders, government, and regulators, influencing policy on operational resilience and cybersecurity at a national level. UK Finance also co-chairs CMORG (Cross Market Operational Resilience Group) to deliver collaborative resilience initiatives that address systemic risks.

Laura is a Chartered Professional Accountant from Canada with extensive experience in risk, regulatory compliance, cyber security, operational resilience, and large-scale transformation. She has held senior executive roles within highly regulated sectors, including roles across all three lines of defence within Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Lloyds Banking Group, and Mastercard.

Josh Cross

Chief Operating Officer, SS&C Technologies

Sessions

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

Josh Cross brings over 30 years of experience in Technology, Operations, Delivery and Transformation within the Australian Financial Services industry. His expertise spans Trade Finance, Institutional and Corporate Lending, Consumer Lending, Share Trading, Insurance and Superannuation.

Josh joined SS&C in July 2025 through a lift-out from Insignia Financial – one of Australia’s largest Superannuation and Investment providers, known for its growth through large-scale acquisitions and technology separations from major Australian banks.

In his current role, Josh leads the SS&C  Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) function, which delivers technology, operations, and service delivery for more than one million Australian across multiple technology eco-systems, supported by a team of approximately 1300 staff. Over the next three years, Josh will also lead the major transformation of the underlying superannuation platforms and processes, migrating to SS&C’s Bluedoor ecosystem.

Lt Gen Michelle McGuinness, CSC

National Cyber Security Coordinator, National Office of Cyber Security

Sessions

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

Lieutenant General Michelle McGuinness, CSC was appointed as Australia’s National Cyber Security Coordinator (the Coordinator) on 26 February 2024.

As the Coordinator, LTGEN McGuinness leads national cyber security policy, the coordination of responses to major cyber incidents, whole of government cyber incident preparedness efforts, and the strengthening of Commonwealth cyber security capability. 

LTGEN McGuinness has served in the Australian Defence Force for 30 years in a range of tactical, operational, and strategic roles in Australia and internationally.

Prior to this appointment, LTGEN McGuinness most recently served as Deputy Director Commonwealth Integration in the United States Defense Intelligence Agency. In this role, she led policy and cultural reform, and technological integration, including interoperability across information technology, systems and data.

Jamie Bonic

Global Head of FX and Commodity Sales, NAB

Sessions

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

Jamie Bonic is NAB’s Global Head of FX and Commodity Sales, responsible for several FX-related sales businesses including NAB’s Institutional, Corporate, and Government teams.  Prior to joining NAB, Jamie spent 17 years in London working for JPMorgan as a Managing Director in their Global Markets division, leading sales and trading across Interest Rate and FX products. Jamie holds a Bachelor of Economics from The University of Sydney and is currently based in Sydney.

Katie Miller

Deputy CEO, Regulation, AUSTRAC

Sessions

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

Katie Miller is the Deputy CEO, Regulation, AUSTRAC and has strategic responsibility for AUSTRAC’s regulatory, policy and legal functions. 
Katie has extensive experience exercising regulatory functions and advising regulators at state and federal levels. Katie is a published author on issues involving regulation, law and technology and supports connections between government, practitioners, communities of practice and academia. 

Derek Thompson

Via live link

Best Selling Author, Podcast Host of 'Plain English'

Sessions

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

Few speakers can match Derek Thompson‘s ability to synthesize mega-trends in society, labor, economics, technology, and politics. Put another way: Derek trawls the data sets and does the forecasting and deep reporting necessary to help us better understand how we live, how we vote, how we spend, and how we work.

In his paradigm-shifting #1 New York Times bestseller, Abundance (co-written with Ezra Klein), this award-winning journalist reveals how our policies and culture have pushed us into a world of scarcity (not enough housing, workers, or progress)—and offers a radical new path towards a world where housing is affordable, energy is plentiful, and innovation flourishes across industries.

He shares a compelling vision of a future where we have more than enough for everybody, and a practical, actionable roadmap for how to get there. It starts with taking more risks, building more expansively, and recognizing that we all have the power to create a world of abundance. “Everything’s utopian until it’s reality,” he says.

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.