Kaizen Recruitment Fund Executive Roundtable 2023

Kaizen Recruitment recently hosted a Funds Management Executive Roundtable discussing several key issues facing funds management business leaders. Kaizen Recruitment has consistently identified a gap in the sharing of information across funds to address business pain points and had facilitated this event to support leaders in addressing some of these challenges amongst their peers.

We would like to thank executives from leading Funds Management firms including IFM Investors, L1 Capital, Cooper Investors, MaxCap Group, Generation Life, Payton Capital, Bennelong Funds Management, Vanguard, Bell Asset Management and VFMC.

The event was be moderated by Lewis Bearman, an experienced funds management industry expert and we would like to thank our hosts L1 Capital for the use of their boardroom for this interactive and informative luncheon.

A number of key themes were discussed during the roundtable including Cyber Security, the current state of work flexibility to optimise team performance and work culture, and finally the current state of the market relating to service providers was assessed.

Cyber Security

• Leaders shared their approach to planning and preparing for a cyber-attack. The consensus was its not matter of “if” an attack will happen, but “when” it will happen, and organisations need to have Business Resilience and Continuity Risk plans in place to move at speed and minimize impacts and damages.
• Best practise ideas were shared as well as an interesting discussion about Boards and Management, with many believing current Boards are not adequately experienced to advise management on the subject.
• Many shared their plans in developing a whole of company approach, which included partnering with service providers and developing a strong risk culture, as you are only as strong as your weakest point.
• Discussions went into detail around data governance protection and technology risks to whole of organisation being assessed. Topics ranged from best practice separating employee’s work and personal phones, firewall protections and systemising technology platforms across entire organisations so that IT teams can be more efficient and hyper vigilant monitoring risks.
• Establish a Cyber Security governance framework, which should include clear roles and responsibilities for the board and management, as well as policies and procedures for managing cyber security risks.

Work Flexibility

• The theme of flexible work was a discussion subject where most leaders had a different approach or opinion on what is best practise based on their own individual organisations’ experiences.
• The need to incentivise or entice staff to return to office more frequently remains a constant challenge. For some organisations this included weekly lunches, learning and development sessions and social activities aiming to entice staff in to collaborate and build stronger interpersonal relationships.
• Flexibility remains an important topic for all leaders and it’s a challenge to get the balance right. This was in addition to the location of hybrid work which all firms were providing employees where flexible working as determined to be working in conjunction with staff to accommodate employee’s life commitments and obligations, for example school holidays and pickups, while still meeting organisation deliverables.
• Many cited examples of firms losing key staff, when work flexibility was reduced, and productivity and culture was eroded when not enough time spent as a team in the office.
• All agreed of the importance to build stronger working relationships which is optimised when working together in person.

Service Providers

• All leaders spoke of the uniqueness of their business models and the importance of service providers to offer a fairly priced, bespoke solution, particularly to those medium sized funds. Many participants acknowledged challenges with their current providers adding to the complex business environment.
• It appeared that many smaller to mid-sized funds have limited options in the market with larger global custodians who may not have interest in smaller organisations.
• Offshore providers really struggle to offer a solution due to the unique Australian tax environment and the uniqueness of some Australian fund asset classes which limits the ability to find external overseas solutions to outsource this function.
• NAB Asset Services leaving the market was also likely to exacerbate the current challenge.

We again wanted to thank all that attended, and we look forward to our next roundtable.

Kaizen Recruitment specialises in financial services recruitment across funds management, wealth management, superannuation, investment consulting, and insurance. For assistance or further information please call our office at (03) 9095 7157.