The chief investment officer of Health Super has scrapped the resignation he announced in October, and has secured an additional internal investment staffer as well.
Brendon Shepherd announced in October that he was resigning to spend more time with his young family, prompting Health Super to retain recruiter Thomas Hancock and advertise nationally for a replacement.
However Shepherd said the resignation prompted a discussion with the fund’s chief executive, Chris Clausen, in which it was decided that his wish to have more family time could be accommodated within Health Super if the fund hired an additional resource.
Although Clausen said at the time that many high quality resumes were received in response to the job ads, Shepherd said the new resource would have a "quite different role", probably looking after one or more specific asset classes.
He said the new recruit would probably come in at a similar level to Health Super’s senior investment analyst, Matthew Moore.
"The fund was $3 billion when I started, it’s now over $7 billion and the asset classes have become more complex, there’s a lot more time to be spent on ESG issues and so on. [The additional resource] will help relieve some of that pressure," Shepherd said, adding that he was looking forward to implementing "new ways of thinking" about the fund’s investments in the new year.