A 30-year funds management veteran has returned to Australia after a six-year overseas stint with Principal Global Investors, determined to work for himself.

Michael Migro was head of BT Funds Management’s business strategy before hopping over to run Principal Global Investors’ Australian business, after Principal sold BT to Westpac in October 2002.

In 2003 Migro took a promotion as Principal’s chief operating officer and served two three-year contracts with the Iowa-based firm, first in New York and then in Los Angeles. During this period he was also president and chief operating officer of Post Advisory Group, a fixed income hedge fund boutique in which Principal acquired a majority stake.

Migro was offered a third three year contract with Principal, this time in Seattle, however he baulked at this and resigned in February, returning to Sydney recently with his wife and five-year old son.

Migro said that after thirty years working for funds management firms, he wanted to try working for himself and is interested in taking on non-executive directorships, preferably of listed entities.

He said the notion that directorships were either a sideline to one’s day job or “the step just before complete retirement” was changing.

“I think someone in their mid-50s such as myself has a lot to offer as a professional director, although I will only take on two or three. I don’t think you can do justice to all of your directorships if you’ve got five or six.”

Migro is also offering his services as an executive coach, and has just taken on his first client – although they are not from the funds management industry.

“They’re actually in manufacturing – that’s ‘real’ manufacturing, not investment manufacturing,” he said.