Hazel McNeilage, the head of funds management at the $60.2 billion Queensland Investment Corp., will leave by year end and possibly go back to New York.

McNeilage says QIC wanted to split her responsibilities for fund management oversight and fund management distribution.

“I didn’t want to take either of those roles,” she says, adding she will leave by December 31.

McNeilage’s planned departure follows a September 5 announcement that QIC chief executive Doug McTaggart will leave on June 30, 2011. McNeilage began work at Brisbane-based QIC in January last year and reported to McTaggart.

McNeilage says she considered the top job at QIC.

“I thought a lot about that,” she says. “But I was not comfortable giving a five year commitment” as QIC’s CEO.

Korn Ferry has been hired to search for a new QIC CEO.

McNeilage says she is going to discuss with her Sydney-based husband where they will next live.

“I’m thinking about returning to New York,” she says. McNeilage, a U.K. citizen with a U.S. Green Card, owns an apartment in Manhattan on 59th Street and West End Avenue.