Suzanne Pence, director of business development at Hastings Funds Management, will leave in August as the company’s investment staff is tasked with more client contact.

Pence joined the Sydney office of Hastings, which manages $7.7 billion in infrastructure assets from its Melbourne headquarters, in July 2010. Her exit comes as the company hires Graham Durant as an investment analyst from KPMG’s corporate finance unit.

Chief executive Andrew Day said Hastings investment staff were carrying out more client-facing work. “We’re changing the way we interact with clients in Australia by putting more emphasis on the investment team’s interaction,” Day said in a telephone interview on July 16.

This coincides with Hastings’ aims to gain more clients in North America, the UK, Europe and Asia. This month it secured $1.14-billion mandate from the RBS Group Pension Fund through its London office. The $26-billion London-based fund seeks infrastructure assets providing stable returns to help it pay pension benefits.