Suzanne Branton has been appointed as the new general manager, investments at CareSuper, after eight years at Equip Super as a senior portfolio manager with responsibility for asset allocation.
She moves to the $10 billion fund after Greg Nolan’s decision to step down as general manager, investments.
An additional two people will also be recruited to the investment team following Branton’s appointment, in part to fill the loss of investment manager Tom Stewart to VFMC just before Christmas. Stewart was named Investment Rising Star of the Year by the AIST in 2013.
Nolan in his new part-time role as senior manager, investments, will continue to contribute to investment projects and advance the ESG agenda.
Branton spent eight years at Equip Super where she was also responsible for asset class design and construction, manager research and selection. Prior to this she spent eight years at Goldman Sachs JBWere. She has experience of direct investment, an approach which CareSuper currently avoids.
Julie Lander, chief executive of CareSuper, explained that despite the growing size of the fund, the title of general manager, investments was still appropriate given that the management of money was all outsourced to fund managers.
With the growing team size, Lander said CareSuper would now be able to carry out greater research and where necessary challenge the views of its investment consultant Jana.
In other new appointments, Rachel Reynolds has been appointed to the newly created role of general manager, operations. Reynolds was previously head of operations with Guild Super, where she was responsible for the relationship with the outsourced administrator and ensuring that operations supported the fund’s strategic objectives.
Outside of investments, Beverley Dawson has been promoted to the position of manager of insurance and claims, she was previously responsible for insurance and administration. Simon Sutherland has been appointed to the newly created role as head of business intelligence where he will focus on data analytics, propensity modelling and business reporting.
