AustralianSuper has nabbed Aware Super’s retirement strategy leader, Jacki Ellis, as big funds race to lift their game in decumulation to both meet regulatory obligations and retain members.
Investment Magazine can reveal that Ellis will join the nation’s largest super fund in mid-March as its head of retirement, reporting to general manager of retirement Shane Hancock, who in December last year replaced former chief retirement officer Shawn Blackmore.
AustralianSuper and Aware Super have two of the largest membership cohorts in decumulation. The former has 111,680 member accounts in the tax-free phase as of June 2024, while the latter has 114,208 accounts, according to APRA annual fund-level data.
Staggeringly, AustralianSuper estimates that more than 900,000, or close to one-third of its members are approaching retirement or are retired. There are about 130,000 members in its retirement income product, representing about $57 billion of assets.
Hancock said Ellis will be responsible for designing and delivering the fund’s retirement strategy and products. “We are very pleased to have someone of Jacki’s calibre join the Fund in such an important role for members,” he told Investment Magazine.
Aware Super is on the hunt for a replacement with a slightly different title and focus – head of retirement strategy and proposition. Its responsibilities include managing the retirement strategy and meeting the Retirement Income Covenant obligations, developing customer proposition and advocating for policy positioning, according to a job ad.
Aware Super group executive for member growth Steve Travis said Ellis’ replacement role will “focus more sharply on our value proposition and strategic objectives”.
“Jacki leaves us in a strong position to be able to move forward with our retirement strategy and we wish her well,” he said.
Ellis could not be reached for comment at the time of publication.
Super funds are bracing for more shifts in the retirement landscape, as Treasurer Jim Chalmers unveiled four-pronged policy reform last December to facilitate product innovations and encourage best practices in decumulation.
The reform package came with continuous supervision from ASIC and APRA, which are due to conduct another progress check on funds’ development of retirement income strategie by the end of 2025.
Ellis spent six years with Aware Super, first as portfolio manager of retirement strategy then as head of the retirement segment. Prior to that, she was an investment consulting principal at Mercer.
Speaking to Investment Magazine last year, Ellis highlighted that retirement is increasingly less of a one-off event for individuals – it could take someone several attempts to retire successfully, and funds need to recognise that with flexibility in their retirement solution.
“What we’re seeing as a bigger trend is this old-school notion of this black-and-white moment in time, when retirement happens and then you sail off into the sunset, is becoming less and less of a thing, and more and more it’s becoming this fluid transition,” she said.
