The $190 billion Aware Super has appointed Brenton Tickner, formerly senior manager of superannuation and retirement products at Australian Retirement Trust, as head of retirement strategy.
Tickner was involved in developing ART’s retirement income strategy, and at Aware he replaces Jacki Ellis who departed the fund for AustralianSuper in February to replace Shawn Blackmore. Tickner reports to Aware general manager of retirement Nicolas Amado.
Amado says the fund is “strengthening its expertise in retirement strategy and solutions for its 1.2 million members” and that Tickner brings “a wealth of experience in retirement income strategy, products and services”.
“Brenton will be responsible for driving Aware’s retirement strategy, defining our retirement customer value propositions and working with all teams across the fund to ensure we keep delivering the best retirement outcomes for our members,” Amado said.
Tickner says his immediate priority will be “to work with the team on opportunities to build on Aware’s retirement strategy across products, services and advice to have an impact at scale”.
“A key focus will be refining our value proposition across different member segments: those who are highly engaged; those less engaged; and those who prefer to engage through an adviser, ensuring each group receives the right solutions, services and support,” he says.
“One of the main attractions for me in joining Aware Super is the strength of its hybrid guidance and advice model, with its mix of digital tools and human advice. I think the combination is quite powerful, and I haven’t seen it deployed elsewhere in the industry at this scale with anything approaching this level of sophistication.”
Tickner says the Aware hybrid model is based on an understanding that retirement is different for everyone and making personalised advice and guidance available at key stages of a retirement journey is as important as the product side.
As super funds consider carefully how to implement effective longevity risk protection for retirees, Amado says Aware is still in the design phase of its approach and is “finalising the business case for our longevity solution”.
“Our direction has been shaped by our deep member and market research which has given us a strong understanding of members’ needs, behaviours and preferences,” he says.
“Aware Super has a lot of existing in-house expertise and experience, as well as our own digital-first platform, and we’ve strengthened our capability over the past couple of years with strategic hires like Brenton.
“However, our focus is always on providing our members with the best retirement solutions, and we’ll partner with external providers where we think this will add value, as we did with the development of our online retirement planning tool My Retirement Planner.”
Amado maintains that there is scope for genuine innovation within the construct of the Retirement Income Covenant “particularly in relation to retirement income stream products and digital assistance and guidance”.
“There is also a range of reforms that we believe could help further enhance retirement outcomes for our members,” he says.
“We are supportive of the government’s efforts to improve the retirement phase of superannuation, including getting product settings right and developing a framework for measuring success in the retirement phase.”
Amado says Aware is also supportive of the Delivering Better Financial Outcomes reforms to financial advice, which he says allows funds to “increase the amount, and quality of, advice that is available to Australians, particularly as they head into and through retirement”.
Aware has an above-average proportion of its members aged over 45, Amado says, which allows it to tap into what those members believe they need as they approach and then move into retirement.
“Given our member base, and the number of people approaching retirement more broadly across the population, we do expect to see strong growth in the retirement phase in the coming years,” he says.
