ESSSuper CEO Robbie Campo is set to take on the top job at the $100 billion HESTA following the departure of Debby Blakey after 10 years in the role. In a statement, HESTA chair Nicola Roxon said that Campo’s “wide-ranging” leadership experience would “position her well to lead HESTA through its next, significant strategic era”.

That next strategic era is indeed significant – and not just for HESTA.

While there’s no question that Campo is qualified to run the fund, the appointment of a new CEO whose professional background is largely in brand and advocacy (Campo was responsible for that area at Cbus, was deputy CEO of Industry Super Australia and is the chair of Women in Super) is illustrative of where HESTA thinks its priorities lie – smoothing over and maintaining relations with disgruntled members, and getting the regulator off its back.

There are good reasons for this; the admin transfer-induced service outage that has (rightly or wrongly) dogged it in the press was obviously communicated unevenly to members. At a time when funds will have to ask more of their members – more fees, and more patience as those fees are used for sometimes protracted systems uplift – being able to keep them onboard with change is vital.

Then there’s the regulator, which has taken an approach to HESTA’s administration uplift that is thought of, in some parts of the fund, as unhelpful – to say the least (and this publication agreed). Urging funds to do the hard work to improve their systems, then slapping them with licence conditions when that process isn’t perfect, is a good way to frustrate a lot of people whose co-operation you need while also disincentivising other funds from embarking upon similar uplift. Campo will be doing a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to repairing the relationship.

Appointing the wrong CEO for the cycle can be a harrowing experience. Kristian Fok had a baptism of fire going from the mostly apolitical investment function to a job that required him to apologise for Cbus’ member service failings in a live-streamed session of the Senate Economics Reference Committee.

But Campo’s appointment also comes during a wider debate about the direction of profit-to-member super, and a re-intensification of the super wars. The collapse of Shield and First Guardian means profit-to-member super funds have more weapons lying around than usual, and they’re perfectly happy to use them against the retail platforms to which they’re losing members (Fok has found his footing here). 

Still, those outflows won’t be stemmed through words alone. Profit-to-member funds need to invest in member services as well as their relationships with advisers and their accessibility to them; if an adviser doesn’t have a good user experience with a fund, they will take their clients elsewhere.

Facing down jilted members, a mercurial regulator and the retail platforms, Campo will need to marshal the fund’s executive team and all the resources available to them to meet every new challenge. HESTA’s next era might not just be “significant” – it may also be decisive.