Future Fund chief executive Raphael Arndt said the time has come for “a fresh leader” to steer the $356 billion sovereign investor as he prepares to close out an almost two-decade tenure at the fund and make a pivot to the private sector.  

Arndt, who joined the Future Fund in 2008 and has been its CEO in the last six years, will leave at the end of this year. Chair Greg Combet said the fund is “well-advanced” in organising the replacement search.  

“There’s no burning platform and I feel like I’ve got a lot of energy,” said Arndt in a media briefing, attended by Investment Magazine, about the timing of his departure. “I came from the private sector. I’ve been very proud to be a public servant, but I’ve never considered myself a career public servant.” 

“There’s a really good opportunity to take the learnings, the thinking, and the experience [from the Future Fund] and apply that more broadly to the Australian financial services and investment management system.” 

Arndt joined the Future Fund in 2008 as head of infrastructure and timberland before taking over the top investment job in 2014. Before that, he was investment director at the Mike Fitzpatrick-founded Hastings Funds Management.  

Arndt has been with the Future Fund for almost as long as the organisation existed, with the government investor celebrating its 20^th anniversary this year. During his time as the CEO the fund’s assets under management grew by $151 billion.  

Arndt’s new investment order 

Arndt was appointed CIO of the Future Fund in 2014 and oversaw a number of significant shifts in its approach to investing. In 2017, he steered the fund away from active management in many parts of the listed equity universe due to concerns that macro factors, rather than idiosyncratic stock picking skills, were becoming the primary drivers of returns.  

While the Future Fund maintained some of its active equity exposures, including in emerging markets, it largely shifted to a passive approach until 2023 when Arndt, by then chief executive, announced the fund would return to active equity management in parts of the market where “skill, not luck” was driving returns, including Australian small caps, Japanese equities and emerging markets.  
 
That move was part of a larger shift in the Future Fund’s philosophy that began with the publication of a position paper titled A New Investment Order in 2021, which forecast that inflation, higher interest rates, deglobalisation and conflict would become the primary drivers of returns across asset class. A second paper, The Death of Traditional Portfolio Construction?, followed in 2023, while the Future Fund has more recently published on its approach to investing in artificial intelligence.  

During Arndt’s tenure as CEO, the government also handed down a new investment mandate requiring the Future Fund to have regard to three national priorities — the energy transition, residential housing supply and Australian infrastructure — and deferred the first drawdown until at least 2032-33. At the time, the fund said the priority areas were consistent with its published position papers, though it had warned in A New Investment Order about populism and the trend towards more overt government intervention. 
 
“Countries have reasserted national interest, controls over national laws, and domestic focus in preference to the open international system,” the paper says “National economic policies have moved towards greater state intervention and controls.” 
 
The change to the Future Fund’s mandate was followed by changes to how it can invest. While it has historically been prohibited from managing money internally, the Future Fund was given government approval to directly transact and manage assets in Australian property and infrastructure in June 2025. Those changes were expected to allow the fund more latitude to invest in the areas of national priority, as well as potential defence-related infrastructure assets where the pool of managers is tiny. 

‘A good time to leave’  

Arndt’s decision to leave comes as the fund begins “discovery work” for the next iteration of its three-year strategy, which will run through to the end of the current financial year, he said.  

“It’s the right thing for the organisation to hand that off to a fresh leader to pick up the baton and run with that, rather than me handing it over to someone halfway through their tenure,” he said. 

“It’s a good time to leave.” 

A string of Future Fund executives and senior investors have made similar pivot to the private sector in recent years, including, most recently, head of real assets David Bluff, who became managing partners at Global Alternative Funds in June. Former deputy chief investment officer Alicia Gregory made the move to Blue Owl as its local head in 2024.