2026 Oceania Institutional Investor Roundtable

James Esland

Head of Diversified Alternatives, QIC

James Esland is the Head of Long Term Diversified Fund & Sustainability in the State Investments team at QIC. James joined QIC from abrdn in August 2022 and has over 17 years experience, having previously worked in the Multi-Asset team at Standard Life Investments.

James earned an MA(Hons) in Philosophy at University of Edinburgh and is a CFA charterholder.

Shikha Gupta

SBAI Oceania Advisory Committee; Executive Director, Alternatives, Future Fund

Shikha Gupta is the Executive Director, Alternatives, at the Future Fund, where she brings over a decade of experience in investment management. In her current role, she oversees the fund’s diverse alternative investment strategies and previously focussed on the portfolio’s Credit exposures.

Shikha serves as a member of the Investment Committee and the Manager Review Committee. Before joining the Future Fund, Shikha was a Principal at Partners Capital in London, where she led public equities research and provided strategic investment advice to institutional and high-net-worth clients. Her career began at the Boston Consulting Group, where she gained extensive experience in management consulting, delivering impactful solutions across various industries.

Shikha holds a Bachelor of Commerce with First Class Honours in Actuarial Studies (Dean’s List) from the University of Melbourne and an MBA with Distinction from INSEAD. She is also a member of SBAI’s Oceania Committee.

François Rivard

Chief Executive Officer, Innocap Investment Management Inc.

As Chief Executive Officer, François is responsible for establishing and delivering the overall vision, mission and growth strategy of Innocap. Francois drives Innocap’s vision of enhancing the way value is created for the communities represented by our clients while maintaining Innocap’s position as the industry-leading technology-enabled Dedicated Managed Account platform.

During his 25 years in the investment industry, François has held various senior functions in capital markets, wealth and asset management in Toronto, Montreal and London. Notably, in his role as Head of the Financial Products Group at National Bank of Canada, he was responsible for engineering and distribution of structured derivative-based investments globally. François is the recipient of Bishop’s University Top 10 Under 10 award, a standing YPO member (and past chapter board member), and has contributed or been featured in Bloomberg, the Globe and Mail, Derivatives Week, Structured Products Magazine as well as a featured speaker at various conferences in North America, London, Paris, Zurich, Abu Dhabi and Singapore. Since 2014 François has been a board member and active contributor to the CHU Sainte-Justine Foundation, one of the largest sick kids hospitals and research centers in North America.

François received a BBA from Bishop’s University and an MBA from HULT Business School in London.

Rishab Sethi

Director, Alternative Investments, New Zealand Superannuation Fund

Rishab is Director, Alternative Investments at the New Zealand Superannuation Fund with responsibilities for external investment manager selection, mandate design, and opportunity evaluation.

He has previously worked in asset allocation and corporate strategy roles at the Fund. Prior to joining the Guardians, he was a research economist with the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and has been a research fellow at the Bank for International Settlements.

Rishab holds Bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and economics from the University of Auckland and the Australian National University, as well as Master’s degrees in public administration and finance from the London School of Economics and Columbia University.

Daniel Stone

Co-Founder & Portfolio Manager, Ionic Capital Management

Dan Stone is one of the co-founders of Ionic Capital Management LLC, where he focuses on managing the interest rates, currencies and credit strategies. He has over 27 years of experience managing relative value arbitrage and long volatility strategies across multiple asset classes.

Mr. Stone was formerly a Managing Director and Portfolio Manager in the U.S. and European Volatility and Credit Arbitrage Group at Highbridge Capital Management LLC. He joined Highbridge in 1996 where he managed convertible bonds and equity, interest rate and credit derivatives.

Mr. Stone earned an AB in Economics Magna cum Laude from Harvard College.

Mike Cowell

Portfolio Manager, Credit Income , Aware Super

Mike Cowell is a Portfolio Manager in the Credit Income team at Aware Super, where he leads a group of eight credit professionals. The Credit Income portfolio focuses on sub-investment grade loans and bonds across domestic and global corporate, infrastructure, real estate, and securitised credit markets. Investments are executed through a combination of externally managed strategies and an internally managed direct lending program, providing tailored financing solutions to borrowers in Australia and New Zealand.

Prior to joining Aware Super in July 2018, Mike worked in impact investing in London and spent nearly a decade in corporate lending and debt capital markets roles at Westpac Institutional Bank.

He holds a Bachelor of Business from the University of Technology Sydney and a Master of Political Economy from the University of Sydney.

Myles Engelen

Partner & Deputy Head of Private Debt, PAG

Mr. Engelen is a Partner and Deputy Head of Private Debt, overseeing Asia Pacific (ex-China) private debt investments. Mr. Engelen joined PAG in 2014 and was formerly with the consumer and industrials team at Rothschild. Prior to that, he was with the industrials and sponsors team at Macquarie.

Mr. Engelen holds a Bachelor of Business (with Distinction) and a Bachelor of Law (with Honours) from the University of Technology, Sydney.

Stephan Ruoff

Co-head of Private Debt & Credit Alternatives , Schroders Capital

Stephan Ruoff is the co-head of Private Debt & Credit Alternatives (PDCA) as well as Chairman of Insurance Linked Securities (ILS) at Schroders Capital. He joined Schroders Group in 2019 and is based in Zurich.

Stephan has 27 years of management, underwriting & investment experience. Immediately prior to joining Schroders Capital, he spent 8 years with Tokio Millennium Re (TMR) where he was the Group CEO from 2015. Prior to that, he was the Group Chief Underwriting Officer and Head of Europe. For three years he was also a Non-executive Director of Tokio Marine Kiln, a sister company within the Group.

Prior to this he spent 14 years with Munich Re as Executive Client Manager in Munich, Managing Director of the Paris branch office and Chief Engineer of the liaison office in Taipei.

During his career Stephan has specialised in balance sheet and company management, reinsurance underwriting and investment strategy implementation.

His initial academic degree has been in “Chemical Engineering”: Double Diploma from TU Berlin (Technical University) and the Ecole des Mines de Saint Etienne. Additionally Stephan holds a diploma in Management of Insurance Companies from the University of St. Gallen.

Jason Tan

Head of APAC, Orchard Global

Mr. Tan is Head of Asia Pacific of Orchard Global. He also serves as Chief Executive of Orchard Global Asset Management (S) Pte Ltd, the firm’s Asia affiliate and heads the firm’s legal structuring group globally.

Prior to joining Orchard Global, Mr. Tan held various origination, structuring, and distribution leadership roles. He established and led the fund solutions group in the securities division at Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong as well as the structured funds business at HSBC Global Markets in London, before co-heading the same group in Asia. Mr. Tan began his career at Allen & Overy LLP in London, specializing in structured finance and derivatives law.

Mr. Tan has an MA in Jurisprudence from Trinity College, University of Oxford, and is an alumnus of Harvard Business School. He is a qualified Solicitor in England and Wales and an Advocate and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore.

Lincoln Smith

SBAI Oceania Advisory Committee; Partner, Albourne Partners

Lincoln Smith is a Partner at Albourne having joined in 2007 and works as a Consultant at the firm. He helps clients construct customized hedge fund and private market portfolios that meet their Investment Guidelines and also works on the firm’s simulation and analytical tools. Mr. Smith’s clients spanned public and private pension plans, endowments and foundations, and family offices. More recently his client focus has shifted from the US to Australasia.

Prior to Albourne, Mr. Smith started his career at a New Zealand fund manager.

Mr. Smith has a Post Graduate Diploma in Finance from Otago University (NZ) and a Degree in Economics also from Otago University. He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.

Damian Graham

CIO, Aware Super

As Chief Investment Officer, Damian is responsible for the investment strategy at Aware Super.

Damian brings over 30 years’ experience in investment management, managing diversified portfolios and investment teams. Between 2012-16 Damian was Chief Investment Officer at StatePlus. He previously headed up Private Portfolio Management for the Macquarie Group, where he was promoted to run that business following a successful tenure as Head of Investment within the same division.

Damian has also held senior positions within Norwich Investment Management and JP Morgan Investment Management.

Allison Hill

State CIO, QIC

Allison Hill joined QIC’s State Investments (SI) team in January 2018. The SI team is responsible for managing approximately $58B in assets on behalf of the State of Queensland.

Allison is the State Chief Investment Officer within the SI Team and she has direct responsibility for all the portfolios managed on behalf of the State of Queensland.

Allison has over 28 years’ experience in investment management and financial markets. Prior to joining QIC, Allison was the Chief Executive Officer at DMP Asset Management, where she oversaw the investment process and asset consulting practice. Prior to this, Allison spent 11 years at Frontier Advisors as a Senior Consultant. Allison was the lead consultant for several of Australia’s largest superannuation funds, was the Head of Debt and Alternatives Research and a member of Frontier’s investment and leadership committees.

Allison has a Bachelor of Commerce from Melbourne University and holds several post graduate qualifications including a Graduate Diploma in Management from the AGSM and is a GAICD. Allison is also a member of Chief Executive Women (CEW).

Hugh Murray

Interim Chief Investment Officer , Future Fund

Hugh Murray was appointed as interim Chief Investment Officer for the Future Fund from September 2025. He joined the organisation in 2011 as Director, Strategic Risk Management before being promoted to Head of Overlays in 2015 then Deputy Chief Investment Officer in 2023.

Hugh was previously employed as the Head of Asia-Pacific Equity Derivative Trading at Nomura and prior to that, worked with both Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs.

Hugh holds a Bachelor of Engineering and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Melbourne.

Thomas Deinet

Executive Director, SBAI

Thomas Deinet was appointed Executive Director of the SBAI (previously known as the HFSB) in 2008. In 2007, Thomas joined the working group to project manage the development of practice standards proposed by 14 leading international alternative investment managers that led to the establishment of the SBAI.

Prior to joining the SBAI, he was a senior manager at Oliver Wyman, where he extensively worked with major financial institutions in Europe covering asset management as well as corporate and investment banking. Thomas also worked as an analyst in energy trading for a major commodities trading firm.

Thomas is a graduate of the University of Karlsruhe, Germany, with a major in industrial engineering and holds an MSc from Purdue University, USA. Thomas is a CFA charterholder.

Stewart Brentnall

CIO, NSW Treasury Corporation (TCorp)

Joining TCorp in 2017 as the Chief Investment Officer, Stewart leads our investment management business, responsible for advice and management of $105bn of funds across the NSW Government, including pension assets, insurance reserves and state infrastructure and Debt Retirement funds.

To strengthen TCorp’s investment management framework for delivering superior risk-adjusted returns to clients, Stewart led a transformation program evolving our investment model to a risk-based Total Portfolio Approach.

With over 30 years’ investment management industry experience in Australia and the UK, Stewart has held senior roles at ANZ’s Australasian Wealth business, BT Financial Group, Queensland Investment Corporation, Goldman Sachs, and Schroders.

Stewart holds a BEc (Hons) from Bristol University, UK. He is a Chartered Accountant, a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and Fellow of FINSIA.

Kate Misic

Head of Alternative Investments and Real Assets, Telstra Super

Kate Misic, Head of Alternative Investments and Real Assets, joined Telstra Super in May 2010. Telstra Super is an Australian corporate superannuation fund with around 85,000 members and over A$25b under management. The fund has defined benefit, accumulation and allocated pension divisions within the fund. Kate is responsible for the Property, Infrastructure, Opportunities, Hedge Fund and Private Markets programs. Kate has had more than 20 years of experience in investment manager research and performance analysis. Prior to joining Telstra Super, Kate was Senior Portfolio Analyst for the Australian Equities funds at Warakirri. Kate also spent time at Frontier Investment Consulting, a leading asset consultant and Wilshire Associates, a Private Equity specialist.

Kate is a CFA Charterholder. Kate co-authored Portfolio Management for Institutional Investors in CFA Level III Curriculum 2020 (2019). Kate is Past President, CFA Society Melbourne and Past Chair of the Global Investment Performance Standards Asset Owner Subcommittee. Kate also completed the Company Directors Course Diploma provided by the Australian Institute of Company Directors, a Graduate Diploma of Applied Finance and Investment provided by FINSIA and a Bachelor of Science (Mathematics) at the Australian National University.

Will Goodwin

Co-Chief Investment Officer, New Zealand Superannuation Fund

Will joined the Guardians in 2016 and was appointed Co-Chief Investment Officer in 2024. He was previously Head of Direct Investments with responsibility for leading the Fund’s global direct investments, internally managed listed equities and machine learning strategies.

Prior to joining the Guardians, Will held executive roles in finance and private equity. He is currently Co-Chair of the NZ Super Fund Investment Committee, Director of Kaingaroa Timberlands, Chair of The Institute of Financial Professionals NZ (INFINZ) and has previously served on listed and unlisted boards in New Zealand, Australia, and the UK.

He holds a Bachelor of Commerce majoring in Economics and a Master of Applied Finance from Victoria University of Wellington and has completed INSEAD's Advanced Management Programme.

Alistair Boyd

CEO & CRO, Astignes Capital

Mr. Boyd is Chief Executive Officer and Chief Risk Officer of Astignes Capital. In his role as CEO, Mr. Boyd sets the strategic direction of the Firm and oversees the day today running of the business. In his role as CRO, he is responsible for the Firm’s risk management framework and its implementation. Mr. Boyd worked at Alphadyne Asia for six years, most recently as CRO Asia and before that as a Portfolio Manager.

Prior to joining Alphadyne Asia, Mr. Boyd co-managed all fixed income and commodity risk at Artradis Capital in Singapore. Before returning to Asia to join Atradis Capital in 2009, Mr. Boyd was Head of Local Markets Trading, Structuring and Risk Management for the Americas at RBS and ABN AMRO based in New York. In that capacity, he also served as Chairman on trading, management and ALM committees for the Americas. Prior to that, Mr. Boyd was a Partner at Teleos Capital as the Head of Emerging Markets. Mr. Boyd entered banking in 1995 when he joined Bankers Trust Proprietary Trading based in Singapore for 5 years. Prior to that, he was an Economist at the World Bank in Washington DC and the Treasury Department in Australia.

He holds a Bachelor of Business in Economics from Charles Darwin University and a Masters in Economics from Columbia University. Mr. Boyd serves on Boards related to Astignes Funds and the Advisory Board of StashAway – a Singapore-based fintech company.

Mr. Boyd serves on Boards related to Astignes Funds and the Advisory Board of StashAway – a Singapore-based fintech company.

Razvan Remsing

Director of Investment Solutions, Aspect Capital Limited

Razvan joined Aspect Capital, the $10bn systematic investment manager, in July 2010 and is Director of Investment Solutions. Razvan is a member of Aspect’s Product Design Group and attends Investment Committee meetings. Razvan and his team are an integral part of the product development and research functions at Aspect and they provide quantitative expertise to Aspect’s clients on investment process and the development of new product ideas. Razvan’s primary responsibility is client engagement on matters relating to strategies, products, performance and research.

Prior to Aspect, Razvan worked at Skybound Capital, Clear Horizon Capital, and PeregrineQuant (now Vunani Fund Managers) in various quantitative research roles.

He graduated with distinctions in Mathematics, Applied Mathematics and Physics from Rhodes University. He holds a BSc (Hons) in Theoretical Physics from Wits University and was awarded an MSc in Financial Mathematics from the University of Cape Town and is a CFA Charter holder.

Mark Aarons

Head of Asset Classes, Victoria's Funds Management Corporation (VFMC)

Mark’s Absolute Returns role involves leading the team which covers Hedge Funds and Private Credit (circa 20% of VFMC’s AUM). His risk role encompasses total portfolio risk analysis, SAA and ALM modelling and defensive overlays. Mark is a member of the Investment Leadership Team and Investment Committee. He is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Centre for Quantitative Finance and Investment Strategies at Monash University.

Prior to working at VFMC, Mark was global Head of FICC Structuring at the National Australia Bank from 2010 to 2017, where he built a leading institutional derivatives structuring and sales business in Australia and the UK. Mark also spent four years in London with NAB working in both market risk and in front office on a rates trading desk.

Mark holds Bachelor degrees in Law and Science (both with Honours) from Monash University and a PhD in Mathematics jointly from the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics and the Free University of Berlin, Germany. Mark is also the co-author of a book on securitisation swaps which was published by Wiley Finance in 2019 and has published several finance papers.

Gareth Abley

Co-Head of Alternative Strategies, MLC Asset Management

Gareth has been a member of the MLC investment team since 2002 and since 2010 has led the MLC Alternative Strategies team with Jehan Sukhla. The team focuses on identifying strategies that are both attractive in their own right and that are uncorrelated to equities. The team currently (end August 2023) manages A$6.5bn in the MLC Opportunistic Growth Strategy and the Insurance Related Investment Strategy. The team have a history of investing successfully across esoteric private credit strategies, natural catastrophe reinsurance, hedge funds and niche alternative strategies. This includes via Funds/SMAs, as well as co-investments and direct investments.

Previously, Gareth was Head of Asset Consulting for MLC Implemented Consulting, which was responsible for providing advice and implementation to client’s responsible for $12bn. These included super funds with complex defined benefit arrangements, health insurers, University endowments, insurance firms, and not-for-profit organisations.

Before joining MLC, Gareth worked in the UK for Skandia Life as a manager research analyst where he covered a range of asset classes between 1998-2002.

Michael Bowden

Head of ALM & Income Strategies, QIC

Michael Bowden joined QIC’s State Investment team in December 2008 and focuses on the fixed interest exposures across the various multi-asset portfolios and asset and liability modelling. His responsibilities include capital market research in fixed interest markets (across inflation, nominal, credit, emerging markets, and alternative credit), ongoing valuation monitoring, and portfolio management. As part of the Public Markets team, Michael is also involved in researching liquid alternative strategies and selecting and monitoring managers to implement these strategies.

Michael has 26 years of fixed interest experience in a variety of roles including front office, market risk and quantitative analysis. Prior to joining QIC Michael spent 14 years at the Queensland Treasury Corporation (the firm responsible for debt issuance for the Queensland State Government). Michael has a Bachelor of Applied Science majoring in Mathematics from the Queensland University of Technology and a Master of Applied Finance from Macquarie University.

Dominik Hagedorn

Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer, Tangency Capital

Dominik Hagedorn has over 15 years of expertise in reinsurance and investment banking. He began his career at Munich Re, where he specialized in underwriting and alternative risk transfer. During his tenure, Dominik successfully executed a series of catastrophe bond transactions, benefiting both insurance clients and Munich Re. Thereafter, he served as Director at UBS Securities LLC, overseeing a diverse range of structured reinsurance transactions, including catastrophe bonds, sidecars, hedge fund reinsurance vehicles, and similar transactions across property, casualty, and life insurance risks.

Before founding Tangency in 2017, Dominik was with Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. in New York, where he held global coverage responsibility for alternative capital of insurance and reinsurance companies. In this role, he executed catastrophe bonds, sidecars, and other structured financing transactions.

Dominik holds a Master of Sciences degree in Financial Economics from Maastricht University, with a major in finance, economics, and econometrics. He is also a published author in the Handbook of Insurance-Linked Securities, originally published in 2009 by Wiley’s.

Pierre Wiart

Senior Business Manager APAC, Swiss Re Alternative Capital Partners

Pierre is responsible for the Development of Swiss Re ILS strategies in the APAC region with a strong focus on Australia and New Zealand investors. Pierre's career has been focused on portfolio insurance risk transfer through reinsurance and insurance linked risk transfer acquired in London, Bermuda, Paris and Sydney.

After leading the cat modelling and analytical team at AON Australia, Pierre spent five years as Portfolio Manager at White Mountains Re Bermuda. He oversaw the group Property Cat risks that encompassed the supervision of Sirius International property portfolio. Pierre spent two years at the SCOR ILS fund in Paris before heading back to Australia where he offered consultancy for Australian ILS investors. Pierre was Managing Director of Risk Management Solutions Australia New Zealand before the acquisitions by Moody's.

Pierre hold a PhD from Cambridge University, UK, and he is a Senior Associate of the ANZIIF and a Graduate from the Australian Institute of Company Director (GAICD).

Cameron Mitchell

Head of Geopolitical Risk, Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ)

Cameron Mitchell joined ANZ in 2021 to set up and manage the bank’s geopolitical risk function. In this role he coordinates the production of tailored geopolitical risk assessments and advises management and clients. He supports portfolio and exposure reviews, stress tests, and crisis and response planning, as well as developing and employing tools to enhance ANZ strategic risk management.

He is also an invited member of the National Security College Futures Council within the Australian National University and lectures on the theory and application of geoeconomics.

Previously, Cameron worked for HSBC in Hong Kong and London, where he was Global Head of Geopolitical Risk.

Cameron is a former Australian public servant and Australian Defence Force reserve officer, where he worked on defence and security issues. He also served on operational deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan providing support to operational-level commanders and national-level agencies.

Cameron was born in Surrey, UK and grew up in Nigeria and Brunei before completing secondary school in Australia. He has completed a Master of Studies in International Relations at the University of Cambridge, a Master of Arts by research in Political Science from the University of New South Wales, and a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Political Science and History from the University of Sydney.

He is the author of articles and a book about the Russian defence industry, published through the UK International Institute for Strategic Studies and the Australian Strategic and Defence Studies Centre.